Short Story Writing | Page 3

a paragraph, and, with that for the meat of his
story, weaves around it details, descriptions and dialogue, until a
complete story is the result. Now, a story is something more than
incidents and descriptions. It is a definite thing. It progresses constantly.
It arrives somewhere. It must enforce some idea (no matter what). It
must be such a reality that a man who read it would carry away a
definite impression."[3]
It is evident, then, that the term short story is properly used only when
it means a short prose narrative, which presents artistically a bit of real
life; the primary object of which is to amuse, though it may also depict
a character, plead a cause, or point a moral; this amusement is neither
of that æsthetic order which we derive from poetry, nor of that cheap
sort which we gain from a broad burlesque: it is the simple yet
intellectual pleasure derived from listening to a well told narrative.
The first requisite of a short story is that the writer have a story to
tell--that is, a plot. He may present pretty scenes and word pictures if he
will, but he must vivify and humanize them by the introduction of
certain characters, patterned after the people of real life; and these
characters must move and act and live. The presentation of "still life"
pure and simple is not in the province of the short story.
The question of length is but relative; in general a short story should
not exceed 10,000 words, and it could hardly contain less than 1,000;
while from 3,000 to 5,000 is the most usual length. Yet Hawthorne's
"The Gentle Boy" contains 12,000 words; Poe's "The Gold Bug,"
13,000; and perhaps the majority of James' exceed the maximum, while
"The Lesson of the Master" requires 25,000, and "The Aspern Papers"
32,000. Indeed, the length of any story is determined, not so much by
some arbitrary word limit, as by the theme with which it deals. Every
plot requires a certain number of words for its proper elaboration, and
neither more nor less will do. Just what the limit for any particular story
may be, the writer must decide for himself. "It seems to me that a short
story writer should act, metaphorically, like this--he should put his idea

for a story into one cup of a pair of balances, then into the other he
should deal out his words; five hundred; a thousand; two thousand;
three thousand; as the case may be--and when the number of words
thus paid in causes the beam to rise, on which his idea hangs, then is
his story finished. If he puts in a word more or less, he is doing false
work."[4]
The short story does not need the love element that is generally
considered necessary to the novel, and many short stories disregard it
altogether. Love usually requires time and moods and varying scenes
for its normal development, so that it is difficult to treat it properly
within the limits of the short story; and then only when some particular
phase or scene admits of isolation. Then, too, many short stories are
merely accounts of strange adventures, wonderful discoveries or
inventions, and queer occurrences of all sorts--themes which amuse us
from their mere oddity; or they are verbal photographs of life, which
are interesting from their views of psychological and sociological
problems; and none of them requires love as the chief motive.
Ingenuity and originality, the principal constituents of such tales, are
the story teller's great virtues; on them he bases his hopes. Therefore,
he must have strong individuality, and the power of forcing his readers
to view life through his eyes, without perceiving him.
Also, and as if to compensate for the lack of the love interest, the short
story has a "touch of fantasy" which gives it a distinctive charm. This
quality is the hint of--not necessarily the supernatural, but rather the
weird; it is a recognition and a vague presentation of the many strong
influences that are not explainable by our philosophy of life. It is the
intrusion into our matter-of-fact lives of the uncanny element, which
the novice so grossly misuses in his tales of premonitory dreams and
visions, and of most unghostly ghosts. "It is not enough to catch a ghost
white-handed and to hale him into the full glare of the electric light. A
brutal misuse of the supernatural is perhaps the very lowest degradation
of the art of fiction. But 'to mingle the marvellous rather as a slight,
delicate, and evanescent flavor than as any actual portion of the
substance,' to quote from the preface to the 'House of the Seven
Gables,' this is, or should be, the aim of the writer of short-stories

whenever his feet leave the firm