Short Story Expansion
Defining a short story can be difficult, there does not seem to be any particular formula. Without a concrete formula can a short story, therefore be limited because of its brevity? Upon reading the selections this semester from our text, it is my opinion that short stories can be expanded on. (Gwynn) Although short stories are written and drawn from a single situation or incident, there beneath the short story lies a vast volume waiting to be written. I am of the persuasion that just as a short story can expand and burgeon into a novel can also be condensed.
As I write this essay to defend Flannery O’Connor’s statement “A story that is good can’t be reproduced, it can only be expanded” I recall a magazine that was …show more content…
However, to this reader what a good short story can do is to innervate the imagination of the reader so not only to draw them into the story but cause them to wonder what else is not being told. The author of a good short story knows this and writes so that a “back story” can be told within that short story. Perhaps the short story can be likened to a One-Act Play. A short story can be considered a chapter in a whole story of that character’s life. After all, the character did not just arrive at that moment in time being written about and then cease to exist once the story was finished. Short stories like the one from our lesson last week referenced by Charles E. May “An Episode of War” by Stephen Crane absolutely can be expanded upon. This story recounts just one soldier’s incident or moment within an entire war.
Let us consider what was said in May’s article “The Unique Effect of The Short Story” by Cassirer,
“It is as though the isolated occurrence of an impression, its separation from the totality of ordinary, commonplace experience produced not only a tremendous intensification, but also the highest degree of condensation, and as though by virtue of this condensation the objective for of the god were created so that it veritably burst forth from the experience”
Clearly it can be deduced that without question, that intent of the short story, in my opinion is to present just an episode of an entire story, or potential novel as it were and present just one or two character’s “singularly lighted” event.
Defining a short story can be difficult, there does not seem to be any particular formula. Without a concrete formula can a short story, therefore be limited because of its brevity? Upon reading the selections this semester from our text, it is my opinion that short stories can be expanded on. (Gwynn) Although short stories are written and drawn from a single situation or incident, there beneath the short story lies a vast volume waiting to be written. I am of the persuasion that just as a short story can expand and burgeon into a novel can also be condensed.
As I write this essay to defend Flannery O’Connor’s statement “A story that is good can’t be reproduced, it can only be expanded” I recall a magazine that was …show more content…
However, to this reader what a good short story can do is to innervate the imagination of the reader so not only to draw them into the story but cause them to wonder what else is not being told. The author of a good short story knows this and writes so that a “back story” can be told within that short story. Perhaps the short story can be likened to a One-Act Play. A short story can be considered a chapter in a whole story of that character’s life. After all, the character did not just arrive at that moment in time being written about and then cease to exist once the story was finished. Short stories like the one from our lesson last week referenced by Charles E. May “An Episode of War” by Stephen Crane absolutely can be expanded upon. This story recounts just one soldier’s incident or moment within an entire war.
Let us consider what was said in May’s article “The Unique Effect of The Short Story” by Cassirer,
“It is as though the isolated occurrence of an impression, its separation from the totality of ordinary, commonplace experience produced not only a tremendous intensification, but also the highest degree of condensation, and as though by virtue of this condensation the objective for of the god were created so that it veritably burst forth from the experience”
Clearly it can be deduced that without question, that intent of the short story, in my opinion is to present just an episode of an entire story, or potential novel as it were and present just one or two character’s “singularly lighted” event.