Story » short story

Can anyone recommend me short stories or short story authors?

admin — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 06:51:16 +0000

Can anyone recommend me some interesting short stories or short story authors? I’m not looking for short stories by classic writers, I’m looking for something modern, gloomy, atmospheric, with iconic main character. If you have seen the 2011 movie Drive, than i would love to find some short stories similar to it.

The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction. We used it for a class and every story was gloomy.

http://www.amazon.com/Scribner-Anthology-Contemporary-Short-Fiction/dp/1416532277/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324846680&sr=8-1

How to cite a short story NOT in a collection in MLA format?

admin — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 03:10:13 +0000

So I have the text "Rappaccini’s Daughter" by Nathaniel Hawethorne to cite in my composition. Problem is that my teacher emailed the story to us, so it is not included in a collection or anything nd I have no clue where he got the text. How do I cite a short story that is not in a collection in MLA format?

There’s an excellent website called easybib (easybib.com). It allows you to create citations for free in MLA format. You’ll go to that cite, click on the type of resource (in this case web) and highlight your teacher’s link and paste it in the appropriate box. When you press the button that says cite this, it will do it for you. easy peasy.

Has there ever been a short story with a sequel?

admin — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 00:50:12 +0000

Because I have a horror story in mind, but I was originally planning it to be just a short story, then I got ideas on making a sequel. Or would an editor/publisher recommend I write out more or try to mash them into one? Because also the lady gets pregnant but I kind of wanted to skip that little time frame and her already have her baby in the sequel. So I guess in short, is it okay to have a short story with a short story sequel after?

well, asimovs three rules of robotics have appeared in many many short stories afterward. i mean i guess you could allude to it… use elements you established before.. cant say that ive actually seen a short story with a sequel. the point of a short story is really to finish the story in one read. so, i mean if it would take two short stories to actually sum the story, id suggest writing a novelette.

How does the short story represent the frustrations that many Americans felt during the 1920s?

admin — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 03:02:15 +0000

Short story: Winters Dream by F. Scott Fitzgerald. (a lot of detail)

Read it yourself.

How do you cite a short story that is printed in a collection of several different authors in MLA?

admin — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 01:22:49 +0000

I’m trying to cite a hemmingway short story that is in a textbook with a million other short stories in it. How do I go about this?

This site has helped me with ALL of my citations I’ve ever had to do! The link is to the MLA format page. Along the left hand side of the page are different sub-topics you can look through.

Hope this helps, and good luck!

What is a good short story that is about one page that would be good to present in AP Literature?

admin — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 10:48:09 +0000

This short story should have meaning and should be able to have a general explication.
This is for HW, and I am going to present this text with a group of 4 students including myself.

Flowers for Algernon

How to write a short story with more than one viewpoint?

admin — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 05:15:07 +0000

I want to write a short story that has three main characters, and switch to each ones point of view. In books they switch every chapter, but I’m just writing a short story. How can i switch off without making my writing confusing?

Either write your story in third person POV or change it as in

-(Character Name) POV-

For each change.

How LONG can my Short Story get? when does it become a novella according to page length?

admin — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 07:32:14 +0000

I’m writing a short story and the key event has occurred on about the 9th page. I’m writing in 12-font, single space format but I haven’t checked the word count yet. I’m not dividing it up by chapters, just chunks of narrative. I was originally planning for it to be about 20 pages, but now I’m thinking I’ll push to more like 25 to 30. Is this too long to be considered a ‘short story’? Should I trim it down? Or is this just fine?

Short Story
~ 1,000 – 7,500 words

Novellette
~ 7,500 – 20,000 words

Novella
~ 20,000 – 50,000 words

Novel
~ 50,000 -110,000

How to structure a short story?

admin — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 22:13:09 +0000

I’m not really sure how to structure a short story… Most of the short stories I’ve read haven’t explained much until the end and ended on a cliff hanger. But I’m just wondering if most short stories are like that? Like, set in a strange place with strange creatures and you don’t know what’s going on but little bits get revealed throughout it.. And how long is an average short story, from a book like Prom nights from Hell?

Short stories vary in length. I have read published works which are 4 pages and some 10 pages long. At school my short stories did not exceed 6 so in my opinion that’s typical. A short story’s structure in brief is a beginning, a middle/body and an ending. Not all stories are cliff hangers too.

Beginning could be the setting or characters or a dialogue. You are going to give the reader the what the story is about or at least a hint. In the body you spice it up with character development and conflicts which lead up to a climax. Then you wrap it up with the conflict being resolved or not or it could be partially resolved.
Hope this helps.

What is the most important thing to include when writing a short story?

admin — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 01:32:05 +0000

What is the most important thing to include when writing a short story with one main character and seven static characters, when trying to make the story as interesting and dynamic as possible. The main character is being approached by sisters about constantly ditching them, and to their surprise, they find out that their sister is sick with an illness. How would you make this very dramatic in a short story format? What should be included, and what should not be dwelled on? Thanks much!!

Well, there’s a few ways I could see framing this, but it depends on the tone of the story, and, more importantly the theme.

The first thing I thought of was that you could keep us in the dark about your main character’s illness and then expose it at the end as a sort of irony. The entire time, you could have us be thinking that your character is a selfish person right alongside her sisters, when suddenly, our expectations are subverted.

Another question is how the confrontation happens. How and why do the sisters meet? Personally, I envisioned this with adult characters where the MC got some kind of break (e.g. a scholarship to college) and proceeded never to visit her family or help them. If you’re thinking like this, I would say that either the confrontation would occur because the MC would ask her sisters to come so she can see them before she dies or occurs by accident, although the sisters could also have tracked down the MC or called some kind of a family reunion.

The other thing you have to decide is what the function of the illness plays. Does the illness excuse what the MC has done, or does the MC merely regret her leaving her family? Does the illness serve as a means of reconciliation? Or do not all of the characters forgive her?

You’re the same person who posted before about the 8 characters, right? I would still question that number. It just feels like you don’t have enough space to do that. Could you really not boil it down to 3 or 4 sisters? Either way, if your characters are important to the story, they need their own voices, mannerisms, and functions. Try making each person as different from the other as possible, especially in terms of career and personality.