The Idea of a Short Story
A short story is a way of telling a story, in a short form. It may be compared to a full-featured set of novels, like The Chronicles of Narnia, or the novella Franny and Zoey, but it’s a little bit different.
If ou will, allow me to put the image of a tree and bush in your head. In this image, they’re side by side. They live off of the same nutrients and sunlight. A tree has a large trunk and millions of beautiful, billowing leaves that have been growing for hundreds of years. The tree is old, and it has grown its roots deep so that the wind doesn’t topple it over.
Now take a bush. Bushes are spunky little bundles of growth that anyone could plant and it’d look great in a day. They’re still beautiful, going with the minimalist look, but they’re not nearly as large and complex (although you could argue that on a base level they both exist with the same complexity that nature exists with). It’s tiny, everyone can see that, but it provides something that the tree doesn’t. To see the beauty of the tree, you have to strain your neck and look in all directions, resulting in pain and a commitment! To see the beauty of the bush, all you have to do is commit to a quick flick of the neck in the general direction of the bush!
A short story works like a bush. It’s petite and easily digestible. The main concepts of a short story for the most part are relatively easy to work out. Most of the time, the plot is the backbone of a short story. The reason I think most short stories are plot driven is because the other option is to have a character-driven story, for which you need time and lots of paper.
The plot of a short story is composed of many things, including the story’s conflict. A conflict is the hook of the short story. Once you’ve grasped it, you’re probably not going to want to let go.
One method an author can use to describe characters, events and things in a short story is with imagery. Imagery is basically like writing a thousand words to compensate for a picture. The advantage of using imagery over putting actual images in the story is that the author then leaves a greater amount of content up to your imagination to discern and gets you to think more about the story.
All of these things are told through the author’s tone. For example, the general tone of the sublime short story Hey Come on Out was mysterious, ambiguous and earthly. The tone is how an author wants to tell the story, what side he or she is on.
Bushes come in many types. There are evergreen bushes that rarely cycle through the various colours of nature, there is the honeysuckle bush that provides you with a tasty snack every time you walk by. There is also the bush that has given a content little organism the sick pleasure of food, thus forcefully giving up the bushes life for it’s own. As you see, bushes can also be compared to the genre of a short story; in the way that there are many different types of them as there are short stories. In the sense of a short story, there’s mystery, fiction, horror along many others.
If ou will, allow me to put the image of a tree and bush in your head. In this image, they’re side by side. They live off of the same nutrients and sunlight. A tree has a large trunk and millions of beautiful, billowing leaves that have been growing for hundreds of years. The tree is old, and it has grown its roots deep so that the wind doesn’t topple it over.
Now take a bush. Bushes are spunky little bundles of growth that anyone could plant and it’d look great in a day. They’re still beautiful, going with the minimalist look, but they’re not nearly as large and complex (although you could argue that on a base level they both exist with the same complexity that nature exists with). It’s tiny, everyone can see that, but it provides something that the tree doesn’t. To see the beauty of the tree, you have to strain your neck and look in all directions, resulting in pain and a commitment! To see the beauty of the bush, all you have to do is commit to a quick flick of the neck in the general direction of the bush!
A short story works like a bush. It’s petite and easily digestible. The main concepts of a short story for the most part are relatively easy to work out. Most of the time, the plot is the backbone of a short story. The reason I think most short stories are plot driven is because the other option is to have a character-driven story, for which you need time and lots of paper.
The plot of a short story is composed of many things, including the story’s conflict. A conflict is the hook of the short story. Once you’ve grasped it, you’re probably not going to want to let go.
One method an author can use to describe characters, events and things in a short story is with imagery. Imagery is basically like writing a thousand words to compensate for a picture. The advantage of using imagery over putting actual images in the story is that the author then leaves a greater amount of content up to your imagination to discern and gets you to think more about the story.
All of these things are told through the author’s tone. For example, the general tone of the sublime short story Hey Come on Out was mysterious, ambiguous and earthly. The tone is how an author wants to tell the story, what side he or she is on.
Bushes come in many types. There are evergreen bushes that rarely cycle through the various colours of nature, there is the honeysuckle bush that provides you with a tasty snack every time you walk by. There is also the bush that has given a content little organism the sick pleasure of food, thus forcefully giving up the bushes life for it’s own. As you see, bushes can also be compared to the genre of a short story; in the way that there are many different types of them as there are short stories. In the sense of a short story, there’s mystery, fiction, horror along many others.
posted by featheredtar at Saturday, February 04, 2006
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