A common type of
Prose Fiction and a good way for new authors to start out. Short stories are any stories that run up to 7,500 words in length, though some definitions place them as long as 20,000. Due to the discrepancy, short stories can overlap with the
Novella and the
Novelette but are usually categorized separately.
Short stories are usually published in magazines and, more rarely, collections. There is a large
Pulp Magazine industry that is much easier to break into than the book industry, which makes it a good place for a new writer to build up a resume. And a good place to stage
Old Shame.
More info can be found at
The Other Wiki
.
Pseudopod.org makes a job of publishing audio version of short stories.
Examples:
- Most of what H. P. Lovecraft wrote was in the form of a short story. These include:
- Robert E. Howard also made his career on short fiction, with every Conan story save The Hour Of The Dragon being a short story.
- "I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream" was both short, and a story.
- I, Robot was a series of short stories by Isaac Asimov.
- "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell
- "Arcana Magi Zero" is a Web Original Short Story trilogy written by H-M Brown.
- "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson
- "There Will Come Soft Rains", a Ray Bradbury classic.
- "Brokeback Mountain" was originally a short story by Annie Proulx.
- "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" was originally a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
- "The Ugly Barnacle" is one of these, with emphasis on "short".
- "The Dandelion Girl" by Robert F. Young.
- "Magic For Beginners" by Kelly Link.
- "A Rose For Emily" by William Faulkner
- "Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" by Jorge Luis Borges
- Most of the Transformers Timelines fiction consists of short stories, and issues of The Transformers and Transformers: Last Stand of the Wreckers had short stories published in them occasionally.
- The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers is a short story collection.
- The shortest story ever is apparently by Marget Atwood. It goes, "Longed for him. Got him. Shit".
- Tying for that title is Hemingway's bet-winning short story. "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."
- Robert Westall wrote a great deal of what some consider his best work in short fiction form; notably Break Of Dark and the best of anthologies Demons and Shadows and Shades Of Darkness.
