I never met a short story I liked back in high school.
If I was going to read, I wanted to READ.
I wanted to get caught up in the plot, get to know the characters, inhabit the action, spend some time in another world.
I certainly didn’t want to finish half an hour after I began. No matter how lovely the language or innovative the miniature plot. My eyes just drifted over short story sections at bookstores and libraries like they weren’t there, and I honestly can’t remember the name of a single story I read in high school that has stayed with me.
I know, I know, I should start my podcast with a more chipper intro. But here’s the thing – I’ve got a new take on the world of short stories. Yes, I could talk to you about the stunning language of Hemingway short stories I discovered in grad school. (Here’s looking at you, “Hills like White Elephants”). Or I could share Ursula LeGuin’s unique Giver-in-miniature, Those Who Walk Away from Omelas (though you might have a little trouble keeping everyone serious during the paragraph about orgies). I could even dig into Poe, that intriguingly murky figure, with his loveably creepy Raven, and how well he lends himself to escape rooms.
But I’ve shared about popular classic short stories before. And reviewed popular contemporary collections for teens too. Even given you a walkthrough of designing an escape room for Poe.
Today, my aim is a bit different. As Camp Creative: Your Shiny New Short Story Toolbox, my summer Pd session gets closer (you can join us free here), I’ve been thinking a lot about different takes on the short story. Flash stories, audio stories, verse stories, graphic stories, multigenre stories. What if we added THESE to our short story toolbox?
There’s More to Short Stories than Short Story Anthologies
Let’s start with the idea that we can pull “short” stories from everywhere. An online magazine, the Humans of New York collection, a piece of a graphic novel, an audio podcast. When we start to think outside the anthology, it’s easier to find a range of topics, moods, and genres.
Maybe your student would like to compare a graphic, verse, and text short story, and think about how each one uses elements of its genre to carry the narrative differently.
Maybe they’d like to listen to an audio story with sound effects, and consider how to write and record stories of their own.
Maybe they’d enjoy creating multigenre short stories, with bits of text, graphic panels, audio, video, verse, and more all available as vehicles for their storytelling.
Short stories can play such a helpful role in rounding out units, allowing you to bring in more voices, more angles on an essential question, more types of writing. When you start considering adding multiple genres and multimedia formats in combination with your classic and contemporary short story options, you suddenly find yourself with a richer palette of options.
Go Tiny at Times
The last genre I want to bring up when it comes to short stories is the super-short story.
The Tiny Story.
Whether you explore 6 word memoirs, flash fiction, or even flash verse, bringing in miniature stories to read and write is another great product of thinking bigger (and smaller) about short stories.
Telling a story in just six words is such an intriguing challenge.
Re-writing a story down to a few stanzas is another.
Maybe then you add an audio element, getting students to record their six word memoirs or flash verse stories and mix them together by theme or to create contrast.
Or a graphic element, having students mash up their story in words with color, imagery, illustration, or storytelling panels.
I think you See what I’m Getting At
OK, we’re going to be exploring so much of this in Camp Creative soon! From classics to contemporary, graphic to verse, flash to tiny, we’ll be experimenting with short stories from as many angles as we can. Don’t forget, you can join us right here!
