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Eight Essential Attributes of the Short Story and One Way It Differs from the Novel

by Joy Williams, September 2, 2015 12:02 PM
1) There should be a clean clear surface with much disturbance below.

2) An anagogical level.

3) Sentences that can stand strikingly alone.

4) An animal within to give its blessing.

5) Interior voices which are or become wildly erratically exterior.

6) A novel wants to befriend you, a short story almost never.

7) Control is necessary throughout. Constraints allow the short story to thrive.

8) The story's effect should utterly transcend the naturalness and accessibility of its situation and language.

9) A certain coldness is required in execution. It is not a form that gives itself to consolation but if consolation is offered it should come from an unexpected quarter.




Books mentioned in this post

The Visiting Privilege: New & Collected Stories

Joy Williams
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4 Responses to "Eight Essential Attributes of the Short Story and One Way It Differs from the Novel"

Rosemary Ludway March 12, 2016 at 06:59 AM
Joy Williams' Eight (9?) essential attributes of the short story...reverberate strongly with my impressions of her stories, and also of Margaret Atwood's- especially "Stone Mattress." These stories are compelling, foreign, familiar and disturbing, all at once. After reading one story I thought "People do not behave in such a peculiar manner", but then I read the local news and had to change my thinking.

Alex Milbank December 30, 2015 at 10:09 AM
I don't understand these at all. I'm a bit surprised, in fact, by how little I understand these essential attributes. I've only been writing short stories for about four years, so perhaps it's a lack of experience on my part.

rudy wilson September 18, 2015 at 04:11 PM
HEY!!! I know/knew both these ppl.....I agree in general with Joy...but we all have our special ways,,,,and my best to Gary!!!!!!seeya Rudy Wilson --hey newest book, SHINY...available.... TY!!!! cya

Gary L. Fisketjon September 18, 2015 at 09:37 AM
Rules to write by, and to live by. That THE VISITING PRIVILEGE and Jim Shepard's THE BOOK OF ARON aren't at the top of the NBA fiction longlist beggars comprehension.

Result(s) 4

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