Anna Staniszewski

We’re looking at short stories in my writing class this week and as I’ve been going through and reading some, it occurred to me that I used to read and write short stories constantly when I was younger. All the way through college I wrote short stories, and I even wrote one or two in grad school. But it’s been years since I worked on one and it made me wonder why.

One explanation could be that I’ve had some “novel-worthy” ideas in past years, so I’ve been working on longer pieces instead. Also, I really haven’t read much in the way of short stories recently. I used to read them quite a bit, but now I primarily read children’s literature, where you get the occasional YA anthology and that’s it.

It’s almost like short stories were a phase I had to go through on my way to writing novels, but I don’t want that to sound as if stories aren’t a legitimate genre in themselves. When I read a successful short story, it always amazes me. How does the author get so much meaning into so few pages? In that sense, I guess, short stories remind me of picture books. People assume that both are easy to write, but in fact they’re extremely difficult to write well.

That makes me think of a list by Kurt Vonnegut from Bagombo Snuff Box on the rules of short stories. Not only is it useful, it’s also hilarious.

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.

3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.

4. Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.*

5. Start as close to the end as possible.

6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of.

7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.

8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.