Art is Long but The
Story is Short
The short story has
not been defined precisely in the lower limit of word count. The Novel is over 40000 words, Novella is 17500 to
40000 words, Novelette is 7500 to 17500 words and a short story is less than
7500 words.
There is a myth
that Earnest Hemingway wrote Eight Word shortest story of the world.
For Sale: baby
shoes, never worn.
Augusto Monterroso is a Guatemalan short story writer
best known for his 8-word story titled “El Dinosaurio”:
When I woke up, the dinosaur was still there.
The famous story of two strangers travelling in a train.
One asked “Do you believe in ghost?”
“No, ” said the other, and disappeared.
The title of the smallest book in the world is “Who
rules the world?” And it is said that it has only one page with one word
written on it “Money”.
The “Chicken soup for the soul” series is a compilation
of many motivational and inspirational stories.
William Shakespeare
in Hamlet says “Brevity is the soul of wit”.
Art of brevity is the soul of Twitter also. To express
oneself shortly and precisely is the theme of the world. People skip the pages
filled with long narration even when they read voluminous classical novels.
William Strunk’s “The
Elements of Style” a writing manual is popular because of its brevity.
Stephen King in
his second forward of “On Writing” admits “shorter the book, the less the
bullshit” and in third forward says “to write is human, to edit is divine”.
A short story has a fully developed theme. "TheAccident" is a wonderful story written by Bhisham Sahni.
The protagonist is a young woman who is engrossed in
conversation with her friend. She missed the saag meat cooked by her servant
Jagga, so she narrates his story to her friend. The young wife of Jagga was
seduced by the younger brother of her husband. When Jagga comes to know about it,
he commits suicide. The husband of protagonist settles police, widow and other
relatives of Jagga amicably. Shockingly, he knew that his younger brother was
having an illicit relationship with the wife of Jagga. He defended the evil act
of his younger brother by saying to his wife “In youth everyone sows his wild
oats and so did Vikki”.
The story is a satirical tragedy. Despite the depressive
end of Jagga the story is full of humor. The chauvinistic male in Indian
society is insensitive and callous to a great extent. Women do not despise such
man. On the contrary, they praise it as manly quality. When her husband gives
money to Jagga’s wife and father to compensate his own guilt, she says “It’s
all over and done with, what’s the point in squandering money like this?” The
reader is baffled by the meanness of husband and wife.
It shows a middle class bourgeois tendency to exploit
the labor class of society.
© Vipin
Behari Goyal
Advocate,
Rajasthan High Court, Jodhpur, India
Very interesting, and I notice it is brief as well.
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