Short Stories
SCIENCE FICTION
'Child's Play' by Stewart Storrar
HORROR
'Love Thy Neighbour' by Stewart Storrar
'The Arcane Mandate' by Stewart Storrar
FANTASY
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FICTION
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Background of Short Stories
Short stories began long before humans knew how to write, or even formed
the basis of our written languages. It is understood that for the longest time,
short stories were told from generation to generation via word of mouth, to
warn, remember, mourn, and live. Storytelling and the life of legends than span
centuries can all be traced back (generally speaking) before written
communication was established.
While some of the best short stories can be dated back to the times of
Ancient Greece much like flash fiction can, the literature type was
historically not given much merit or even regarded as a type before the 19th
century. Expanding from this it was around the mid 20th century that short
stories were given critical attention and regarded as an established type of
literature (Britannica, 2020). Distinctly, they range anywhere from 1,000 words
up towards 7,000 words before they evolve into other literature types such as
novellas and novelettes (SFWA Awards, 2020). What is unique about them is their
focus on a particular theme with few characters that evolve to a natural
conclusion, in essence, a small compact novel. In contrast, shorter fiction
tends to focus on a snippet of a story or person's life to convey a theme
through a microcosm.
The oldest records for written literature that follows similar patterns
to that of the modern day short story trace back to the 2nd millennium BCE with
cuniform inscribed clay from the Babylonians and Canaanites. These first
stories were written in a verse method but follow a very similar structure to
that of our modern stories today. Other old records of written literature come
from Egypt with stories written on Papyrus at around the same time as the
Babylonian and Canaanite stories, with stories from Ancient India and Ancient
Greece emerging around 1,000 BCE to 100 BCE; stories like Panchatantra by the
Indians and The Shipwrecked Sailor by the Egyptians.
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