By Hu Wo (Cuckoo’s Song)
IT is only human nature to know about others, and I think it is one of the potential reasons why people willingly read short stories today. As we all probably know, short stories often tell many universal truths about life. To say so, the short story usually comprises a series of life events of interest. Hence, short stories are still being accepted and read until now besides the fact that their golden age had existed in the world of literature. Also, writers from all parts of the globe have been studying and composing short stories much more widely. This article is all about short stories with my intention of becoming an avid reader of short stories.
I T is only human nature to know about others, and I think it is one of the potential reasons why people willingly read short stories today. As we all probably know, short stories often tell many universal truths about life. To say so, the short story usually comprises a series of life events of interest. Hence, short stories are still being accepted and read until now besides the fact that their golden age had existed in the world of literature. Also, writers from all parts of the globe have been studying and composing short stories much more widely. This article is all about short stories with my intention of becoming an avid reader of short stories.
Basically, there are two types of short story that can be classified in terms of writing and subject matter: descriptive, informative short stories, and imaginative, uninformative short stories. Nonetheless, it cannot be denied that any type of short story is not free from imagination and information; descriptive stories contain realistic or logical imagination, that is, some truth about life as the saying goes that truth is stranger than fiction, whereas imaginative stories involve hypothetical imagination. Whatever type of short story it is, story readers will most likely get any information or pleasure at least from short stories whether they are descriptive or imaginative. Nevertheless, care should be taken that most life-describing short stories are ranked a nation’s literature while those short stories based on imagination only are writing pieces of just entertainment. Short stories might be closely linked to sci-fi, mysteries, fantasies, romances, fables, myths, fairy tales, folktales, and tall tales.
According to Longman Advanced American Dictionary, there can be found eight key characteristics which happen in a short story: 1) story, 2) plot, 3) action, 4) narrative, 5) conflict, 6) climax, 7) ending, and 8) resolution. A story is simply the things that happen in a short story. But a good story can make an excellent short story except that some short story writers do not try to rely on good stories. It is noticeable that not everything that happens is a story; the story must include at least one of the three cases _ 1) reversing a purpose, 2) getting to know something, or 3) anything unexpected becoming to happen. A plot is the events that happen in a short story, and the way in which these events are connected. In almost all short stories, writers tend to compose a single plot very capably. Action is the events that happen and the things the characters do in a story. Here, the characters in a short story with too much action may look like hand puppets. A narrative is the description of a series of events that happen in a short story. Some story writers like to beckon their target audiences to read stories from beginning to end with a clever sequence of the narrative. A conflict is an issue or problem in a story, which the story is about. That should be either an interpersonal conflict or an intrapersonal one. A climax is the most exciting or important part of a story, which usually comes near the end. It turns out to come after the plot thickens. An ending is the things that happen at the end of a short story. The ending ought to be critical or logical by down-toearth situations, to be said more exactly, sad, happy or humorous. A resolution is part of a story after the climax when the conflict is solved. This is the life of detective stories, as Sayagyi Shwe Ou Daung said, for the simple reason that the other parts of a detective story can be created with one’s eyes shut, but it might be completely meaningless if a poor or unreasonable resolution is carried over there.
A first reader of short stories should have got to learn how to read a short story. As mentioned above, the meaning, types, and characteristics of a short story must have been known at first. Short story readers had better not take up merely short stories for pleasure; after a certain extent of these short stories, they can read life descriptive ones. Short stories are sometimes like windows on the world so that they enable us readers to see many truths about life. When we read short stories, we must not look forward to unreasoning or illogical endings in connection with the subject matter written in the stories, particularly happy endings. In other words, we must find out an ending that vastly corresponds with the characters and events in the story. We will even have to watch what a character does or says or thinks, and what is done or said or thought about him or her by others. We still need to try thinking of what life seems like in a different place under different backgrounds and circumstances from ours. A person who reads short stories must have had objective thinking on story matter rather than subjective thinking.
As always, the writer’s hand is behind the story by arranging events, causing things to happen, and beckoning the reader to the end. A skilful reader comes to recognize in a little while the clever ways in which a story is created. Most importantly, after we have read short stories, we are likely to ask ourselves two questions unconsciously. The first question is whether we were surprised at the ending of a short story. There is no denying the fact that not all stories have a surprise ending. A good writer gives his readers hints as to the outcome of a story that a nice reader promptly recognizes. As a result, the reader half expects an ending to the story before it is reached. So, we do not have to hunt for a surprise ending of a short story on purpose. The second question is whether the ending satisfied us. Really, life is not made up of happy endings only by any means for which fiction is a reflection of life sometimes. Thus, we do not need to seek out a happy ending that is not mostly a large part of modern literature. Instead, what we had better do is to explore an ending which is true to the characters and events in a story. And then, we will enjoy reading short stories for sure.
As always, the writer’s hand is behind the story by arranging events, causing things to happen, and beckoning the reader to the end. A skilful reader comes to recognize in a little while the clever ways in which a story is created. Most importantly, after we have read short stories, we are likely to ask ourselves two questions unconsciously. The first question is whether we were surprised at the ending of a short story. There is no denying the fact that not all stories have a surprise ending. A good writer gives his readers hints as to the outcome of a story that a nice reader promptly recognizes. As a result, the reader half expects an ending to the story before it is reached. So, we do not have to hunt for a surprise ending of a short story on purpose. The second question is whether the ending satisfied us. Really, life is not made up of happy endings only by any means for which fiction is a reflection of life sometimes. Thus, we do not need to seek out a happy ending that is not mostly a large part of modern literature. Instead, what we had better do is to explore an ending which is true to the characters and events in a story. And then, we will enjoy reading short stories for sure.
