Short Stories

Since this forum is completely blank, I thought I'd add a topic to it. So...let's discuss short stories.

I personally love Edgar Allen Poe's stories; they just may be some of the scariest things that I have ever read. Particularly The Tell-Tale Heart; the narration was just so completly insane and spine-chilling!

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Sorry, but since I am a Koontz fan I have to mention Strange Highways. It's an entire book of short stories. There were even some in there that I actually liked. I never really was a fan of short stories. I like to dive right in to what I am reading and that is hard to do when you have to get out 3 pages later.

I'm also a fan of Edgar Allen Poe's short stories. Have any of you read The Scarlet Ibis by James Hurst (can be found on internet)? It's one I would also recommend.

My best friend started out a who-can-creep-out-the-other-the-most contest by having me read Guts by Chuck Palahniuk. (Seeing as I'm in vet med and can retaliate by greeting him with things like 'Hang on, I gotta check my sleeves for stray eyeballs, we're missing one," I'm winning by roughly five thousand points).

The story is the kind that makes you shudder, but it was good. I also really, really liked The Yellow Wallpaper, but only my twin out of everyone I know has read it (it's online guys, it's good).

Other than that, I really like retold fairy tales. Any retold fairy tales. The creepier the twist, the better. I have a couple of anthologies of these floating around somewhere, provided they're not lost in either the friend or family book circle at the moment.

I read the Yellow Wallpaper too! The ending really freaked me out. I liked the original Grimm's fairy tales. They were far more gruesome than the now cleaned up Disney versions.

I love Edgar Allan Poe but I'm also partial to Truman Capote's short stories. There's something about his characters that I absolutely love. My favorite continues to be Breakfast at Tiffany's, to the point where I'm starting to think the movie ruined the book.

denizenofevil wrote:

I read the Yellow Wallpaper too! The ending really freaked me out. I liked the original Grimm's fairy tales. They were far more gruesome than the now cleaned up Disney versions.

I laughed at the end, but my twin informs me that this is because I am a horrible person. (Med school has warped my sense of humour all out of recognition. When you know people that laugh at cryptorchid jokes you have probably hit the wall as far as strange,dark humour goes).

I wish Disney had never gotten its hands on any fairy tales at all. I liked a lot of Disney movies growing up, like The Lion King and Aladdin, but I always hated the way they portrayed princesses. I actually get angry watching Snow White. Plus as far as I'm concerned, Disney ruined Peter Pan. Mary Martin version all the way for me! Well, and Hook. And Finding Neverland. And the book, of course, and going to see the play. But no Disney.

I also liked a handful of Stephen King's short stories, which is odd since I don't particularly like his writing. I'm not sure why not, I just never get into it, with the exception of Firestarter which I loved.

I LOVED the Scarlet Ibis. It made me cry. Poor Doodle, poor boy. I loved that cute, sweet, innocent kid. But, I can sympathize with the narrator.

The Yellow Wallpaper was just scary. I was creeped out by this woman. She is a total nutcase. Yet I liked the story in a scary way.

Ever read A Rose for Emily? That was the weirest one that I can recall.

Disney. In general, I'm okay with the movies (the older animated ones of course. The modern stuff like HSM, Camp Rock, and Hannah Montana is pure crap). But most of them, that "okay" feeling is all. But there are a few that I adore, like Beauty and the Beast, Mulan, and Pochahontas (the sequel was stupid). In all of these, the female leads--Belle, Mulan, and Pochahontas--are strong, independent women who have such awesome personalities.

Zara Sahana 007 wrote:

I LOVED the Scarlet Ibis. It made me cry. Poor Doodle, poor boy. I loved that cute, sweet, innocent kid. But, I can sympathize with the narrator.

The Yellow Wallpaper was just scary. I was creeped out by this woman. She is a total nutcase. Yet I liked the story in a scary way.

Ever read A Rose for Emily? That was the weirest one that I can recall.

Disney. In general, I'm okay with the movies (the older animated ones of course. The modern stuff like HSM, Camp Rock, and Hannah Montana is pure crap). But most of them, that "okay" feeling is all. But there are a few that I adore, like Beauty and the Beast, Mulan, and Pochahontas (the sequel was stupid). In all of these, the female leads--Belle, Mulan, and Pochahontas--are strong, independent women who have such awesome personalities.

I loved The Yellow Wallpaper because the woman was a nutcase. That was what got me into it.

Never read A Rose For Emily, but if it's weird I may have to remedy that!

Oh, I'm okay with some of their movies. I agree on the ones you said, and I actually love Mulan. I love Aladdin, too- I have a soft spot for thieves, and Jasmine at least tries to help through the whole thing. Plus it's one of the few Disney movies where I liked both sequels. I rewatched it recently and concluded I never gave Jasmine enough credit as a kid.

I've got a book full of James Herriot's short stories too, and I love that. It's really been fun to re-read it at different points during my veterinary education and see it in a slightly different way each time.

i have recently read 20th century Ghosts by Joe Hill, Stephen King's son and I think the only thing to describe it was Weird! Don't get me wrong it was really good but some of the stories were really strange. I think my favourite was a take on Bram Stokers Dracula called Abraham's Boys.

Anyone else read it?

I love short stories. They are a nice instrument for teaching, especially if there is only one point you want to get at - such as when talking about immigration to the US, you could read a novel like "Joy Luck Club", or you could simply give your students a short story to the same effect, and within a much shorter time.

Also, short stories usually have a very dense use of literary devices, much like poems. In a novel, you have to assign entire chapters to look at one single device - in a short story, there is much more to be found in a much smaller space. That makes it easier for students such as mine to practise identifying these structures, before I let them try it with a longer text.

My favourite short story would be "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. Usually, my students read it, and do not notice anything, until I ask them to reread the last paragraph And then we go ahead to search for the clues that this would be happening, and to talk about foreshadowing and such.

I read The Lottery too. It also greatly disturbed me though it took me a while to finally comprehend what the heck just happened. I was just left in shock.

That's why I like it so much. You are all safe and nice, and then... wham. It also teaches the class a lot about never trusting a narrator, no matter how soothing

I went and read The Lottery after seeing your comments. I have to say, I got suspicious around when Old Man Warner started going on about how other places had done away with the lottery. Now this could be because I'd seen your comments here, but in my experience those are usually the kinds of comments in the story that alert me to 'wait a minute, something's not right here.' I love reading stories like this because I'm always the one who ends up pointing out the creepy bits and foreshadowing to the rest of the class. Apparently I'm more suspicious than... everyone.

I really liked that story, I'm glad the forums pointed me towards it.

I really love short stories. I used to hate reading them. I think that now I actually prefer them. Presently I'm reading "Just After Sunset" by Stephen King. How cleverly written they are.

I've written a few recently. It's more fun than it used to be. In fact I spent today writing one that actually turned out pretty good. Of course, I'll put it away for a week or so and write it again. I may change the ending (add to it, specifically). I think this one is a sure sale!

I read "The Curious Tale of Benjamin Button" by F Scott Fitzgerald recently. It's good, but quite sad. It's not really action-packed, but it tells of his life. It's not incredibly specific, but more like a rough summary of Benjamin's life. I don't see how they're making a movie out of that, but I have this awful feeling that it's going to be "loosely based." Meaning, the title and some of the character names will be the same, with a shred of the plot dashed in. I heard that the movie always has an undertone of sadness, like the short story, but I hope that it's for the same reasons, and that they keep Ben's condition the same as it is in the story. I hate it when they change the entire premise, in this case Ben's condition of age, in a movie.

One of my favorite short stories is "An Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce. This often-imitated story has one of the first and most effective "twist" endings ever written.

Oh, I read that short story in one of my classes last semester. I liked it, although it was overly descriptive from what I remember.

Wasn't a Twilight Zone episode made of "An Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge" as well?

Kelsey wrote:

I read "The Curious Tale of Benjamin Button" by F Scott Fitzgerald recently. It's good, but quite sad. It's not really action-packed, but it tells of his life. It's not incredibly specific, but more like a rough summary of Benjamin's life. I don't see how they're making a movie out of that, but I have this awful feeling that it's going to be "loosely based." Meaning, the title and some of the character names will be the same, with a shred of the plot dashed in. I heard that the movie always has an undertone of sadness, like the short story, but I hope that it's for the same reasons, and that they keep Ben's condition the same as it is in the story. I hate it when they change the entire premise, in this case Ben's condition of age, in a movie.

I read that, too, and fell in love with it. I didn't think I would be a Fitzgerald fan one day (I mean, "Gatsby" is a great book, but not a pleasure read for me), but this short tale changed it all. It's simply marvellous.

Really, Laura? You didn't enjoy Gatsby as a pleasure read? I found it to be both---a for-fun read and a meaningful classic. I liked it because it told an awesome story, but it wasn't esoteric or all that.

But if you liked "Benjamin Button", I'll have to add that to my gigantic To-Read list I have for this summer! Gosh! I don't know WHEN I'll even start attacking that list!