On a Winter’s Night, by Kate DiCamillo Read it here in less than 10 minutes. Thinking about why I love it… I love metafiction, so the opening sentence – ‘My father told me this story.’ – immediately entices me; it makes me think, ‘Yes! Tell me the story! I want to hear it!’. This first sentenceContinue reading “A short story I recently read”
Category Archives: Short story analysis
A short story I recently read
The Great Silence, by Ted Chiang Read it here in less than 10 minutes. Thinking about why I love it… There aren’t nearly enough stories featuring sentient animals, let alone narrated by them; this story is narrated by an unnamed parrot, who speaks eloquently on behalf of the entire parrot collective (‘We’re a nonhuman speciesContinue reading “A short story I recently read”
A short story I recently read
The Monster, by Ali Simpson Read it here in 10 minutes. Thinking about why I love it… The first sentence hooked me – ‘LAURA WAS BECOMING UNSURE ABOUT WHAT TO DO with the monster in her closet’ – firstly, I’m intrigued by the idea of an actual monster being in a closet, rather than theContinue reading “A short story I recently read”
A short story I recently read
‘Heat’, by Joyce Carol Oates Read it here in about 20 minutes. Thinking about why I love it… The story builds up in layers, right from the very first paragraph, adding detail as it moves forward. So, you’re given information about the time of year, the place, the twins, the fact they’re dead… Then, moreContinue reading “A short story I recently read”
A short story I recently read
Kaleidoscope by Ray Bradbury Read it here in about 10 minutes. Thinking about why I love it… The opening paragraph is a mixture of metaphors (‘can opener’ / ‘silverfish’ / ‘sea’ / ‘meteor swarm’), which shouldn’t work, and writers are told not to mix metaphors because of this, but it does work, because it perfectlyContinue reading “A short story I recently read”
A short story I recently read
Menace, by Monika Radojevic Read it here in about 10 minutes. Thinking about why I love it… I love the way the narrator talks, and how they operate within the story. Right from the opening paragraph, the omniscient narrator tells us that something significant and strange has happened, but that no one has realised –Continue reading “A short story I recently read”
A short story I recently read
Natalya by Puloma Ghosh Read it here in about 10 minutes. Thinking about why I love it… I love that this short story takes the form of a medical examiner report, with subheadings throughout. I don’t know what a real medical examiner report would look like, but the subheadings here make sense in the orderContinue reading “A short story I recently read”
A short story I recently read
The Quiet Boy, by Nick Antosca Read it here, in about 30 minutes. Thinking about why I love it… I love the use of metafiction: it’s a story with stories in it, and one of those stories sets off the action. The story in question, the grammatically inaccurate The Three Wolfs, written by student Lucas,Continue reading “A short story I recently read”
A short story I recently read
There are Ghosts Here, by Dominique Dickey Read it here in about 15 minutes. Thinking about why I love it… I love the mysteriousness of this story – so much is not told to the reader, for example we are informed by the narrator that Leo ‘disappeared’, then ‘Across the city, Leo was dying’, thenContinue reading “A short story I recently read”
A short story I recently read
Every Ghost Story, by Natalia Theodoridou Read it here in about half an hour. Thinking about why I love it… I love the concept: something unknown has happened in the universe, and now most of us can see ghosts, but those ghosts all look like something out of 19th century spirit photography – white shrouds,Continue reading “A short story I recently read”
Mina Ma 