Although there are arguably ten or more types of short stories, especially when you get into the different genres, professor Laura Rozakis says there are really only two basic forms: the
well-made short story or the slice-of-life short story. The well-made short story is one consisting
of a definite beginning, middle, and ending. More specifically, it has a well-defined plot and tells a complete or thoroughly
developed story. The other, the slice-of-life, is just that—a slice of life.
You could think of it as a moment extracted from a particular point in time.
Although most short story writers tend to write their stories
in the well-made fashion, Edgar Allan Poe was a master at it. Take for instance
his story “The Black Cat,” which is the story of a man’s slow descent into
madness resulting from alcohol abuse. This story begins with the narrator
awaiting execution. He then proceeds to tell the reader how he got to such a
place. Here is how it begins:
"For the most wild yet most homely
narrative which I am about to pen, I neither expect nor solicit belief. Mad
indeed would I be to expect it, in a case where my very senses reject their own
evidence. Yet, mad am I not—and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I
die, and to-day I would unburden my soul."
The narrator goes on to tell of his love for animals and how
he and his wife shortly after they were married adopted a number of pets—birds,
goldfish, rabbits, a fine dog, a small monkey, and a black cat. He is most fond
of the cat, calling it his favorite pet and playmate. However his relationship
with the cat, as well as with his wife, begins to deteriorate with his growing
affinity for alcohol. He becomes impatient and intolerant of the smallest
irritations. He comes home one day intoxicated and tries reach for the cat whom
he thinks is avoiding him. The cat swiftly bites at his hand, causing him to
perform a cruel act. He explains:
"One night, returning home, much
intoxicated, from one of my haunts about town, I fancied that the cat avoided
my presence. I seized him; when, in his fright at my violence, he inflicted a
slight wound upon my hand with his teeth. The fury of a demon instantly
possessed me. I knew myself no longer. My original soul seemed, at once, to
take its flight from my body; and a more than fiendish malevolence, gin-nutured,
thrilled every fiber of my frame. I took from my waistcoat-pocket a penknife,
opened it, grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of
its eyes from the socket! I blush, I burn, I shudder, while I pen the damnable
atrocity."
The sight of the cat becomes unbearable to him; therefore,
one day he takes the cat and hangs it from a tree near his home. Following
this, his house catches on fire and burns down except for one wall. The wall
becomes another reminder of what he has done when he realizes that there is a
bas-relief upon the wall of a gigantic cat with a rope around its neck. He soon
reasons that someone had taken the cat down from the tree and had thrown it
through his open window to get his attention, and when the walls began to fall,
they fell so as to press the cat into the plaster creating the imprinted image.
Sometime later, after the terror of the incident has passed,
he comes across another cat at a local pub. Like the first, this cat also takes
to him and follows him home. This cat is similar to the first in appearance,
and his wife immediately takes to it. He, however, does not. Still haunted by
his previous crime, he finds himself despising the new-found cat.
One day the cat follows him down to the cellar of the old
building he and his wife are living in. Here the narrator describes what
happened:
"One day she accompanied me, upon
some household errand, into the cellar of the old building which our poverty
compelled us to inhabit. The cat followed me down the steep stairs, and, nearly
throwing me headlong, exasperated me to madness.Uplifting the axe, forgetting
in my wrath the childish dread which, of course, would have proved instantly
fatal had it descended as I wished. But this blow was arrested by the hand of
my wife. Goaded by the interference into a rage more than demoniacal, I
withdrew my arm from her grasp and buried thr axe in her brain. She fell dead
upon the spot without a groan."
With his wife dead, he goes into a panic over what to do with
her body. After milling around a number of possibilities, he finally decides to
wall her up in the cellar. Once he has completed the task, he realizes the cat
is nowhere to be seen and begins to bask in his freedom. On the fourth day of
his new-found freedom, there is a knock on his door. It is the police.
Confident in his handywork, he takes the police down to the cellar to show them
his newly built wall. To demonstrate the strength of the wall, he decides to
tap on it. This of course proves to be a colossal mistake, for from behind the
wall emanates a continuous scream or howl—the cat. At the sound of the wailing,
the authorities quickly begin tearing into the wall, and here is what happens:
"Of my own thoughts it is folly to
speak. Swooning, I staggered to the opposite wall. For one instant the party on
the stairs remained motionless, through extremity of terror and awe. In the
next a dozen stout arms were toiling at the wall. It fell bodily. The corpse, already
greatly decayed and clotted with gore, stood erect before the eyes of the
spectators. Upon its head, with red extended mouth and solitary eye of fire,
sat the hideous beast whose craft had seduced me into murder, and whose informing
voice had consigned me to the hangman. I had walled the monster up within the
tomb."
So as you can see, this story, like many of Poe’s other
stories, is well developed with a clear beginning, middle, and ending, or more importantly, a plot. It
follows the classic story structure.
To be continued in Part 2
The Complete Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. Castle Books: Edison, New Jersey, 2002.
Laurie E.Rozakis, Ph.D. An Idiot's Guide to Creative Writing. New York, NY: Alpha Books, 2004.
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