Short Stories...

I finished Trash!!! It was such a good book and the mystery of what that wallet held was finally solved at the end! Anyhow, new book, new blog :)

So I've always been the kind of person who likes reading novels, like actual 300 paged, storyline based novels- not a collection of poems or biographies or news articles. Well recently I picked up a book called Past Perfect, Present Tense. I don't know what it was that kind of drew me to this book. Maybe it was the glossy white cover it had, or the simple color scheme on the spine, or maybe it was the alliteration of the title. Anyhow, I picked it up. It was, as the cover stated, a collection of stories by Richard Peck. So short stories. That got the wheels turning in my head. 'What exactly was a short story?' I thought. I had the misconception in my head that short stories would be so much easier to write than novels. I mean less words, less work. Right? I also thought that short stories would be so boring to read. One minute your in the beginning of the novel and the next minute your done. How could anything really exciting happen in those few minutes? Well, I soon learned how wrong I was about both facts.

I did some research on short stories and learned quite a few things about it. The definition of a short story is "a fictional work of prose that is shorter in length than a novel". And Edgar Allan Poe said that "a short story should be read in one sitting, anywhere from a half hour to two hours". This fact seemed a little strange to me. How could the author develop a well thought out plot, develop relatable characters, and connect with the reader in such a short amount of time? The way short story writers go about this is quite simple actually. Instead of focusing on so many different characters, so many different themes, so many different plots, and on so many different facets of the story, short story authors tend to target one character, one main central message, and one plot in their writing. This way, there's less things to cover, so the author can truly zoom in and delve deeper into their stories.

For more info on short stories: http://www.bnv-bamberg.de/home/ba4613/flg/gk_english/short_story/short_story_definition.htm