The definition of a short story

I am a writer. I write stories. They generally fit into the science fiction genre. That sounds pretty simple, right? No leeway or anything. Before you read any of my stuff, you probably have a pretty good idea of ​​what you’re getting yourself into. In general, one would expect my stories to be prose fiction and between 1,500 and 7,500 words long. But what if that’s not what you have?

A few months ago, I wrote a story that was meant to read like an interview transcript. It looked like a script with dialogue and a short description similar to a “stage direction” in [brackets]. It was not prose. It was indeed a script. But was it a short story? I think most people would agree that it was. It wasn’t a very good story, but that’s beside the point.

The point is that you can play around with the shape a bit in a short story. You probably won’t have much luck trying to sell a 400 page book. foreground experimental novel, but you might find a magazine willing to print a few thousand crazy words that the editor thinks pass for ‘artistic’ writing. So yes, there is a bit of leeway to that side of the short story definition.

What about the word count? The range I gave, 1500-7500 words, is by no means standard. At the low end, someone somewhere will argue that her story is ‘flash fiction’. At the high end, you start to get into the gray area of ​​a novella. What really counts is what your publisher says. If you’re trying to get a story published in a magazine that defines a short story as 1000-5000 words, then that’s what a short story is. You have no voice. But still, different magazines have different standards. So again, leeway.

I think the best way to define a short story is by what it DOES rather than what it IS. what do I want to say with that? I will explain it as a story.

At Christmas my father in law was talking about his recent trip to Spain where he stayed with an old friend/colleague. While they were there, they talked a bit about the definition of an essay. The friend defined a trial as ‘an attempt’. An essay, in this definition, is an attempt to explain, express or convince. I love this definition. It’s concise and to the point and completely perfect.

The concise, precise and perfect definition that I have come up with for a short story is AN IDEA WITH CONSEQUENCES. A short story should start with a single idea and explore it in some way. You shouldn’t delve too much into the characters, plot, or setting. You need to focus on a single idea and the consequences of that idea.

Some time ago I had an idea: What if spontaneous genetic duplicates of humans start to appear? Put another way, what if you were walking down the street one day and you came across your clone, someone with identical DNA who was completely unrelated to you, someone who had turned out to be just like you as a completely random biological event?

So that’s my idea. Now what are the consequences? What would a reality like that mean for politics, religion, science, and basic human interaction?

I could probably turn this idea into a novel by adding compelling characters, a gripping plot, and a dynamic setting, but that doesn’t interest me right now. Right now I want to write stories. I have an idea, and I’m going to explore it. If the tale is successful (as a story, not commercially), maybe I’ll develop it further. But first, I need to see if it works on a small scale. I guess a short story, like an essay, is really just an attempt. Go try something.