Short story structure

[Hex]

With a short story, you tend to just have one problem to solve.

The best way to discuss this though, would be to throw up some short story examples.

We kind of did that with TJ's story, but I still find it difficult to detect that structure in everything I read. Honestly, I'm not sure it works for me to think about it in such a prescriptive way. Everyone approaches these things differently, though. And maybe if I get serious about being published I'll need to change my mind!

 

[Venusian Broon]

To answer the original question, I don't believe there are a set of rules that govern the structure of short stories.

The only (universal) set of rules I'd use - and is applicable for all stories/novels is:

1) Set up tension
2) Resolve

There, not much use, just states the obvious!

There can be many reasons for employing 'standardised' structure in plotting - it can help the author's creativity, it can guide a readers expectations etc... but for every structure you throw at me, I'm sure I can find an excellent short that the structure just doesn't fit.

The first short that came to mind when I was reading this thread was Jorge Luis Borges' The House of Asterion. Far too easy to put spoilers in regarding what's it about - if you don't have it to hand I found this not-very-good-to-look-at version on the internet: http://ddm.ace.ed.ac.uk/project-files/Asterion/story.html

It's very short, try and avoid looking at the final sentence when scrolling down

 

[goldhawk]

The story that got crittered was about a slave (I put the intro in critiques here), who doesn't start acting on his own decisions until fairly late in the story. That made applying the structure as presented by the critter not entirely straightforward.

Not having read your story, this is only a shot in the dark, but do you build the tension throughout the story? Does the slave have an internal conflict which prevents him from acting? Is it something an average person can identify with?

All stories, not just shorts, need to build the tension throughout or your readers may decide it's too boring to continue.

Asking anonymous people (who perhaps enjoy ripping apart other writers' work) seems a little risky to me. I think I would look for someone I really trust for critiques.

I find that sites like critters shows me what an editor hmay think of a story. Some of them have just as strange ideas about stories as do writers.

To answer the original question, I don't believe there are a set of rules that govern the structure of short stories.

The only (universal) set of rules I'd use - and is applicable for all stories/novels is:

1) Set up tension
2) Resolve

There, not much use, just states the obvious!

This is similar to what David Farland says in Why People Read.

 

[Venusian Broon]

oh, I should have said that the short story I mentioned does not have the structure that is described originally - or if you think it does then you'd have to really stretch the definitions of the rules to make it fit.

And I can't figure out how to re-edit old posts

 

[The Judge]

And I can't figure out how to re-edit old posts

You can't -- once the editing window (an hour, we think) has closed, that's it. So all mistakes remain there, grinning manically forever... Except if one becomes a mod, since we wipe the errors' smiles off their dastardly faces in our own posts, so as order to maintain our aura of infallibility *cough, cough*

 

[Hex]

I like the freedom of setting up tension and resolving it. Sensible. Thanks!

And, Goldhawk -- the story was in two bits with different tensions building in different directions. It lacked a coherent overall structure. It was the first short story I'd written and I was trying to do all sorts of things at once, so it ended up unwieldy. The thing that worried me wasn't so much that that specific story needed structure (it really did), it was how tightly pre-defined short story structure had to be.

I like -- and can get my head round -- building tension throughout the story. Seeing it that way really works for me.

I've written several short stories since then and I'm happier with them (and so were the critters, which was nice) but I still find it difficult to detect the detailed structure I was given, even in the stuff I write.

ps: my mum told me that once upon a time in a land not so far from this one, inanimate objects didn't get a possessive apostrophe -- so it'd have been 'the clocks hands' or 'the errors smiles' -- I'd never heard that before.

ps: I loved the article by David Farland. Completely explains Dick Francis.

 

[iansales]

This is not true. I mentioned Kal Bashir above. He's gone through heaps of academy award winners and they all follow a structure, and they're all different.

You just need to go through each episode of Star Trek to see that each follows the same story structure yet each is a great episode and story in its own right.

And how is that relevant to written short stories?

 

[The Judge]

my mum told me that once upon a time in a land not so far from this one, inanimate objects didn't get a possessive apostrophe -- so it'd have been 'the clocks hands' or 'the errors smiles' -- I'd never heard that before.

That's a new on on me, too. Since the apostrophe is there for a reason, to show it's the hands of the specific individual clock, not those of a multiplicity of clocks, I'm not sure why the poor thing should be treated differently from a person or animal. Perhaps it's a reaction to the Greengrocers' Apostophe, and the danger of "Carrot's and Turnip's"?

 

[Ursa major]

That's definitely a "rule" that one should keep mum about, I think, Hex.

 

[Hex]

Let's spin wildly off topic (sorry).

I won't start using it, I promise. It was in the text books she used to teach English in the 1950s (so the books are probably from the 1920s). All I can find when I try -- not very hard -- to pursue it, is a suggestion that once upon a time people preferred 'the hands of the clock(s)'.

Anyway -- I like this (which I'd also never heard before):

Use of apostrophes with nouns ending -nce: if the noun makes a shushing nose (conscience, patience) then it does not need an extra s, so write "for insurance' sake"

(John McDermott Punctuation for Now, Macmillan 1990 p.93)

 

[Ursa major]

I'm sure I've heard at least one of those words (patience) spoken with an apostrophe-s on the end - "For patience's sake" - so it would be odd not to see it written that way in narrative.

Of course, Mr McDermott - should I mention his soul burning in hell (pedant-controlled section)? - says those words do not need the apostrophe-s, which strongly implies that there's nothing wrong with adding it.


As for the inanimate objects.... If one says, "Fred's boots", it's clear what is meant, i.e. the boots of Fred. While there may be occasions where there are two or more Freds, each of whose boots are to be included ("Freds' boots)", they won't be very frequent. Inanimate objects, by contrast, often come in numbers, so there could be confusion between "the clock's hands" and "the clocks' hands", a confusion entirely dispelled by the use of of: "the hands of the clock" and "the hands of the clocks".

 

[AMB]

Or you could say "the clock hands" and let the reader try to figure out if the clock is present, or just its hands.

 

[Brian G Turner]

I've removed a couple of posts which dealt with complaints about a third party writing service. My position is to take those specific complaints to the provider, and not to join chronicles just to post complaints about a service no one else has referenced before.

 

[J Riff]

Well, back to short stories then.
Poe was the guy perfected the SS 'formula' - but tisnt really a formula. It's more about the iceberg theory. Most of the story, or as much as possible, is out of sight, underwater, or implied rarther than stated.
This generally means a lot of research, and a lot of thought that may not show on the surface. A story like LOTR could be made into a 10K short story and be a real barn burner. Man finds ring; ring goes bad; fabulous quest ensues.