Merging of the Short-Story Genres

Irum Abbasi, Laila Al-Sharqi Laila Al-Sharqi

Abstract


Story writing craft evolved through the centuries before rising as a separate genre. Unity is an essential element of short story through which it exhibits singularity of effect, unity of impression, and the totality of interest. After the success of the short story, writers further shortened their narratives and eventually short fiction arose as a sub-category of short story. Short fiction further differentiated into a sub-category called the “sudden fiction” that referred to all shortened forms of short fiction. Having mastered artistic brevity, writers began writing even more condensed narratives, and the sudden fiction differentiated into two types: the new sudden fiction and the flash fiction. The new sudden fiction was akin to the traditional story comprising of up to 1500 words; whereas, the flash fiction was similar to the Hemingway’s classic The Very Short Story consisting of up to 750 words. However, the flash fiction later reconfigured to include all short-short stories comprising of 50-1500 words. This paper briefly overviews the evolution of the short story genre and reviews the delicate merger of the short story with the contemporary short-short story.


Keywords


Brevity; Short-story; Flash fiction; Matthew; Poe

Full Text:

PDF

References


Batchelor, K. E. (2012). In a flash: The digital age’s influence over literacy. In B. Batchelor (Ed.), Cult pop culture: From the fringe to the mainstream (pp.77-88). Westport, CT: Praeger.

Batchelor, K. E., & King, A. (2014). Freshmen and five hundred words: Investigating flash fiction as a genre for high school writing. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 58(2), 111-121.

Barenblat, R. (2005). Prose poems or microfiction? In Posse Review. Retrieved from http://www.webdelsol.com/InPosse/barenblat.htm

Baldwin, D. (1993). The tardy evolution of the British short story. Studies In Short Fiction, 30(1), 23.

Boyd, W. (2006, July 10). A short history of the short story. Prospect. Retrieved from http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/arts-and-books/william-boyd-short-history-of-the-short-story

Casto, P. (2015). Flashes on the meridian: Dazzled by flash fiction. Retrieved from http://www.writing-world.com/fiction/casto.shtml

Chambers, A. (2012). Sparks of fiction. Horn Book Magazine, 88(2), 55.

Ferguson, J. (2010). Border markers (Master’s thesis). Retrieved from http://scholar.uwindsor.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1009&context=etd

Goyet, F. (2014). The classic short story, 1870-1925: Theory of a genre. Cambridge U.K.: Open Book Publishers.

Guimaraes, J. F. (2009, August). The short-short story: The problem of literary genre. Paper presented at the International Symposium on Genre Studies, Caxias do Sul, Brazil. Retrieved from http://www.ucs.br/ucs/tplSiget/extensao/agenda/eventos/vsiget/portugues/anais/textos_autor/arquivos/the_short_short_story_the_problem_of_literary_genre.pdf

Guimaraes, J. F. (2012). The short-short story: A new literary genre. Strategic Book Publishing, Texas, TX.

Gurley, J. (2015). Flash what? A quick look at flash fiction. Retrieved from http://www.writing-world.com/fiction/flash.shtml

Matthew, B. (1901). The philosophy of the short-story. New York, NY: Longmans, Green, and Co. Retrieved from http://archive.org/stream/philosophyshort00mattgoog#page/n24/mode/2up

Matthews, B. (Ed.). (1907). The short-story: Specimens illustrating its development. New York, NY: American Book Company. Retrieved from www.bartleby.com/195/

Nelles, W. (2012). Microfiction: What makes a very short story very short? Narrative, 20(1), 87-104.

Patea, V. (Ed.). (2012). Short story theories: A twenty-first-century perspective. New York, NY: Rodopi.

Rohrberger, M. (2011). Origins, development, substance, and design of the short story: How I got hooked on the short story and where it led me. In P. Winther, J. Lothe, & H. Skei (Eds.), The art of brevity: Excursions in short fiction theory and analysis (pp.1-13). Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.

Santos, A. (2012). The paratactic structure in the Canterbury tales: Two antecedents of the modern short story. In V. Patea (Ed.), Short story theories: A twenty-first-century perspective (pp.25-48). New York, NY: Rodopi.

Shapard, R., & Thomas, J. (Eds.). (1986). Sudden fiction: American short-short stories. Salt Lake city: Peregrine Smith Books.

Shapard, R., & Thomas, J. (2007). New sudden fiction: short-short stories from America and beyond. New York, NY: W.W. Norton.

Shapard, R. (2012). The remarkable reinvention of very short fiction. World Literature Today, 86(5), 46-49.

Stanbrough, H. (2007). Sharpen your skills with flash fiction: Flash fiction is not only enjoyable to write, but a good learning tool for improving your work. Writer, 120(1), 34.

Thomas, J., & Shapard, R. (Eds.). (2006). Flash fiction forward: 80 very short stories. New York: Norton.

Trussler, M. (2014). Short story theories: A twenty-first-century perspective. English Studies in Canada, 40(2/3), 199-206.

Wallen, A. (2009, December). Flash-fiction masters offer tips on the form. [Review of the book The rose metal press field guide to writing flash fiction: Tips from editors, teachers, and writers in the field edited by Masih, T.]. Writer, 122(12).

Winther, P., Lothe, J., & Skei, H. H. (2011). The art of brevity: Excursions in short fiction theory and analysis. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/7962

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.


Copyright (c) 2016 Studies in Literature and Language

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Share us to:   

 

Online Submission: http://cscanada.org/index.php/sll/submission/wizard


Reminder

How to do online submission to another Journal?

If you have already registered in Journal A, then how can you submit another article to Journal B? It takes two steps to make it happen:

1. Register yourself in Journal B as an Author

Find the journal you want to submit to in CATEGORIES, click on “VIEW JOURNAL”, “Online Submissions”, “GO TO LOGIN” and “Edit My Profile”. Check “Author” on the “Edit Profile” page, then “Save”.

2. Submission

Go to “User Home”, and click on “Author” under the name of Journal B. You may start a New Submission by clicking on “CLICK HERE”.


We only use three mailboxes as follows to deal with issues about paper acceptance, payment and submission of electronic versions of our journals to databases: caooc@hotmail.com; sll@cscanada.net; sll@cscanada.org

 Articles published in Studies in Literature and Language are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY).

 STUDIES IN LITERATURE AND LANGUAGE Editorial Office

Address: 1055 Rue Lucien-L'Allier, Unit #772, Montreal, QC H3G 3C4, Canada.
Telephone: 1-514-558 6138 
Website: Http://www.cscanada.net; Http://www.cscanada.org 
E-mail: office@cscanada.net; office@cscanada.org; caooc@hotmail.com

Copyright © 2010 Canadian Academy of Oriental and Occidental Culture