A short story is a piece of

prose Prose is language that follows the natural flow or rhythm of speech, ordinary grammatical structures, or, in writing, typical conventions and formatting. Thus, prose ranges from informal speaking to formal academic writing. Prose differs most n ...

fiction Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying character (arts), individuals, events, or setting (narrative), places that are imagination, imaginary or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent ...

. It can typically be read in a single sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a single effect or mood. The short story is one of the oldest types of literature and has existed in the form of

legend A legend is a genre of folklore that consists of a narrative featuring human actions, believed or perceived to have taken place in human history. Narratives in this genre may demonstrate human values, and possess certain qualities that give the ...

s, mythic tales, folk tales,

fairy tale A fairy tale (alternative names include fairytale, fairy story, household tale, magic tale, or wonder tale) is a short story that belongs to the folklore genre. Such stories typically feature magic, enchantments, and mythical or fanciful bei ...

s, tall tales,

fable Fable is a literary genre defined as a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized, and that illustrates or leads to a parti ...

s, and anecdotes in various ancient communities around the world. The modern short story developed in the early 19th century.

Definition

The short story is a crafted form in its own right. Short stories make use of plot, resonance and other dynamic components as in a

novel A novel is an extended work of narrative fiction usually written in prose and published as a book. The word derives from the for 'new', 'news', or 'short story (of something new)', itself from the , a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ...

, but typically to a lesser degree. While the short story is largely distinct from the

or novella/short novel, authors generally draw from a common pool of literary techniques. The short story is sometimes referred to as a genre. Determining what exactly defines a short story remains problematic. A classic definition of a short story is that one should be able to read it in one sitting, a point most notably made in

Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic who is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales involving mystery and the macabre. He is widely re ...

essay An essay ( ) is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a Letter (message), letter, a term paper, paper, an article (publishing), article, a pamphlet, and a s ...

" The Philosophy of Composition" (1846).

H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer, prolific in many genres. He wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, hist ...

described the purpose of the short story as "The jolly art, of making something very bright and moving; it may be horrible or pathetic or funny or profoundly illuminating, having only this essential, that it should take from fifteen to fifty minutes to read aloud." According to

William Faulkner William Cuthbert Faulkner (; September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962) was an American writer. He is best known for William Faulkner bibliography, his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, a stand-in fo ...

, a short story is character-driven and a writer's job is to "...trot along behind him with a paper and pencil trying to keep up long enough to put down what he says and does." Some authors have argued that a short story must have a strict form. Somerset Maugham thought that the short story "must have a definite design, which includes a point of departure, a climax and a point of test; in other words, it must have a plot". Hugh Walpole had a similar view: "A story should be a story; a record of things happening full of incidents, swift movements, unexpected development, leading through suspense to a climax and a satisfying denouement." This view of the short story as a finished product of art is however opposed by

Anton Chekhov Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; ; 29 January 1860 – 15 July 1904) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer, widely considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career as a playwright produced four classics, and his b ...

, who thought that a story should have neither a beginning nor an end. It should just be a "slice of life", presented suggestively. In his stories, Chekhov does not round off the end but leaves it to the readers to draw their own conclusions.Fatma, Gulnaz ''A Short History of the Short Story: Western and Asian Traditions'' Modern History Press, 2012, pp. 2–3. Sukumar Azhikode defined a short story as "a brief prose narrative with an intense episodic or anecdotal effect". Flannery O'Connor emphasized the need to consider what is exactly meant by the descriptor short. Short story writers may define their works as part of the artistic and personal expression of the form. They may also attempt to resist categorization by genre and fixed formation. William Boyd, a British author and short story writer, has said:

short storyseem to answer something very deep in our nature as if, for the duration of its telling, something special has been created, some essence of our experience extrapolated, some temporary sense has been made of our common, turbulent journey towards the grave and oblivion.

In the 1880s, the term "short story" acquired its modern meaning – having initially referred to children's tales. During the early to mid-20th century, the short story underwent expansive experimentation which further hindered attempts to comprehensively provide a definition. Longer stories that cannot be called novels are sometimes considered " novellas" or novelettes and, like short stories, may be collected into the more marketable form of "collections". Around the world, the modern short story is comparable to

lyrics Lyrics are words that make up a song, usually consisting of verses and choruses. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist. The words to an extended musical composition such as an opera are, however, usually known as a "libretto" and their writer, ...

, dramas, novels and essays – although examination of it as a major literary form remains diminished.

Length

In terms of length, word count is typically anywhere from 1,000 to 4,000 for short stories; however, some works classified as short stories have up to 15,000 words. Stories of fewer than 1,000 words are sometimes referred to as "short short stories", or " flash fiction". Short stories have no set length. What constitutes a short story may differ between genres, countries, eras, and commentators. Like the novel, the short story's predominant shape reflects the demands of the available markets for publication, and the evolution of the form seems closely tied to the evolution of the publishing industry and the submission guidelines of its constituent houses. As a point of reference for the genre writer, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America define short story length in the Nebula Awards for

science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

submission guidelines as having fewer than 7,500 words.

History

Prehistory - 1790 CE

Short stories date back to oral storytelling traditions which originally produced epics such as the

Ramayana The ''Ramayana'' (; ), also known as ''Valmiki Ramayana'', as traditionally attributed to Valmiki, is a smriti text (also described as a Sanskrit literature, Sanskrit Indian epic poetry, epic) from ancient India, one of the two important epics ...

, the Mahabharata, and

Homer Homer (; , ; possibly born ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Despite doubts about his autho ...

's ''

Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; , ; ) is one of two major Ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the ''Odyssey'', the poem is divided into 24 books and ...

'' and ''

Odyssey The ''Odyssey'' (; ) is one of two major epics of ancient Greek literature attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest surviving works of literature and remains popular with modern audiences. Like the ''Iliad'', the ''Odyssey'' is divi ...

''. Oral narratives were often told in the form of rhyming or

rhythm Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular r ...

ic verse, often including recurring sections or, in the case of Homer, '' Homeric epithets''. Such stylistic devices often acted as

mnemonic A mnemonic device ( ), memory trick or memory device is any learning technique that aids information retention or retrieval in the human memory, often by associating the information with something that is easier to remember. It makes use of e ...

s for easier recall, rendition, and adaptation of the story. While the overall arc of the tale was told over the course of several performances, short sections of verse could focus on individual narratives that were the duration of a single telling. It may be helpful to classify such sections as oral short stories. Another ancient form of short story popular during the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

was the anecdote, a brief realistic narrative that embodies a point. Many surviving Roman anecdotes were collected in the 13th or 14th century as the '' Gesta Romanorum''. Anecdotes remained popular throughout Europe well into the 18th century with the publication of the fictional anecdotal letters of Sir Roger de Coverley. In Europe, the oral story-telling tradition began to develop into written form in the early 14th century, most notably with Giovanni Boccaccio's '' Decameron'' and

Geoffrey Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer ( ; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for ''The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He w ...

's '' Canterbury Tales''. Both of these books are composed of individual short stories, which range from farce or humorous anecdotes to well-crafted literary fiction, set within a larger narrative story (a

frame story A frame story (also known as a frame tale, frame narrative, sandwich narrative, or intercalation) is a literary technique that serves as a companion piece to a story within a story, where an introductory or main narrative sets the stage either fo ...

), although the frame-tale device was not adopted by all writers. At the end of the 16th century, some of the most popular short stories in Europe were the darkly tragic "

novella A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most novelettes and short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) ...

" of Italian author Matteo Bandello, especially in their French translation. The mid 17th century in France saw the development of a refined short novel, the "nouvelle", by such authors as Madame de Lafayette. Traditional

s began to be published in the late 17th century; one of the most famous collections was by Charles Perrault. The appearance of Antoine Galland's first modern translation of the 1001 Arabian Nights, a storehouse of Middle Eastern folk and fairy tales, is the '' Thousand and One Nights'' (or ''Arabian Nights'') (from 1704; another translation appeared in 1710–12). His translation would have an enormous influence on the 18th-century European short stories of

Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778), known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' Voltaire (, ; ), was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, philosopher (''philosophe''), satirist, and historian. Famous for his wit ...

, Diderot and others. In India, there is a rich heritage of ancient folktales as well as a compiled body of short fiction which shaped the sensibility of modern Indian short story. Some of the famous

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...

collections of legends, folktales, fairy tales, and fables are

Panchatantra The ''Panchatantra'' ( IAST: Pañcatantra, ISO: Pañcatantra, , "Five Treatises") is an ancient Indian collection of interrelated animal fables in Sanskrit verse and prose, arranged within a frame story.

, Hitopadesha and Kathasaritsagara. Jataka tales, originally written in

Pali Pāli (, IAST: pāl̤i) is a Classical languages of India, classical Middle Indo-Aryan languages, Middle Indo-Aryan language of the Indian subcontinent. It is widely studied because it is the language of the Buddhist ''Pali Canon, Pāli Can ...

, is a compilation of tales concerning the previous births of Lord

Gautama Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha (),* * * was a śramaṇa, wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist lege ...

. The

Frame story A frame story (also known as a frame tale, frame narrative, sandwich narrative, or intercalation) is a literary technique that serves as a companion piece to a story within a story, where an introductory or main narrative sets the stage either fo ...

, also known as the frame narrative or

story within a story A story within a story, also referred to as an embedded narrative, is a literary device in which a character within a story becomes the narrator of a second story (within the first one). Multiple layers of stories within stories are sometime ...

, is a narrative technique that probably originated in ancient Indian works such as

. The evolution of printing technologies and periodical editions were among the factors contributing to the increasing importance of short story publications. Pioneering the rules of the genre in the

Western canon The Western canon is the embodiment of High culture, high-culture literature, music, philosophy, and works of art that are highly cherished across the Western culture, Western world, such works having achieved the status of classics. Recent ...

were, among others,

Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English journalist, novelist, poet, and short-story writer. He was born in British Raj, British India, which inspired much ...

(United Kingdom),

(Russia), Guy de Maupassant (France),

Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Thakur (; anglicised as Rabindranath Tagore ; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengalis, Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer, and painter of the Bengal Renai ...

(India and Bangladesh), Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera (Mexico) and Rubén Darío (Nicaragua).

1790–1850

Early examples of short stories were published separately between 1790 and 1810, but the first true collections of short stories appeared between 1810 and 1830 in several countries. The first short stories in the United Kingdom were gothic tales like Richard Cumberland's "remarkable narrative", "The Poisoner of Montremos" (1791). Novelists such as Sir

Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European literature, European and Scottish literature, notably the novels ''Ivanhoe'' (18 ...

and

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English novelist, journalist, short story writer and Social criticism, social critic. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by ...

also wrote influential short stories during this time. Germany soon followed the United Kingdom's example by producing short stories; the first collection of short stories was by Heinrich von Kleist in 1810 and 1811. In the United States, Washington Irving was responsible for creating some of the first short stories of American origin, " The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and " Rip Van Winkle".

became another early American short story writer. His concise technique, deemed the "single effect", has had tremendous influence on the formation of the modern short story. Examples include: *

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

** Prosper Mérimée *** Mateo Falcone (1829) *

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

** E. T. A. Hoffmann *** " The Nutcracker and the Mouse King" (1816), *** " The Sandman", **

Brothers Grimm The Brothers Grimm ( or ), Jacob Grimm, Jacob (1785–1863) and Wilhelm Grimm, Wilhelm (1786–1859), were Germans, German academics who together collected and published folklore. The brothers are among the best-known storytellers of Oral tradit ...

*** first volume of collected fairy tales (1812) *

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

*** " The Fall of the House of Usher", *** " The Tell-Tale Heart", *** " The Cask of Amontillado", *** " The Pit and the Pendulum", *** " The Gold Bug", *** " The Murders in the Rue Morgue" – one of the first detective stories *** " The Purloined Letter" – one of the first detective stories ** Nathaniel Hawthorne *** '' Twice-Told Tales'' (1837) ** John Neal ***"Otter-Bag, the Oneida Chief" (1829) ***"David Whicher" (1832)

1850–1900

In the latter half of the 19th century, the growth of print magazines and journals created a strong demand for short fiction of between 3,000 and 15,000 words. In 1890s Britain, literary periodicals such as '' The Yellow Book'', '' Black & White,'' and '' The Strand Magazine'' popularized the short story. Britain was not alone in the endeavor to strengthen the short story movement. French author Guy de Maupassant composed the short stories "'' Boule de Suif''" ("Ball of Fat", 1880) and "''L'Inutile Beauté''" ("The Useless Beauty", 1890), which are important examples of French realism. Russian author

was also influential in the movement. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in India, many writers created short stories centered on daily life and the social scene of the different socioeconomic groups.

published more than 150 short stories on the lives of the poor and oppressed such as peasants, women, and villagers under colonial misrule and exploitation. Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Tagore's contemporary, was another pioneer in Bengali short stories. Chattopadhyay's stories focused on the social scenario of rural Bengal and the lives of common people, especially the oppressed classes. The prolific Indian author of short stories Munshi Premchand, pioneered the genre in the

Hindustani language Hindustani is an Indo-Aryan language spoken in North India and Pakistan as the lingua franca of the region. It is also spoken by the Deccani people, Deccani-speaking community in the Deccan plateau. Hindustani is a pluricentric language w ...

, writing over 200 short stories and many novels in a style characterized by realism and an unsentimental and authentic introspection into the complexities of Indian society. In 1884, Brander Matthews, the first American professor of dramatic literature, published ''The Philosophy of the Short-Story''. During that same year, Matthews was the first one to name the emerging genre "short story". Another theorist of

narrative A narrative, story, or tale is any account of a series of related events or experiences, whether non-fictional (memoir, biography, news report, documentary, travel literature, travelogue, etc.) or fictional (fairy tale, fable, legend, thriller ...

was Henry James, who produced some of the most influential short narratives of the time. The spread of the short story movement continued into South America, specifically Brazil. The novelist

Machado de Assis Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (), often known by his surnames as Machado de Assis, ''Machado,'' or ''Bruxo do Cosme Velho''Vainfas, p. 505. (21 June 1839 – 29 September 1908), was a pioneer Brazilian people, Brazilian novelist, poet, playwr ...

was an important short story writer from Brazil at the time, under the influences of Xavier de Maistre, Laurence Sterne, Guy de Maupassant, among others. At the end of the 19th century, the writer João do Rio became popular by short stories about the bohemianism. Lima Barreto wrote about the former slaves and

nationalism Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation, Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: Theory, I ...

in Brazil, with his most recognized work being '' Triste Fim de Policarpo Quaresma''. Examples include: *

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

***"The Kabuliwala" ***"The Hungry Stone" ***"The Wife's Letter" ***"The Parrot's Training" ***"Punishment" ** Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay ***"Bindu's Son" ***"Abhagi's Heaven" ***"Mahesh" ***"Ram's Good Lesson" ***"Lalu" (3 parts) ***"The Husband" ** Premchand ***"The Shroud" ***"The Cost of Milk" ***"Lottery" *

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

** Bolesław Prus *** " A Legend of Old Egypt" (1888) ** Eliza Orzeszkowa ***"Panna Antonina" (1888) ***"W zimowy wieczór" (1888) ** Henryk Sienkiewicz ***"The Lighthouse keeper" (1881) ***"Charcoal Sketches" (1877) *

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

** Almeida Garrett ** Alexandre Herculano ** Eça de Queiroz *

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

** Ivan Turgenev *** '' A Sportsman's Sketches'' ** Fyodor Dostoyevski *** " The Meek One" (1876) *** " The Dream of a Ridiculous Man" (1877) **

Leo Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; ,Throughout Tolstoy's whole life, his name was written as using Reforms of Russian orthography#The post-revolution re ...

*** " Ivan the Fool" (1885) *** " How Much Land Does a Man Need?" (1886) *** " Alyosha the Pot" (1905) **

*** " The Bet" (1889) *** "Ward No. 6" (1892) *** " The Lady with the Dog" (1899) **

Maxim Gorky Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (; – 18 June 1936), popularly known as Maxim Gorky (; ), was a Russian and Soviet writer and proponent of socialism. He was nominated five times for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Before his success as an aut ...

*** " Twenty-six Men and a Girl" (1899) *

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

** Thomas Hardy *** " The Three Strangers" (1883), *** " A Mere Interlude" (1885), *** " Barbara of the House of Grebe" (1890) **

*** '' Plain Tales from the Hills'' (1888) *** '' The Jungle Book'' (1894) **

Arthur Conan Doyle Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle (22 May 1859 – 7 July 1930) was a British writer and physician. He created the character Sherlock Holmes in 1887 for ''A Study in Scarlet'', the first of four novels and fifty-six short stories about Hol ...

*** '' The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1892)-'' detective story ** H.G. Wells-

Science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...

*** " The Country of the Blind" (1904) *

Herman Melville Herman Melville (Name change, born Melvill; August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance (literature), American Renaissance period. Among his best-known works ar ...

*** '' The Piazza Tales'' (1856) **

Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Fau ...

*** " The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" ** Henry James *** " The Real Thing" (1892) *** "Maud-Evelyn" *** '' The Beast in the Jungle'' (1903) ** Kate Chopin ** Stephen Crane

1900–1945

In the United Kingdom, periodicals like '' The Strand Magazine'' and '' Story-Teller'' contributed to the popularity of the short story. Several authors during this time wrote short stories centered on the devices of satire and humor. One such author, Hector Hugh Munro (1870–1916), also known by his pen name of Saki, wrote

satirical Satire is a genre of the visual arts, visual, literature, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently Nonfiction, non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ...

short stories about Edwardian era, Edwardian England. P.G. Wodehouse published his first collection of comical stories about the valet, Jeeves, in 1917. Other common genres of short stories during the early to mid 1900s in England were detective stories and thrillers. Many of these detective stories were written by authors such as G.K. Chesterton, Agatha Christie, and Dorothy L. Sayers. Graham Greene wrote his collection of short stories, Twenty-One Stories, between 1929 and 1954. Many of these short stories are classified in the genres of thriller, suspense, or even horror. The European short story movement during this time was not unique to England. In Ireland, James Joyce published his short story collection ''Dubliners'' in 1914. These stories, written in a more accessible style than his later novels, are based on careful observation of the inhabitants of his birth city. In the first half of the 20th century, a number of high-profile American magazines such as ''The Atlantic Monthly'', ''Harper's Magazine'', ''The New Yorker'', ''Scribner's Magazine, Scribner's'', ''The Saturday Evening Post'', ''Esquire (magazine), Esquire'', and ''The Bookman (New York), The Bookman'' published short stories in each issue. The demand for quality short stories was so great and the money paid so well that F. Scott Fitzgerald repeatedly turned to short-story writing to pay his numerous debts. His first collection, ''Flappers and Philosophers,'' appeared in book form in 1920. Ernest Hemingway's concise writing style was perfectly suited for shorter fiction. Influenced by the short stories of Stephen Crane and Jack London, Hemingway's work "marks a new phase in the history of the short story". The creation and study of the short story as a medium began to emerge as an academic discipline due to Blanche Colton Williams' "groundbreaking work on structure and analysis of the short story" and her publication of ''A Handbook on Short Story Writing'' (1917), described as "the first practical aid to growing young writers that was put on the market in this country." In Uruguay, Horacio Quiroga became one of the most influential short story writers in the Spanish language. With a clear influence from

, he had a great skill in using the supernatural and the bizarre to show the struggle of man and animal to survive. He also excelled in portraying mental illness and Hallucination, hallucinatory states. In India, Saadat Hasan Manto, the master of the short story in the Urdu language, is revered for his exceptional depth, irony, and sardonic humor. The author of some 250 short stories, radio plays, essays, reminiscences, and a novel, Manto is widely admired for his analyses of violence, bigotry, prejudice, and the relationships between reason and unreason. Combining realism with surrealism and irony, Manto's works, such as the celebrated short story Toba Tek Singh, are aesthetic masterpieces that continue to give profound insight into the nature of human loss, violence, and devastation. Another famous Urdu writer is Ismat Chughtai, whose short story, "Lihaaf" (The Quilt), on a lesbian relationship between an upper-class Muslim woman and her maidservant created great controversy following its publication in 1942. Notable examples in the period up to World War II include: * Bohemia ** Franz Kafka *** "A Hunger Artist" (1922) *Brazil **Mário de Andrade **Antônio Castilho de Alcântara Machado, António de Alcantâra Machado ***''Brás, Bexiga e Barra Funda'' (1928) **Graciliano Ramos **Carlos Drummond de Andrade * England **Virginia Woolf ***"Kew Gardens (short story), Kew Gardens" (1919) ***"Solid Objects" **W. Somerset Maugham **V.S. Pritchett **Evelyn Waugh **Muriel Spark **L.P. Hartley **Arthur C. Clarke ***"Travel by Wire!" (1937) *

**Thomas Mann *Hindi **Jaishankar Prasad *Japan **Ryūnosuke Akutagawa *New Zealand **Katherine Mansfield ***"The Doll's House (short story), The Doll's House" (1922) *

**Mário de Sá-Carneiro **Florbela Espanca **Fernando Pessoa *

** O. Henry *** "The Ransom of Red Chief", *** "The Cop and the Anthem", *** "The Skylight Room", *** "After Twenty Years", *** "The Last Leaf", *** "A Retrieved Reformation" **F. Scott Fitzgerald ***"The Ice Palace (short story), The Ice Palace" ***"The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (short story), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" ***"Absolution (short story), Absolution" ***"The Rich Boy" ** Ernest Hemingway *** "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place" (1926) *** "Hills Like White Elephants" (1927) *** "The Snows of Kilimanjaro (short story), The Snows of Kilimanjaro" (1936) **

***''Go Down, Moses (book), Go Down, Moses'' **Dorothy Parker ***"Big Blonde" (1929) **Isaac Asimov ***"Nightfall (Asimov short story and novel), Nightfall"

Since 1945

Following World War II, the artistic range and numbers of writers of short stories grew significantly. Due in part to frequent contributions from John O'Hara, ''The New Yorker'' would come to exercise substantial influence as a weekly short story publication for more than half a century. Shirley Jackson's story, "The Lottery" (1948), elicited the strongest response in the magazine's history to that time. Other frequent contributors during the 1940s included John Steinbeck, Jean Stafford, Eudora Welty, and John Cheever, who is best known for The Swimmer (short story), "The Swimmer" (1964), beautifully blending realism and surrealism. Many other American short story writers greatly influenced the evolving form of the short story. For example, J. D. Salinger's ''Nine Stories'' (1953) experimented with point of view and voice, while Flannery O'Connor, Flannery O'Connor's well-known story, "A Good Man is Hard to Find" (1955), reinvigorated the Southern Gothic style. Cultural and social identity played a considerable role in much of the short fiction of the 1960s. Philip Roth and Grace Paley cultivated distinctive Jewish-American voices. Tillie Olsen's "I Stand Here Ironing" (1961) adopted a consciously feminist perspective. James Baldwin (writer), James Baldwin's collection, ''Going to Meet the Man'' (1965), told stories of African-American life.

stories with a special poetic touch was a genre developed with great popular success by Ray Bradbury. Stephen King published many science fiction short stories in men's magazines in the 1960s and after. King's interest is in the supernatural and macabre. Donald Barthelme and John Barth produced works in the 1970s that demonstrate the rise of the postmodern short story. While traditionalism maintained a significant influence on the form of the short story, minimalism gained widespread influence in the 1980s, most notably in the work of Raymond Carver and Ann Beattie. Carver helped usher in an "extreme minimalist aesthetic" and expand the scope of the short story, as did Lydia Davis, through her idiosyncratic and laconic style. The Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges is one of the best-known writers of short stories in the Spanish language. "The Library of Babel" (1941) and "The Aleph (short story), The Aleph" (1945) handle difficult subjects like infinity. Borges won American fame with "The Garden of Forking Paths", published in the August 1948 issue of ''Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine''. Two of the most representative writers of the Magical realism genre are also widely known Argentine short story writers, Adolfo Bioy Casares and Julio Cortázar. The Nobel prize, Nobel laureate author Gabriel García Márquez and the Uruguayan writer Juan Carlos Onetti are further significant magical realist short story writers from the Hispanic world. In Brazil, João Antônio Ferreira Filho, João Antonio made a name for himself by writing about poverty and the favelas. Detective literature there was led by Rubem Fonseca. João Guimarães Rosa wrote short stories in the book ''Sagarana,'' using a complex, experimental language based on tales of oral tradition. The role of the bi-monthly magazine Desh (magazine), Desh (first published in 1933) was key in development of the Bengali short story. Two of the most popular detective story writers of Bengali literature are Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay (the creator of Byomkesh Bakshi) and Satyajit Ray (the creator of Feluda). Notable examples in the post-World War II period include: * Angola ** José Luandino Vieira ** José Eduardo Agualusa * Bengali language, Bengali ** Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay ** Manik Bandyopadhyay ** Mahasweta Devi ** Shirshendu Mukhopadhyay ** Suchitra Bhattacharya ** Ramapada Chowdhury ** Humayun Ahmed * Brazil ** Clarice Lispector ** Lygia Fagundes Telles ** Adélia Prado ** Dalton Trevisan ** Autran Dourado ** Moacyr Scliar ** Carlos Heitor Cony ** Hilda Hilst ** Caio Fernando Abreu * Chile ** José Donoso ** Augusto d'Halmar ** Manuel Rojas (author), Manuel Rojas ** Diamela Eltit ** Alberto Fuguet ** José Baroja ** Alejandro Zambra * Egypt ** Naguib Mahfouz - Nobel Prize Laureate (1988) * Hindi ** Amrita Pritam ** Dharamvir Bharati ** Bhisham Sahni ** Krishna Sobti ** Nirmal Verma ** Kamleshwar (writer) ** Mannu Bhandari ** Harishankar Parsai *Italy **Italo Calvino *** ''Marcovaldo (1963)'' *Japan ** Kenzaburō Ōe (Nobel prize winner of 1994) ** Yukio Mishima ** Haruki Murakami *Mozambique ** Suleiman Cassamo ** Paulina Chiziane ** Eduardo White ** Mia Couto *Peru **Mario Vargas Llosa - Nobel Prize Laureate (2010) *Philippines **Peter Solis Nery ***"Lirio" (1998) ***"Candido" (2007) ***"Donato Bugtot" (2011) ***"Si Padre Olan kag ang Dios" (2013) *

**Kornel Filipowicz **Katarzyna Grochola **Paweł Huelle **Sławomir Mrożek **Magdalena Tulli *

** Vergílio Ferreira ** Fernando Goncalves Namora ** Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen ** José Saramago *

**Roald Dahl **Helen Simpson (author), Helen Simpson **Daphne du Maurier ***"The Birds (story), The Birds" (1952) ***"Don't Look Now" (1971) *

**Frank O'Connor ***''The Lonely Voice'' **Wallace Stegner **John Updike **Joyce Carol Oates **Denis Johnson ***Jesus' Son (short story collection), Jesus' Son

Sales and profits

The numbers of :21st-century short story writers, 21st-century short story writers run into the thousands. Female short story writers have gained increased critical attention, with British authors, in particular, exploring modern feminist politics in their writings. Sales of short-story fiction are strong. In the UK, sales jumped 45% in 2017, driven by collections from international names such as Alice Munro, a high number of new writers to the genre, including famous names like actor Tom Hanks (plus those who publish their work using readily accessible, digital tools), and the revival of short story Salon (gathering), salons such as those held by the short fiction company Pin Drop Studio. More than 690,000 short stories and anthologies were sold in the UK in 2017, generating £5.88 million, the genre's highest sales since 2010. Throughout the 2010s, there was frequent speculation about a potential "renaissance"; Sam Baker (writer), Sam Baker called it a "perfect literary form for the 21st century". Canadian short story writers include Alice Munro, Mavis Gallant and Lynn Coady. In 2013, Alice Munro became the first writer of nothing but short stories to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Her award-winning short story collections include ''Dance of the Happy Shades, Lives of Girls and Women, Who Do You Think You Are? (book), Who Do You Think You Are?, The Progress of Love, The Love of a Good Woman'' and ''Runaway (book), Runaway''.

Awards

Prominent short story awards such as The Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award, Sunday Times Short Story Award, the BBC National Short Story Award, the Royal Society of Literature's V.S. Pritchett Short Story Prize, The London Magazine Short Story Prize, the Pin Drop Studio Short Story Award and many others attract hundreds of entries each year. Published and non-published writers take part, sending in their stories from around the world. In 2013, Alice Munro was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature—her citation read "master of the contemporary short story." She said she hopes the award will bring readership for the short story, as well as recognising the short story for its own merit, rather than "something that people do before they write their first novel." Short stories were cited in the choice of other laureates as well: Paul Heyse in 1910 and Gabriel García Márquez in 1982.

Adaptations

Short stories are sometimes adapted for radio, TV or film: * Radio dramas, as on ''NBC Presents: Short Story'' (1951–52). A popular example of this is "The Hitch-Hiker (radio play), The Hitch-Hiker", read by Orson Welles. * Short films, often rewritten by other writers, and even as feature films; such is the case of "Children of the Corn", "The Shawshank Redemption", "The Birds (story), The Birds", "Brokeback Mountain", "Who Goes There?", "Duel (1971 film), Duel", "A Sound of Thunder", "The Body (2001 film), The Body", "Total Recall (1990 film), Total Recall", "The Lawnmower Man", "Hearts in Atlantis", and "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty". * Television specials, such as "12:01 PM" (a 1993 television movie), "Nightmare at 20,000 Feet" (an October 11, 1963, episode of ''The Twilight Zone''), "The Lottery", and "Button, Button (The Twilight Zone), Button, Button" (on ''The Twilight Zone'').

Characteristics

As a concentrated, concise form of Narrative structure, narrative and descriptive prose fiction, the short story has been theorised about through the traditional elements of dramatic structure: exposition (the introduction of setting, situation, and main characters), complication (the event that introduces the conflict), Three-act structure#Structure, rising action, crisis (the decisive moment for the protagonist and his commitment to a course of action), climax (the point of highest interest in terms of the conflict and the point with the most action) and resolution (the point when the conflict is resolved). Because of their length, short stories may or may not often follow this pattern. For example, modern short stories only occasionally have an exposition, more typically beginning in the middle of the action (''in medias res''). As with longer stories, plots of short stories also have a climax, crisis or turning point. In general, short stories feature endings which might be either conclusive or open-ended. Ambiguity is a recurrent trope in short stories; whether in their ending, characterisation or length. As with any art form, the exact characteristics of a short story will vary depending on who is its creator. Characteristic of short story authors, according to professor of English, Clare Hanson, is that they are "losers and loners, exiles, women, blacks – writers who for one reason or another have not been part of the ruling "narrative" or epistemological/experiential framework of their society."

References

Bibliography

* *Dillard, Annie. (1990). ''The Writing Life.'' Harper Perennial. ISBN 0-06-016156-6 * * * * * * * * * * * *Storr, Will (2020). ''The Science of Storytelling'' William Collins Publications ISBN 978-0-00-827697-3 *''The Persephone Book of Short Stories'' (2012) Persephone Books Ltd. ISBN 978-1903-155-905 * * * Still often cited * * * * * * * * *

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Short Story Short stories, Fiction forms Literary terminology