What is a Short Story?

Compared to novels, short stories often get overlooked as an art form, but these singular works
of fiction deserve a closer look. Short stories give readers all the compelling characters, drama,
and descriptive language of great fiction, but in a truly compact package.

So what is the secret behind those potent, carefully written gems? Here we tackle the definition
of a short story, the key elements, examples, and some of the most common questions about
short stories.

What is a short story?

A short story is a work of prose fiction that can be read in one sitting—usually between 20
minutes to an hour. There is no maximum length, but the average short story is 1,000 to 7,500
words, with some outliers reaching 10,000 or 15,000 words. At around 10 to 25 pages, that
makes short stories much shorter than novels, with only a few approaching novella length. A
piece of fiction shorter than 1,000 words is considered a “short short story” or “flash fiction,”
and anything less than 300 words is rightfully called “micro fiction.”

What are the key elements of a short story?

The setting of a short story is often simplified (one time and place), and one or two main
characters may be introduced without full backstories. In this concise, concentrated format,
every word and story detail has to work extra hard!

Short stories typically focus on a single plot instead of multiple subplots, as you might see in
novels. Some stories follow a traditional narrative arc, with exposition (description) at the
beginning, rising action, a climax (peak moment of conflict or action), and a resolution at the
end. However, contemporary short fiction is more likely to begin in the middle of the action (in
medias res), drawing readers right into a dramatic scene.

While short stories of the past often revolved around a central theme or moral lesson, today it is
common to find stories with ambiguous endings. This type of unresolved story invites open-
ended readings and suggests a more complex understanding of reality and human behavior.
The short story genre is well suited to experimentation in prose writing style and form, but most
short story authors still work to create a distinct mood using classic literary devices (point of
view, imagery, foreshadowing, metaphor, diction/word choice, tone, and sentence structure).

What is the history of the short story?

Short-form storytelling can be traced back to ancient legends, mythology, folklore, and fables
found in communities all over the world. Some of these stories existed in written form, but many
were passed down through oral traditions. By the 14 th century, the most well-known stories
included One Thousand and One Nights (Middle Eastern folk tales by multiple authors, later
known as Arabian Nights) and Canterbury Tales (by Geoffrey Chaucer).

It wasn’t until the early 19th century that short story collections by individual authors appeared
more regularly in print. First, it was the publication of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales, then Edgar
Allen Poe’s Gothic fiction, and eventually, stories by Anton Chekhov, who is often credited as a
founder of the modern short story.

The popularity of short stories grew along with the surge of print magazines and journals.
Newspaper and magazine editors began publishing stories as entertainment, creating a demand
for short, plot-driven narratives with mass appeal. By the early 1900s, The Atlantic Monthly, The
New Yorker, and Harper’s Magazine were paying good money for short stories that showed
more literary technique. That golden era of publishing gave rise to the short story as we know it
today.

What are the different types of short stories?

Short stories come in all kinds of categories: action, adventure, biography, comedy, crime,
detective, drama, dystopia, fable, fantasy, history, horror, mystery, philosophy, politics, romance,
satire, science fiction, supernatural, thriller, tragedy, and Western. Here are some popular types
of short stories, literary styles, and authors associated with them:

 Fable: A tale that provides a moral lesson, often using animals, mythical creatures, forces
of nature, or inanimate objects come to life (Brothers Grimm, Aesop)
 Flash fiction: A story between 5 to 2,000 words that lacks traditional plot structure or
character development, and is often characterized by a surprise or twist of fate (Lydia
Davis)

 Mini saga: A type of micro-fiction using exactly 50 words (!) to tell a story

 Vignette: A descriptive scene or defining moment that does not contain a complete plot
or narrative, but reveals an important detail about a character or idea (Sandra Cisneros)

 Modernism: Experimenting with narrative form, style, and chronology (inner

monologues, stream of consciousness) to capture the experience of an individual (James
Joyce, Virginia Woolf)

 Postmodernism: Using fragmentation, paradox, or unreliable narrators to explore the

relationship between the author, reader, and text (Donald Barthelme, Jorge Luis Borges)

 Magical realism: Combining realistic narrative or setting with elements of surrealism,

dreams, or fantasy (Gabriel García Márquez)

 Minimalism: Writing characterized by brevity, straightforward language, and a lack of

plot resolutions (Raymond Carver, Amy Hempel)

What are some famous short stories?

1. “The Tell-Tale Heart” (1843) – Edgar Allen Poe

2. “The Necklace” (1884) – Guy de Maupassant

3. “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892) – Charlotte Perkins Gilman

4. “The Story of an Hour” (1894) – Kate Chopin

5. “Gift of the Magi” (1905) – O. Henry

6. “The Dead,” “The Dubliners” (1914) – James Joyce

7. “The Garden Party” (1920) – Katherine Mansfield

8. “Hills Like White Elephants” (1927), “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” (1936) – Ernest
Hemingway
9. “The Lottery” (1948) – Shirley Jackson

10. “Lamb to the Slaughter” (1953) – Roald Dahl

11. “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” (1955) – Gabriel García Márquez

12. “Sonny’s Blues” (1957) – James Baldwin

13. “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” (1953), “Everything That Rises Must Converge” (1961) –
Flannery O’Connor

What are some popular short story collections?

1. The Things They Carried – Tim O’Brien

2. Labyrinths – Jorge Luis Borges

3. Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman – Haruki Murakami

4. Nine Stories – J.D. Salinger

5. What We Talk About When We Talk About Love – Raymond Carver

6. The Stories of John Cheever – John Cheever

7. Welcome to the Monkey House – Kurt Vonnegut

8. Complete Stories – Dorothy Parker

9. Interpreter of Maladies – Jhumpa Lahiri

10. Suddenly a Knock at the Door – Etgar Keret