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Short Stories

Short Stories. An introduction. “ Life is a handful of short stories, pretending to be a novel ”. A good short story is a work of art which daunts us in proportion to its brevity.... No inspiration is too noble for it; no amount of hard work is too severe for it. - Elizabeth Stuart Phelps.

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Short Stories

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  1. Short Stories An introduction

  2. “Life is a handful of short stories, pretending to be a novel”

  3. A good short story is a work of art which daunts us in proportion to its brevity.... No inspiration is too noble for it; no amount of hard work is too severe for it. - Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

  4. “Ideally, a short story is an indivisible unit – every sentence in it points to the single climax that fulfills the entire work. One moment in the story controls all the rest.” - Orson Scott Card

  5. So . . . what exactly is a short story? • A short story usually contains one major conflict and at least one main character. • A short story usually deals with a single episode and often a single character • A newer form than the novel, the short story dates from the early nineteenth century • Its elements--plot, character, setting, style, point of view, irony, symbol, and theme--work toward a single effect, unifying the story.

  6. Oh yeah, and it's short. • Short stories are usually under 10, 000 words. • Another estimate that the genre of literature is a bona fide ‘short story’ is that it can be read in one sitting. • If a piece of literature is longer than that, but not necessarily a novel, it is called a novella. (Ex: The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros)

  7. Question . . . • How short do you think a short story can be?

  8. Ready for the shortest short story? • One of the most famous, and shortest, short stories of all time was written by Ernest Hemingway, author of Old Man and the Sea, among many others. • Hemingway’s short story is six words long, and Hemingway said on many occasions that it was the best story he has ever written. • Now, people revere this story as the beginning of a new genre called “Flash Fiction”

  9. So, here it is . . . • Hemingway’s famous six word short story. “For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn.”

  10. Assignment • You have to write your own Hemingway-esque short story. • It needs to be less than ten words (yes, that’s words, not lines) • You must e-mail me your story no later than Monday • All stories will be published on a class blog where they will be commented on by your classmates. • Make it good! And short!

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