Mastering the Art of Short Stories

📋 Course Outline

1. Defining features and publication contexts of the short story genre
2. Edgar Allan Poe’s theory of unity and brevity in short stories
3. Narrative elements: plot, structure, suggestion, and implicit meaning
4. Variations in short story length and effects of brevity
5. Types and structures of short story collections and sequences
6. Analytical tools for reading and interpreting short stories
7. Historical development and major trends in the short story genre
8. Short stories as a genre for marginalized voices and contemporary themes

📖 1. Defining features and publication contexts of the short story genre

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Short story : A hybrid literary form that shares features with the novel such as characters, plot, space, and time, but is usually short, unified, and compressed; it is written in prose, fictional, and often published in magazines, collections by one author, or thematic anthologies.

📝 Essential Points