National Short Story Day takes place on the shortest day of the year… Very clever, right? It also gives you the opportunity to broaden your knowledge by reading some short stories. Take some time out from all of the chaos that goes on pre-Christmas and enjoy a moment of literary calm. Sheer bliss, right?
Short Story Day is an annual celebration observed on December 21st of this year. Creativity in oneself decides how much talent a person possesses. Story-telling or making is one such creative skill that halts with a person’s thought. Short stories are those tales that can be read within a few hours. You can let out your short story which you have kept in your mind for so long on this Short Story Day. Tell your short story, and thereby it reduces the chaos of those people working hard to make the Christmas Festivus a grand success.
There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. Maya Angelou
Do you love literature? Do you feel you have an inner creative streak you’ve never yet acted on? Do you have a brilliant idea that you’re afraid isn’t long enough to make into an entire book, but that you really just want to finally write down? If so, Short Story Day could be your chance to discover a new passion and create something you can be proud of. You don’t have to have written anything before to start writing now.
After all, everyone has to start somewhere. All you need to become a writer is a pen and paper, or a computer, or a typewriter if you will―the rest is entirely up to you. So if you have a story in you that’s waiting to be told, don’t wait and celebrate Short Story Day today!
“A short story is something that you can hold in your mind. You can really analyze how the entire thing works, like a machine.” – Chuck Palahniuk
Not only does this day give you the ability to read interesting short stories, but you can write your own. It does not matter whether you want to keep it to yourself or you intend to publish it to the world, grab your pen and start writing! Writing a short story can be a fun and even therapeutic way to spend your time. Plus, you never know; you may uncover a skill that you never realized you had.
Every year on Short Story Day, there is a theme, so we recommend taking a look at this, as it can lead you in the direction of the sort of books you should read and write on this date. Of course, we won’t tell anyone if you decide to go against the theme. After all, you may simply detest the genre of the book suggested! Nevertheless, it is a fun way to read something that you would probably never considering reading!
You may be wondering what counts as a short-story anyway. Most short stories tend to have a word count between 1,000 and 4,000. However, some can have a word count three times the size of this and still be deemed as a short story. There are no hard rules on the word count front. For stories less than 1,000 words, they tend to be called “flash fiction” or a “short, short story”.
In order to be considered a short story, it typically needs to be read in one sitting. It tends to focus on an incident that is very much self-contained or it could be a number of incidents that are linked together. The intent is to evoke a single mood or effect. One of the great short story writers of our time, William Boyd, said the following about short stories:
“They seem to answer something very deep in our nature as if, for the duration of its telling, something special has been created, some essence of our experience extrapolated, some temporary sense has been made of our common, turbulent journey towards the grave and oblivion.”
As the name itself suggests, a short story is a story that can be read in one sitting. As with many concepts in the realm of the humanities, it can be hard to determine exactly what qualifies as a short story, but most contemporary definitions tell us that a short story must have anywhere between 1,000 and 20,000 words.
Short stories became especially popular in the late 1700s and early 1800s, with ones like Richard Cumberland’s “The Poisoner of Montremos” and Washington Irving’s “Rip van Winkle” and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” becoming instant classics. Some of the most famous short stories have also been written by authors such as Ernest Hemingway, Franz Kafka, Mark Twain, Rudyard Kipling, Leo Tolstoy, and Stephen King.
