A good short story

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A good short story

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1shelagh
Nov. 25, 2008, 4:13 pm

What makes a good short story?

2WholeHouseLibrary
Nov. 25, 2008, 4:34 pm

Quality of content and brevity.

3shelagh
Nov. 25, 2008, 5:56 pm

... how does that differ from flash fiction?

4Cecilturtle
Nov. 25, 2008, 8:49 pm

The subject came up in the Short Stories group too. It seems to mostly be a question of length - flash fiction is under 2000 words and the short story is from 3000 to 10,000 words although it can go up (and then you get into the novella).
As a translator who counts texts in words all day, I like to think that there's more to it than just number count.
For me a short story has only one plot, very few characters and - usually (hopefully!) - a twist: either an unexpected ending, a moral or a climax.
I'm fussy about my short stories and if they don't have those elements I tend to dismiss them...

5twain
Mrz. 23, 2009, 1:40 am

A good short story should provide the same hit to the imagination as a good novel - only shorter. I recognize that may not be a very full answer but it works for me.

All I ask of a work of fiction is that it place me in an imaginative world that I can accept as believable on some emotional and/or intellectual level. I try not to get too hung up on narrative strategies or other technical things; however, I do derive pleasure from them during the course of a read.

Alice Munro gives about as good an answer to the question as anyone in her introduction to "Selected Stories" where she discusses why she came to write short stories rather than novels.

I love short fiction of all shapes and sizes. One of this group's members listed a Katherine Mansfield story that haven't read yet as one their favorites; I think I'll go read it tonite.