Talk:Short story

Merge from Short-short story

The short-short story article was created and mostly written by the now-apparently-inactive User:José Flávio Nogueira Guimarães, who extensively cited his own masters thesis. After discussion of how a masters thesis doesn't seem to meet WP:RS, the editor gave an ultimatum of a week for other editors to allow his thesis to be cited, before blanking the page (as well as his contributions to the short story and other articles) and apparently leaving the Wikipedia project.

I don't think the article's worth keeping as it is, as it appears to be Guimarães interpreting a few disparate mentions of the "short-short story" to imply a coherent genre, which (it seems) is never explicitly defined except by Guimarães. The article may be worth merging, though. What do other editors think? --McGeddon (talk) 13:18, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I'm not inactive, mate. I'm reading and watching your steps here. You were the one inactive for more than seven days since you did not see my ultimatum. Sorry. Why don't you read my whole thesis before making stupid assertions (kind of redundant my statement), instead of reading only my defense's speech and posting ridiculous comments on the poorest sites of the internet about my work? Don't debase yourself so much! I guess I already know you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by José Flávio Nogueira Guimarães (talk • contribs) 08:30, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Okay, in the absence of any other comments, I'll take "YOU BETTER DELETE THIS WHOLE THING OR YOU'RE GONNA BE IN TROUBLE." as "author requests deletion" and just redirect here. --McGeddon (talk) 16:41, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Take a devil to known a devil, which isnt found else where, but in their lives. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.50.91.92 (talk) 03:44, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

• I have to say the article SHORT STORY is VERY poor! Without references to the authors I must aver the responsibility for what is written is always on someone else who is supposed to hold power and authority - the prevailing, imposing and controling power over our society. Forever disgusting! Overall, the wikipedia project is a huge failure with quite incompetent and underqualified editors. User: José Flávio Nogueira Guimarães

• A second attempt to post a good and decent article on the short-short story. Now all will depend on the likely interventions of the editors. If the interventions are proper, polite and decent, I may contribute with other articles; otherwise I'll be definitely out of the project. I want a peaceful dialogue but editors must not be so primary and naive. —Preceding unsigned comment added by José Flávio Nogueira Guimarães (talk • contribs) 19:14, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

The problems with the article remain--you have a conflict of interest, and you are using your own research as sources for the article. Problem is, your thesis does not rise to the level of a reliable source. The Mose and Sanford sources look good, but the other do not appear to directly treat the subject of the short short story. Much of the article does not have sources. Without additional references that treat the article's subject directly and in detail, this article should be reduced to a short short article. My feeling is the redirect was a good idea, and my suggestion would be that you restore that, and work in what little of this article can be reliably sourced to the short story article. --Nuujinn (talk) 21:33, 13 November 2010 (UTC)

• I disagree entirely. Sorry. What we see in the history of literature is that every genre has a trajectory in which a form develops as a deviation from an earlier one, reaches its peak of quality, and then is so repeated that it becomes overused and begets its successor. It has happened with the novel that in a certain way engendered the tale which engendered the short story which then, roughlly, gave birth to the short-short story. Obviously this is a very simple and brief explanation. There are other sources of influences. But that is what is happening, currently, to the short-short story which begot the flash fiction and the new sudden fiction, sub-categories, the latter, unfortunately, may end up as a miscarriage. If you merge the short-short story into the short story you will be drawing back, walking backwards, acting against the nature of Art and Literature. And it will be a huge step back since the flash fiction is already a settled genre as much as the short-short story. Let's walk forward! No drawing back, please! —Preceding unsigned comment added by José Flávio Nogueira Guimarães (talk • contribs) 02:45, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

Examples 2

Is Brokeback Mountain a short story? Haven't read it but it seemed quite a big book.

"Brokeback Mountain" is a short story from Annie Proulx's collection Close Range: Wyoming Stories. I don't remember exactly how long it was, but it certainly fits within the range of being a short story.--Olegkagan (talk) 01:10, 28 June 2011 (UTC)

Americocentrism

Unfortunately, this article's history section is basically just a history of (Anglo-)American short story writing. (As one section above on this talk pages notes, there is no mention anywhere of Chekhov.) I have tagged it with {{global}} in the hopes that somebody qualified will see it and add to it. Srnec (talk) 18:41, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Science fiction genre

It's true that the Nebula Awards (and now Hugo awards too, i understand) define the short story by word-count less than 7500. There are parallel awards for novelettes, however, defined by word-count 7500 to 17,499. Because this article contrasts the short story with the novella (longer than 17,499 for purposes of the SF awards), some more explanation may be appropriate.

The Stub articles short story collection and novelette were not claimed by the short story task force (now I have added that parameter |short-story-task-force=yes). I don't recommend them; indeed, I do recommend that this article should be the target when "short story collection" is linked, and I regret using the other target in some infoboxen. --P64 (talk) 02:36, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

Clean-up needed

Just a quick scan of the Overview section revealed lots of repetition and unreferenced observations out of place. I'm going to have a go at cleaning up this important article over the next little while. Thoughts and/or help, anyone?

Some good content here, too - just lots to do. --Chronotopian (talk) 16:11, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

One of the biggest problems faced is the tendency to try to list 'some practitioners': especially in the overview, this is just an arbitrary and impossible task. Even in the historical sections, it's difficult, though undoubtedly a necessary part of the article. I understand that students of particular authors will want to get their man/woman in there, and this will always be a contention with this article. Still, I think more other content and a better structure will make this kind of edit more obvious and less likely.

Pictures will help, too. I'm on it. --Chronotopian (talk) 16:32, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

I do not think you can start major cleanup to article without discussing here and without valid reasons.If you think you have some concerns, first discuss that and reach the WP: consensus. Justice007 (talk) 16:39, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

My reason was stated in the edit summary: repetition. Looking at the deleted sentences, do you disagree? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chronotopian (talk • contribs) 16:46, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

In fact, looking at the edit history, there was a previous set of deletions that I thank is mostly appropriate (I was being conservative with mine!) that were reverted. My doctoral work is on short fiction, so I don't mind helping to improve the article. How long do I have to wait for consensus? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Chronotopian (talk • contribs) 16:53, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

There is nothing to do with origin research, we need WP:reliable sources to verify and support the content.Discussion is under way, other editors will soon take part to give their opinion. We have to wait and not further edits till any consensus.Justice007 (talk) 17:08, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict) : Please specify where is redundant content, I have realy no time to go through.Lead is whole summary of the article that should not be consider as redundancy, if any other sections include same content, would you please indicate where?. You just summarised the version that I reverted to origin.Justice007 (talk) 17:00, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Justice007 is right that we shouldn't be deleting repetition from the lead section, as the lead is meant to be a summary of the entire article and "should be able to stand alone as a concise overview". The edit to the Overview section seemed a small and reasonable enough first step of cleanup, though, removing the unnecessary repetition about the short story's spoken-word ancestor being the anecdote. Being WP:BOLD is often the best way to improve Wikipedia - we don't need to discuss and agree on every edit before making it. --McGeddon (talk) 17:13, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Okay, I see how it works. Thanks for your patience as I am new editing Wikipedia, as you can see no doubt. I didn't mention my doctoral research to imply I'd include original research, only to say that I consider myself a good judge of descriptive content that seems accurate. So, to specify in the lead:

1) There seems to be a contradiction between the claim that the short story is often narrative in form, and the counterclaim (loosely worded and unclear) that it deals with 'creation of the mood' rather than plot. Also, this writing would not be appropriate for encyclopedic content, eg. the ambiguity of the term 'mood'.

2) 'more pointed than other works of fiction' is unclear. Ditto 'novellas (in the 20th and 21st century sense)'. This would need to be clarified, or at least a link included to the wikipedia article for Novella - ?

3) 'Guidelines vary greatly among publishers' seems to be more a creative writer's approach to trying to get short fiction published, rather than the previous tone, that sees the short story as a literary-historical form. Plus there's a [3] that seems orphaned here.

4) 'Many short story writers define...' - reference? Plus this sentence is not clearly correct, or clearly worded. Who? And do they?

5) The final sentence of the lead doesn't seem to offer any summative value - it's only a repeat of what will come later. Surely the summary lead should offer a road-map for the rest of the article, a historical/cultural intro? Thanks! --Chronotopian (talk) 17:27, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Actually, it looks like the Overview section would more usefully be merged into the lead section, given that the lead itself is meant to provide just such an overview, so Chronotopian was definitely heading in the right direction here. I'd suggest merging the two to make a new lead section, dropping any resultant repetition within that lead, and moving some of the more specific sentences (Shirley Jackson's crate, and some of the lists of authors and books) into the relevant sections further down. Any objection to that? --McGeddon (talk) 17:28, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Agreed me too, no objection, lets see progress and thinks for your assisting.Justice007 (talk) 17:44, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

I like the edits you just made, and what you describe sounds good. Apologies to both McGeddon, Justice007 and other editors here. When you're new here - and on many pages elsewhere - it's easy to think Wikipedia is a deserted landscape, but obviously you guys have done a lot to develop this page before I got here, and I'm looking forward to doing a bit more collaborative editing.

I might also raise a point about the first sentence of the overview (unsupported): 'Short stories tend to be less complex than novels'. I think this is might be easily contended against by most short story theorists. If there's a reference, perhaps we can clarify a bit - ? I don't necessarily expect each of my points to be debated here, as you say McGeddon - I'll probably just go through slowly over the next few days and change each one carefully, and we can debate as and if needed. --Chronotopian (talk) 17:51, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Yes there are many phrases that are unsourced, but big problem is that we can not add or change as we like or as our personal view point is, it is considered here original research and that is not acceptable and encouraged even for the improvement and standard of the article. We must provide the reliable sources. In this regard you have to be careful, and I think as you are much active in your real life, it is possible to find sources in the published books written by academics, those are considered very reliable sources. I hope this helps. Thanks.Justice007 (talk) 21:11, 11 September 2012 (UTC)

Chronotopian said "If there's a reference, perhaps we can clarify a bit - ?" and I think clearly understands that any new claims have to be sourced. --McGeddon (talk) 11:10, 12 September 2012 (UTC)

I agree with what's been said here about splitting up the 'Overview' section into more distinct and useful sections. I suggest a section on 'Characteristics' as well as 'Adaptations' (for the film and TV stuff), and then moving the author-lists down into the relevant sections. Sound ok? If so, I'll do that, and we can work on expanding those sections. I've got a lot of good references to include once the framework is there. --Chronotopian (talk) 10:31, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

I tkink that's a good idea to improve and expand the article.Justice007 (talk) 15:58, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

I made some of the changes as mentioned above. Checking through the 'examples of great short fictionists...' authors in the old 'overview' section were mentioned in the 'history' sections below, only these need interpolating back in:

William Trevor, Hermann Hesse, Vladimir Nabokov, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Dino Buzzati, H. P. Lovecraft, D. H. Lawrence

I'll do that later. Hope we're moving towards a more useful structure here. --Chronotopian (talk) 13:16, 18 September 2012 (UTC)