About the Short Story

The short story was not invented. It has always been alive. Since the beginning of humans, oral narratives have also existed. As with any genre, there are sub-genres, tropes and conventions of the short story. This overview provides general information as an introduction to the genre as a whole.

Think about the myths, parables, folk tales, and fairy tales that cultures utilize for religious origins, values and mores, and to explain the unexplainable. These are the seeds for the short story in written format. However, the short story as we know it today is quite different from early forms and oral traditions.

The sub-genres in the above tabs provide additional definitions and characteristics that clarify the literary movements in the short story genre.

As Emporia State University's own Professor Amy Sage Webb declares: "Stories are one of the ways we attempt to grasp the nature of being or existence." A current definition for the short story is: "it makes a single impression on the reader; it tends to focus on a moment of crisis; and it makes that crisis pivotal in a tightly controlled plot" (Millard 105).

Edgar Allan Poe provided the first measuring stick for the theory of the short story. It must be "prose work that could be read at a single sitting, provided a 'unity of effect,' and that could reach a high level of artistic excellence" (Poe). It's easy to say that a short story is short and a long story is a novel. However, that is not necessarily true. As set forth below, there are varying degrees of both short and long short stories. One characteristic that may help define a short story is that it provides an epiphany. Many short stories end in ambiguity and the reader must make meaning of the story or interpret the ending. Kenneth Millard argues that "the short story is the perfect genre for such feelings, partly because of its economy: it can depict a free-standing moment of epiphany which is the sole focus and purpose of the story" (108).

In this interview with Rich Fahle of Bibliostar.TV, bestselling author Stephen King discusses the art of writing short stories and short fiction, and the fact that many writers today forgo the short story to write the novel, sometimes before they are ready to navigate "the quagmire of the novel." (Source: Bibliostar.TV).

Other Forms of Short Fiction

  • Micro Fiction - Ruth Livingstone's blog defines micro (under 100-140 words) as shorter than flash fiction (under 300-1000 words). 
  • Micro - The linked scholarship lumps together "micro fiction, flash fiction, sudden fiction, minute stories and short-shorts" (Nelles).
  • Very Short Story - These are tales or stories that are commonly read to children or read by young adults because they contain a moral.
  • Flash Fiction - A story of 300 to 1,000 words in length.
  • Linked Stories - "The collection of linked stories goes by many names, including the short story cycle, short story sequence, composite novel, and novel-in-stories. These collections include stories that are complete in that they can each story can stand alone, but when put together they interrelate and create a larger whole" ("What is a"). One well-known example of linked stories is The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien.
  • Short Story - BookRiots.com covers the age-old question: "How Long is a Short Story?" by Annika Barranti Klein. This article also has an excellent list of world-famous short stories and short story collections.
  • Long-Short Story - "a short story of more than average length; a prose narrative intermediate between a short story and a short novel" ("Long-short story").
  • Short Story, Novella, Novelette - Marie Valentine discusses the differences in "Fiction Classification."

Conventions and Innovations

At the beginning of the twentieth century, an addition to Poe's theory arrived. Brander Matthews, author and editor, in 1907 wrote The Short-Story, a non-fiction book about an emerging genre. He added that plot must be present. In other words, there has to be a story as in a beginning, middle and end. However, as with most genres and sub-genres, later generations of writers began to challenge even that one simple aspect.

These challenges led to some of the sub-genres tabbed at the top of the page. In order to help understand how important it is to establish genre, Jonathan Culler describes it as "the function of genre conventions is essentially to establish a contract between the writer and reader so as to make certain relevant expectations operative, and thus to permit both compliance with and deviation from accepted modes of intelligibility" (147).

For example, Modernism is known for its open endings. Therefore, there may be a beginning and a middle but no end. Another trait of Modernism is its lack of plot. On the other hand, Postmodernism innovated the genre further by actually referring to itself. A terrifying aspect to students is the premise that a Postmodern story may ask the reader to make the meaning. As each generation rises and then gradually dies away, so does a movement. Only by looking back can we begin to see the broad strokes, conventions and features of each movement.

In layman's terms, conventions are rules that genres (mostly) follow. For instance, if someone were to list the conventions of a scary movie, it might look like this: 

  • Teenagers are alone
  • Nighttime
  • One character bravely volunteers
  • A rumor / ritual / challenge is issued
  • Only 1-2 teens live to tell
  • Foreshadowing of another movie

The same kind of list exists for each of the tabbed sub-genres above. There are specific conventions for each movement.

Innovators are writers who push the boundaries of a sub-genre. They follow some of the conventions and invent others that twist the story into new, previously unexplored places. It is only through innovation that new literary genres and sub-genres develop.

Publications / Magazines / Websites of or including short stories:

  • American Short Fiction
  • Carve Magazine
  • The Dark Side
  • Flash Fiction Online
  • Gulf Coast
  • The Iowa Review
  • Machine
  • The New Yorker
  • The Stinging Fly
  • Web de Sol

Short stories might be the most awarded genre in literature. The below list is a smattering of awards but is nowhere close to all-inclusive:

  • Agatha Awards
  • Alice Monro Short Story Competition
  • Earnest Hemingway Flash Fiction Prize
  • Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction
  • Iowa Short Fiction Award & John Simmons Short Fiction Award
  • Maine Literary Awards
  • Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award
  • Tillie Olsen Short Story Award
  • Western Writers of America Spur Awards
  • WoW CreativeWritingMatters Short Story Competition