Some Short Stories Worth Your While

Yesterday I was inside a big book store and didn’t buy a single book, and saw only one that interested me. But I’ll wait till it’s on sale and get on with the present reading. It was a biography of author Roald Dahl.

Some of my students got assigned to read a short story of his, a near-perfect story, according to the “rules” for writing short stories. That story is “Beware of the Dog,” a World War II tale. It also made a movie, but for American audiences, who generally don’t know French, the sign in a yard, warning about the dog, was omitted. Instead, the Angelus rang when the protagonist knew it shouldn’t ring. By that he knew he was not in England, but in the hands of the enemy. Well, by that, and by a few other indications.

This story by (Chocolate Factory) Dahl and Jack London’s great “To Build a Fire,” are my choices for the best short stories I’ve ever read. Two others I would like to point out with the same praise. The Englishman Somerset Maugham’s “Mr. Know-All” and the Frenchman Guy de Maupassant’s “A String of Pearls.” [I’m not dead sure about that last title. It might be “The Necklace.” I don’t seem to have any longer a book containing it. I give books away and sometimes regret it, but only momentarily.]

Why are these stories great? For one thing, they are lean, cut right to the bone, no wordy flesh, especially the first three mentioned. They have few characters, one of them only one character, plus a dog. They radiate suspense to the last sentence, though none is a murder story. They all work out in the plot analysis chart for short stories. Imaginative powers super-shine and excellent character study abounds, where suitable. Settings don’t get in the way, but what’s there seems necessary and accurate. And then the stories are short.

If you want to write short stories, you’d do well to study these four.

♥