“Brevity is the soul of wit.” —William Shakespeare
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We’re all familiar with Shakespeare’s take on the subject of brevity. But in the 21st century, brevity may be the soul of more than wit as attention spans contract and readers look for instant gratification in their reading material.
An article on wordsrated.com states what we all suspected:
The digital age brought a huge increase of various types of content fighting for people’s time and attention. People have more options than ever on how to spend their time. This variety of things to do alone is one of the reasons why reading time is in decline over the years.
With these factors in mind, our hypothesis was that readers are choosing to buy shorter books as the years go by. Results of our analysis suggest that this is the case, as best-selling books got 11.8% shorter over the last decade.
So, if readers are looking for shorter fiction, why not try writing short stories? There’s a post on Jane Friedman’s site entitled 20 Reasons Why Everybody Should Write Short Stories by Elizabeth Sims that addresses that very question.
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If a novel is a marathon and a novella is a half-marathon, I’d define a short story as a 400-meter race. Even though it’s only once around the track, the runner can’t run at full speed because he/she will slow down dramatically in the home stretch. The race requires a strategy and a punchy ending just like a short story.
And just how short is a short story? It can be anywhere from 1K to 10K words, depending on who you ask. Some say they can even be longer. But whatever the length, the story has to impact the reader in a forceful way.
TKZ’s own James Scott Bell wrote a book entitled How to Write Short Stories and Use Them to Further Your Writing Career. In his book, Jim identifies the one thing a short story must do: “The most important part is emotional impact.”
To that end, here are a few of my favorite short stories that pack an emotional punch:
The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry – This story is probably on most people’s lists of favorites. With a theme of selfless sacrifice that defines true love, the story ends with both a surprising and satisfying twist for the reader.
The Shepherd by Frederick Forsyth – This Christmas story keeps the reader engaged by following the lonely flight of a fighter pilot as modern technology fails and he finds help in a very untechnical form. The surprise ending delivers an emotional jolt the reader won’t forget.
The Apple Tree by John Galsworthy – This is perhaps my favorite, although it comes in at around 17K words which is approaching novella territory. Still, it tells the poignant tale of young love and, sadly, betrayal.
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Here are some short stories I’ve written:
Lady Pilot-in-Command, the Short Story – A young pilot decides on the airway less taken and does the right thing, even though it’s dangerous.
The Clutter Busters – A woman begins to clean her attic, but with the help of some uninvited guests, finds the real clutter is in her own mind.
The Money Tree – A prideful woman learns humility and finds a new purpose in life when the easy money disappears.
Willow Tree Farm – This story is based on the Biblical proverb “If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you.” —Proverbs 25:21-22
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So TKZers: What are your favorite short stories? Have you written any? Tell us about them.
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Cassie Deakin is a talented and experienced private pilot who loves being in the air. But when she agrees to fly a handsome stranger to a meeting in the Nevada desert, she lands in the middle of a drug bust gone wrong, and she’s the only one who can save the day.
Should she fly away from danger? Or listen to the memory of her father’s words to “Never stand idly by when you see another pilot in trouble.”
Click the image to go to the Amazon page and grab a copy of this 99¢ short story.
My favorite short: Keith Roberts’ “The Signaller,” one of seven stories in the anthology “Pavane,” wherein the Armada sank the English fleet. It opens:
“On either side of the knoll the land stretched in long, speckled sweeps, paling in the frost smoke until the outlines of distant hills blended with the curdled milk of the sky. Across the waste a bitter wind moaned, steady and chill, driving before it quick flurries of snow. The snow squalls flickered and vanished like ghosts, the only moving things in a vista of emptiness.”
I’ve written quite a few, the first lot published as “Tales For a Blue Moon”:
Green-horn meets Desperado in the desert in “Unforsaken.”
Two Franciscans are the last of their order in “Observance.”
“Bus boy” wages his own private war in “Arma Virumque Cano.”
Wounded WWII vet returns to his family in “Welcome Home.”
Planet’s culture is dying in “The Eight Times Cut Stone.”
A wizard’s apprentice suffers in “Peterby & the Magician.”
Private eye has an odd client in the noir “Mike Sledge’s Christmas Carol.’
Man sells “The Secret of the Universe” for $9.80.
Gigantic entity broadcasts its story in “The Song of Jorex.”
Learn to live like a cowboy in “Bunkhouse Rules.”
Church announces its annual “Blessing of the Animals.”
Poet meets a special woman in “Tenirax’s Wounded Dove.”
Coed works at “the Woo-Woo store” in “Incense Summer.”
Gullible person gets scammed in “My Last Rhinoceros.”
Young boy works hard to buy a bicycle in “Tom’s Worst Day.”
Last librarian on Earth is retired in “The Day the Library Died.”
Woman destroys a museum piece in “Between the Universe.”
Man seeks wisdom in “The Search for Baba Gondahara-Ji.”
Good morning, JG.
I haven’t read The Signaller, but the title sounds familiar. I may have to take a look.
Congratulations on your short stories. That’s an impressive list.
Kay, as soon as I read your title, Gift of the Magi popped to mind. Brings a lump to my throat every time.
Before I ever tackled a novel, I wrote dozens of short stories, some of which were published in little literary magazines that no longer exist. Great training exercise to master brevity.
I learned a lot by entering contests with strict word limits (100 words or fewer). That really teaches how to make every word count.
Nice post to kick off the week!
Good morning, Debbie.
I think The Gift of the Magi is on everybody’s list of favorites. O. Henry really knew how to put a story together, eh?
You were smart to begin writing short stories before going for a novel. As you say, it’s a great training ground. In your case, it obviously worked well!
Have a good week.
Thanks to my father, I was exposed to “The Most Dangerous Game” at an early age. Still love it. Somewhere I have a collection of Sherlock Holmes hunting Jack the Ripper stories. It is probably next to my book of Homes/Christmas stories.
Morning, Alan.
I just looked up The Most Dangerous Game on Amazon. The summary made me shiver. (People who sail the world in yachts ought to be more careful. 🙂 )
Have a great week.
Thanks for the mention, Kay.
So many stories and genres! Memorable for me:
“The Veldt” – Ray Bradbury
“Soldier’s Home” – Ernest Hemingway
“The Girls in Their Summer Dresses” – Irwin Shaw
“The Summer of the Beautiful White Horse” – William Saroyan
I’ve written quite a few short stories, novelettes, and flash fiction, collected in DOWN THESE STREETS.
Morning, Jim.
I’m bookmarking this page because there are so many good suggestions for short stories. It’ll take me a while to get to them all.
I re-read your book on writing short stories when I started my current project. It’s a murder mystery set in a retirement community. The working title is “The MerriLax Conspiracy.”
Great post, Kay. Short stories are near and dear to my heart. In fact, I’ve been focusing on them lately and have drafted several in the past couple of months. While there are obvious differences between short stories and novels, they have a lot in common, both craft wise and process wise. Writing short is a great way to practice craft and experiment.
A few of my own favorites:
“A Scandal in Bohemia,” a classic Sherlock Holmes story featuring the person who forever remained “the woman.”
“A Candle for the Bag Lady,” one of mystery grand master Lawrence Block’s Matthew Scudder short stories. Scudder learns he inherited money from a homeless woman who died very suddenly and decided to learn what happened to her, which becomes a murder investigation.
“Firewatch”: Science fiction grand master Connie Willis’s Hugo and Nebula ward winning story about a time traveling historian scheduled to travel with St. Paul who instead gets sent by accident to St. Paul’s cathedral in 1940, during the Blitz, and helps protect the cathedral from firebombs.
A favorite of my own short stories is “Rules Concerning Earthlight”, title story of my collection, co-written with my friend K.C. Ball, a science fiction story set on the Moon.
These days many of the stories I’ve drafted are mystery/crime/suspense. No surprise to me. They are both a challenge and immense fun to write.
Good morning, Dale.
I love these suggestions. I foresee a lot of short story reading (and writing) in my future. And I agree with you that short writing is a great way to practice craft.
Have a great week!
“A Candle for the Bag Lady” is on my list, too.
The first piece I ever wrote and sold was a 2,500-word short story. After that, I sold a 2,000-word story to the same publisher, then a 1,000-word one—the word count kept shrinking.
I believe starting with short stories made me a lean writer because I had to make every word count.
Morning, Pat.
Making every word count is a lesson we all have to learn. Best to learn it early.
Have a great week!
For the season, two psychological horror stories by Henry James. If you were traumatized by PORTRAIT OF A LADY in college English, don’t be deterred. His short stories are much more accessible than his novels, and they are free online.
“The Jolly Corner.” A man wanders through his deserted family home and finds his personal monster. A masterful use of psychology, words, and images.
“Beast in the Jungle.” After his dearest female friend dies, a man meets the great destiny he has always expected, but it’s definitely not what he expected.
Sadly, none of my short stories are available anymore, but two had powerful reactions from others.
“The Werewolf Whisperer.” Light paranormal romance. A volunteer at an animal shelter discovers that an extremely large, injured German Shepherd is a human stuck in his werewolf form, she can read his mind, and he has a very short time before he’s either euthanized or neutered. I had to put a “no beverages” warning on the story because the ending caused a lot of spit-take reactions. Spewing coffee on your tablet or computer is not a good thing.
“Crystal Wed to Steel.” Fantasy. A middle-aged sorceress is traveling with her warrior husband and teen twins and realizes that she’s no longer needed by any of them. She’s yanked away from her own reality and must save another version of her husband’s first, beloved wife who was perfect while she is anything but. The story made my editor sob. Everyone here knows how rare that is.
Thanks for the recommendation of the Henry James short stories, Marilynn. I just downloaded the Complete Works of Henry James from Amazon for 49 cents!
Your short stories sound interesting. I’m sorry they’re no longer available.
Have a good week.
One I’ve never been able to forget: The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson.
I write them occasionally, and they are on the short story tab of my liebjabberings blog.
But my own favorite is Too Late, the prequel short story to my mainstream trilogy, Pride’s Children; it’s on the Prequel tab of my prideschildren dot com site. It tells a reader a LOT about one of my main characters. 1500 words. A 5 minute read. Took me six months to write.
Curiously (to me), I still haven’t come up with equivalent origin stories for the other two main characters – I’m trying to finish the trilogy first – but I will, when I figure out the main point of each: the reason for having an origin story at all.
Hey Alicia,
Oh yeah — who could forget The Lottery?
Writing a prequel is a great idea, and you are an example of “just because it’s short doesn’t mean you can write it quickly.”
Have a good week.
I should mention Galsworthy’s “Quality” as apropos for this Fake Intelligence world.
Thanks, JG. I haven’t read “Quality,” but I’m adding it to my list now.