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Mullins, Rebecca ENG161 Introduction to Literature: Short Stories

To understand it:  No Sentence Wasted

Sources:

An anthology, a collection of short works by the same person or by different people (if thematic).

A bok cover of the short story collection titled Faithless:Tales of Transgression by Joce Carol Oates. A woman in a blue sleeveless dress is hugging a man in a corner, her back to the photographer. The light is harsh and casts the man's shadow up the wall.    A book cover for a collection of tales called The Best Horror of the Year. There is a fierce red devil with wings staring directly at the viewer. In the lower left is a bullet point list of different authors' names.

When reading and interpreting short stories,

  • novellas are up to 25,000 words
  • most short stories are 3,000-10,000 words
  • because they are so much shorter than novels (50,000 words+) the writer
    • makes every sentence count, leading to great textual analysis, barely any words are "wasted"
    • may employ symbols to represent complex ideas or actions
    • have a definite pace that has a first act, a climax, and an ending