1. THE SHORT STORY Literary genre Fictional narrative prose

2. ORIGINS EARLY PRECURSORS: Anecdotes Parables Fables Folk tales Fairy tales

3. Roots in oral tradition Emerged as a genre in the early 19 th century Edgar Allan Poe’s Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1839) and Nathaniel Hawthorne’sTwice Told Tales (1842) were early collections of short stories

4. The growth of print magazines and journals in the late 19 th century created a strong market demand for short fiction between 3,000 and 15,000 words in length, esp. in the United States American literary form (arguable)

5. CHARACTERISTICS Single incident Single plot Single setting Few characters A short period of time Character experiences an epiphany

6. May or may not follow dramatic structure

7. Exact characteristics depend on author Realistic Read in one sitting No less than 1000 words No longer than 20,000 words