The Two Basic Forms of the Short Story Part 2

While Edger Allan Poe, among others, perfected the well-made short story, Anton Chekhov perfected the slice-of-life short story. As I pointed out before, the slice-of-life short story is simply what its name implies: a slice of life. It is a slice or piece of time, or more specifically, what occurs during a certain period of time. It doesn’t follow the typical story structure in the sense that it builds to a climax in the same way a well-made short story does.

Chekov’s idea of the short story differed from that of Poe and many of those who came before him. To him the short story was like a mosaic, little pieces put together to create a larger picture. Many of his stories lacked plot, a dominant characteristic of the well-made story.

One great illustration of this is Anton Chekhov’s short story “Misery.” This story depicts an evening in the life of a Russian sledge driver named Iona who has just lost his son. It begins like this:

        The twilight of evening. Big flakes of wet snow are whirling lazily about the
        street lamps, which have just been lighted, and lying in a thin soft layer
        on roofs, horses’backs, shoulders, caps. Iona Potapov, the sledge-driver,
        is all white like a ghost. He sits on the box without stirring, bent as double
        as the living body can be bent. If a regular snowdrift fell on him it seems
        as though even then he would not think it necessary to shake it off. . . .

  

We see from this introduction that our main character is a bit despondent. He sits hunched over, not seeming to care about the snow that is accumulating on his back.

His first customer of the evening is an impatient Russian officer. 

      “Sledge to Vyborgskaya!” Iona hears. “Sledge!”

       Iona starts, and through his snow-plastered eyelashes sees an officer
       in a military overcoat with a hood over his head.

     “To Vyborgskaya,” repeats the officer. “Are you asleep? To Vyborgskaya!”

The officer gets in and Iona drives on in a rather distracted manner almost running into others.

      “Where are you shoving, you devil?” Iona immediately hears shouts
       from the dark mass shifting to and fro before him. “Where the devil
       are you going? Keep to the right!”

     “You don’t know how to drive! Keep to the right,” says the officer angrily.

After getting the sledge back on course, Iona then tells the officer how he has lost his son.  However while telling the officer the details of the situation, Iona continues to drive off course, almost running into pedestrians. When Iona turns back around to the officer after once again getting back on course, he finds that the officer has closed his eyes and is no longer inclined to listen.

His next group of passengers consists of three rowdy young men. One of them he calls the hunchback because he is shorter than the other two and is hunchbacked. The hunchback is loud, obnoxious, and rude. Iona and the hunchback have this exchange:

     “Well drive on,” says the hunchback in his cracked voice, settling
       himself and breathing down Iona’s neck. “Cut along! What a cap
       you’ve got, my friend! You wouldn’t find a worse one in all Petersburg. . . .

  

     “He-he! . . .he-he! . . .” laughs Iona. “It’s nothing to boast of!”

     “Well, then, nothing to boast of, drive on! Are you going to drive like this

      all the way? Eh? Shall I give you one in the neck?”

After some small talk among his passengers, Iona tries to let them know that his son has died. The hunchback responds:

     “We shall all die, . . .” says the hunchback with a sigh, wiping
       his lips after coughing. “Come, drive on! Drive on! My friends,
       I simply cannot stand crawling like this! When will he get us
       there?”

He tries one more time to tell his passengers of his pain, but to no avail.  After a slap on the back of Iona’s neck and more small talk, their ride comes to an end and once again he is left alone. He decides to call it a day and goes back to the stables. There he tries once again to tell a fellow driver of the loss of his son, but the man does not listen. So he must turn his attention to the only one who will listen—his horse.

     "Are you munching?” Iona asks his mare, seeing her shining eyes.
     “There, munch away, munch away. . . .Since we have not earned
       enough for oats, we will eat hay. . . .Yes, . . . I have grown too old
       to drive. . . .My son ought to be driving, not I. . . . He was a real
       coachman. . . .He ought to have lived. . . .”

Iona goes on to lament that his son has died for no reason. Chekhov ends with this:

     The little mare munches, listens, and breathes on her master’s hands.
     Iona is carried away and tells her about it.

As you can see, the story has no plot but simply portrays a moment or an evening in the life of this man, Iona.  It is, in a sense, a slice of time taken from his life. You may be asking what it is that holds stories like these together since they have no plot. What is it that makes them worth reading?  According to professor Laurie Rozakis of Farmingdale State Universiy, it is the character’s moment of realization or epiphany. Or, you could call it an Ah-ha moment. Whatever you choose to call it, it is essential to the success of your slice of life short story.

Dana Gioia and R.S. Gwynn. The Art of the Short Story. New York, NY: Pearson Longman, 2006.

Laurie E. Rozakis, Ph.D. Creating Writing for Dummies. New York, NY: Alpha Books, 2004.

The History of the Short Story

Just how old is the short story? Old. It may not be the oldest thing in the world, but the short story has been around for a very long time. In fact, the earliest known short stories came from the tombs of ancient Egypt and date back to 3,000 B.C./B.C.E.

Short stories also circulated south of ancient Egypt.  A couple of these stories involved a spider named Ananzi. One was called “Ananzi the Spider and Turtle” and the other, “Ananzi and the Make-Believe Food.” Both stories taught lessons including treating others as you would want to be treated and avoiding greed.

The Bible also made its share of contributions to the development of the short story with stories such as Noah's Ark, the Tower of Babel, Moses and the Red Sea, David and Goliath, Daniel and the Lion’s Den (written between approximately 1440 B.C. and 164 B.C./B.C.E.) . Later in the New Testament, Jesus Christ used stories to make his points more effectively ( between A.D. 30 and A.D. 33).

India made its contribution to the history of the short story with the Jatakas and the Panchatantra Hindu beast fables. In the beast fables, talking animals made moral points and taught important lessons. Other famous animal tales in ancient literature included those told by the Greek slave Aesop. Aesop's Fables originated sometime in the sixth century B.C./B.C.E. One of the stories was the popular “Tortoise and the Hare.”

The Middle Ages witnessed the birth of Chaucer's famous Canterbury Tales (1387-1395). One of these is the “Miller's Tale,” a sultry tale of an old carpenter whose voluptuous eighteen-year-old wife, Alisoun, has a fling with a border who is an astrology student with the keen ability to predict the weather. However he is not her only admirer. A parish clerk named Absolon would also like a chance with Alisoun. But things go awry and both lovers find themselves getting burned in the end, one of them literally.   

Despite the greatness of all these stories, the short story did not reach the zenith of its true potential until the nineteenth century when mass marketing and commercial magazines made short stories more accessible to more people.

One such short-story writer who benefited from this era of mass marketing and commercial magazines was Washington Irving (1783-1859), now considered by scholars and critics to be the father of the modern short story. He is most remembered for his stories “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle.”

Instead of teaching a lesson, Irving believed that the primary purpose of the short story was to entertain. For instance, the “Legend of Sleepy Hallow” tells the story of a lanky school teacher who has a terrifying encounter with a legendary headless horseman. There is no lesson to speak of, just a literary thrill ride.

Later, Edgar Allen Poe and Anton Chekhov fine-tuned the short story giving us two distinct types: the well-made short story and the slice-of-life short story, both of which are still used today.  

What is a Short Story?

Stephen Vincent Benet once said that a short story was one that could “be read in an hour and remembered for a lifetime.”  Here are some guidelines for getting you started on your journey of creating a memorable short story.
 
According to writing professor Shariann Lewitt of MIT, all short stories should possess three key elements-- unity of time, singularity of point of view, and unity of place. In addition to these important attributes, Lewitt says the short story should "capture a moment of understanding change." She calls this moment of understanding the “now moment." She also says you can think of the now moment as the most central issue in the story. This central issue could also be called the theme.

In the words of Laurie Rozakis, Ph.D, English professor at Farmingdale State University in New York, theme is “the main idea of a literary work, its general statement about life.” The theme may be plainly stated or it may be revealed slowly through plot, characters, or setting.

Dr. Rozakis also gives a list of characteristics that most short stories share. She says, "a short story

• Is a prose narrative (this means it's not poetry).
  
• Has fewer than 10,000 words. On average, a short story tends to run between 2,000 and 7,000 words.
  
• Describes one main event that tells a story.
  
• Features a small cast of characters, usually no more that one or two main characters.
  
• Takes place during a limited time frame. The action might take place in a day, a week, or a month, for example. There are some exceptions, but usually the action doesn't last for years.
  
• Often shows a character undergoing an event that changes him or her. This event reveals one facet of human nature."
  

Unlike a novel, a short story does not have the complexity of multiple layers. It focuses on one central point. So when writing your short story, focus on that one issue, truth, opinion, or observation and build a convincing narrative around it. 

Shariann Lewitt. 21W.755 Writing and Reading Short Stories, Spring 2012. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare), http://ocw.mit.edu (Accessed 24 May, 2016). License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 

Laurie E.Rozakis, Ph.D. An Idiot's Guide to Creative Writing. New York, NY: Alpha Books, 2004. 

Creative Writing 101: Where to Begin With Creating Characters for Your Novel or Short Story

Once you have a solid idea of what your plot will be, your next job will be to begin the process of creating the characters necessary to carry it out.  For beginners in novel or short story writing, this can be a daunting task. 

First of all, you want to fit the right character with the right part.  Just as in casting a play, you want each part to be played by a character perfectly suited for it.

Secondly, you don’t want your characters to be stick figures or one-dimensional cut-outs.  You want your characters to be made of flesh and bone. You want them real.

So how do you create characters with depth and who play their parts effectively? 

You can begin developing your characters after you decide what characters you will need to carry out your plot.  Once you determine the available parts, you can begin what I like to call the tryouts.  This is where you decide what kind of character you want for each part, which takes a great deal of visualization.  Here is where you consider things like physical appearance and personality. 

Once you have thought through the basics, you will begin the process of bringing your characters to life.   Bringing your characters to life is giving them something to care about.  Everyone cares about something, whether they admit it or not, or even know it or not. Therefore, every character in your story should care.  What they care about will largely determine the part they play in your story.

Think back to the last novel you read.  Think through each character, and you will find that each one cared about something or wanted something. 

 Ability to care about something or desire something is the spark that will give your character life.  And, lively characters build lively novels and short stories.  So, caring is where you must begin.