Qualities of a great short story

[novella]

Ahem. Good morning everyone. I should like, today, to have an open chat about stories.

Would everyone please take your seats? bobby, please remove the pencils from your nostrils. Thank you.

A question: What are the qualities of a truly wonderful short story?

It seems that the best examples have some common features.

Discuss, please??

 

[Freya]

Oh, I was going to ask a similar question - is there some sort of formula you all go by to produce the perfect story?

 

[Ashlea]

Since it's short, you have to get a feel for the main character immediately. And you'd better cap off the number of characters at 6. 3 or less is better.

Other than that, I can't think of any features that are universal to the short stories I especially like. Except there's generally there's a profound moment of realization at the end. I'm thinking Hemingway, Cheever, Carver, Ann Beattie. I like Dorothy Parker as well, but she plays by her own rules.

 

[novella]

Leaving aside ALL short stories, and focusing just on the best (your favorite), the kind of superbly contructed stories that make you put the book down for a while to think:

I think they have a bittersweet quality that's neither comic nor tragic. In fact, I think comedy doesn't do the job at all, but wryness fits sometimes.

I also think the protagonist undergoes some kind of change, an inner transformation or revelation or an outer transition.

Just two ideas. I'm still thinking.

 

[Cathy C]

A short story, to me, is a slice of time that is a crisis or event within a person's life. Whether it's as simple as having the encountering the "perfect" meal, or solving an ages-old mystery, a good story makes you aware that there IS a life to be interrupted. Surprising character depth can be had with a few words, and you have to get a sense of past, present and future. There's a terrific story in this month's Realm of Fantasy magazine, called "The Cardinal's Cats" that accomplishes all of these things. Best short I've read in a long time. Many of Isaac Asimov's short mysteries also do this. Parker is also good for shorts.

Don't know if I agree on Hemingway. He did good sense of "place" in his short stories, but his characters felt flat to me. He seemed to need more pages to pick up steam on character depth.

Cathy

 

[Ashlea]

Hemingway is hit or miss, I agree. But the Nick Adams stories pack a big wallop of a punch. If you haven't read Ann Beattie's Park City, her short story collection, you should go out and buy it immediately. Her stories are all the "slice of life" variety, encapsulating maybe just an hour or an evening, but leaving you with incredible empathy for the character.

I'll make it easy, here's an amazon link.

 

[Ell]

A short story, to me, is a slice of time that is a crisis or event within a person's life. Whether it's as simple as having the encountering the "perfect" meal, or solving an ages-old mystery, a good story makes you aware that there IS a life to be interrupted. Surprising character depth can be had with a few words, and you have to get a sense of past, present and future.

Well said, cajunmama!

My favourite short stories also have characters or scenes that seem eerily familiar. There's the feeling you already know the person or that it might even be you. It's the "Wow, I know this" realization. It's probably why I love Alice Munro. She also sets many of her stories in Canadian locales, so it helps with the familiarity.

 

[Maya]

I like short stories, which need to be read more than once, to be understood.They must require a little thinking, and be kind of like a puzzle, that needs to be "solved" by the reader, and be dwelled on for quite a time.

This reminds me of a short story that we were given on an exam to analyse a time back, and I still find myself thinking what it really was about at times. I think that's one important quality a short story needs: the ability to stay on the readers mind long time after having been read.

 

[novella]

I like short stories, which need to be read more than once, to be understood.They must require a little thinking, and be kind of like a puzzle, that needs to be "solved" by the reader, and be dwelled on for quite a time.
. . .
I think that's one important quality a short story needs: the ability to stay on the readers mind long time after having been read.

That's a good point. A well-structured short story is much more than a vignette or scene interrupted. It has an arc and a transformative aspect, which leads the reader to something.

I think what Cathy describes is really just a scene, without the necessary denouement.

I find this arc of transformation, which to me is the real art, in Cheever's short stories, Robert Graves' (brilliant!), Jean Stafford. Sometimes T. Coraghessan Boyle pulls it off, as does Ethan Canin, but in a sort of graduate school formulaic way that seems like you've read it before. They don't hold enough of one thing back or put enough of the other thing in to make you see the revelation.

Raymond Carver and JD Salinger drop you off a cliff, which is a different kind of accomplishment. I feel shattered after reading Salinger's stories (not CITR, though).

 

[Stewart]

• Immediate hook;
• Natural storytelling;
• One plot; no subplots;
• Few characters
• Whole plot is resolved
• Good sense of conflict
• Unforeseen twist in tale

 

[novella]

• Immediate hook;
• Natural storytelling;
• One plot; no subplots;
• Few characters
• Whole plot is resolved
• Good sense of conflict
• Unforeseen twist in tale

This is a great list, but I would say that sometime the "plot" is unresolved, which is better than having every question sewn up tight. And, in the best stories, the "unforeseen twist" is there from the beginning, but you don't know it.

What do you mean by "natural storytelling"?

 

[Ou Be Low hoo]

I think the main things needed in a short story are immediacy and involvement. It's gotta grab you by the balls and get you interested from the first few paragraphs.

Here are a couple of collections I have recently read:

'Ghostwritten' could be labelled as a collection of short stories and each story is engrossing and immediate. There is hardly any wasted text in each story...

I also recently read 'Gates of Eden' by Ethan Coen of 'The Big Lebowski', 'Fargo', etc. fame. It's a collection of excellent short stories dealing with many of the bizzare, quirky and funny aspects that can be found in his movies. As you can expect from one of the Coen brothers, many of the occurances in the stories are left open-ended...so I don't think plot resolution is a necessary aspect of short stories.

 

[Maya]

I don't get Hemingway. After reading one of his short stories, I had no clue whatsoever, what it was about.
I read "Hills Like White Elephants", and all it did, was make me feel stupid. I thought the two main characters were having an everyday-conversation, while they actually were talking about abortion.
After this short story, I read a novel by him, but I don't think I understood it either. I am not sure, I just feel unsure reading his novels, after the experience with "Hills Like White Elephants".
It's not his fault (Hemingway's), that he's a genius, and I don't seem to understand stuff.
But he seriously does make me feel stupid, (with all due respect).

Maybe it's a good thing... for all I know.

 

[Ashlea]

But he seriously does make me feel stupid, (with all due respect).

Not getting Hemingway doesn't make you stupid by any means, don't let him get to you that way. I suspect that proving how much smarter he is than everyone else is sometimes his goal.

 

[Maya]

I never thought of it that way...

 

[Sapper41]

They have characters?