The Short Story for Absolute Beginners

In 1842, Edgar Allan Poe said of the short story: “The unity of effect or impression is a point of the greatest importance... [and] cannot be thoroughly preserved in productions whose perusal cannot be completed at one sitting.” In other words, the short story attains its dramatic power mainly by being short.

In this introductory course, we’ll explore how and why that works.

We’ll read exemplary stories by contemporary masters.

We’ll talk about inference-making, world-building, and foreshadowing; about John Gardner’s “profluence,” James Joyce’s “epiphany,” Jerome Stern’s “shapes of fiction”; about conflict, crisis, tension, and closure.

You’ll complete a series of exercises that work toward conceiving and writing your own short story.

Discussion will be supportive and respectful, exploratory and generative rather than prescriptive.

The goal is not necessarily to finish your story, but rather to gain an understanding of the fundamental elements that shape all stories, enriching your reading and writing practice beyond this course.