Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with shortstories

Looking for writing similar to Wendy Cope and Dorothy Parker

whats-in-a-name — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 11:50:46 -0800

Please recommend some witty poetry and/or prose in the same vein as Dorothy Parker and Wendy Cope!

Beyond Poe: canonical short stories

Bleusman — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 17:13:04 -0800

What are the world's most acclaimed short stories? These are short stories you'd call part of the Canon with a capital C. The short stories that influenced people to write more short stories, and more. I'm not looking for novellas - I'm referring to things like Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants", with a similar sort of length.

Classy, non-amateur erotic literature?

Lush — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 09:03:53 -0800

Having recently discovered Anais Nin's Delta of Venus and Little Birds, I'm looking for classy, somewhat highbrow, non-amateur, published erotic literature along the same lines. I appreciate the languid, lingering, sensual atmosphere of the stories, and that they provoke thought about bedroom politics.

I tried looking on my own, but it seems I have unearthed a whole new underworld of fiction and the selection is overwhelming! There seems to be a lot of amateur erotic stories designed to quickly and deliberately assist the reader in getting off, sorted by taboo subject, and usually told in crude language. I do not wish to get off on these stories. I'm also not interested in romance novels, fan fiction, or deceptively highbrow-sounding florid prose featuring non-humans. (NOTE: I searched previous AskMe questions about erotica, but the askers' tastes differ from mine.)

I'd like to read more stories like Anais Nin's. Bonus points if they're literary and thought-provoking. Extra bonus points of they're classic, and published, as I will likely be reading them in waiting areas or on the train. Extra extra bonus points if they outdo Nin.

Any recommendations?

recommend short story collections that would be good short film fodder

timsneezed — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:57:28 -0800

recommend short story collections that would be good short film fodder I'm a film student currently experiencing a bit of writer's block. I'm considering adapting a short story for my next short film, but I haven't found anything suitable in my preliminary bookstore/library searches. Part of the problem is I really don't know much about contemporary short fiction, so I'm lost about where to start looking.

More specifics on the type of stories I'm looking for:

1) It goes without saying that the story must have visual potential. That doesn't mean the writer's descriptions need be vivid. If the seed of a good visual idea is there, then I can flesh out the visuals myself.

2) The story should have a definite mood. I'm attracted to the strange, disturbing, dark, quietly moody and (sometimes) allegorical. A few film examples: "Woman in the Dunes," "The Vanishing" (Dutch version), "The Conversation," "Repulsion." I appreciate subtlety. I also enjoy character studies, as long as there is some overall mood or visual element.

3) It needs to have a discernible plot. A lot of contemporary short fiction isn't easily translatable to film because of the narrative looseness. Let me be clear: I can't stand typical Hollywood narrative. I'm looking for something more subtle and true to life, but there's got to be some sort of structure there.

4) While there can be humorous elements, I'm not looking for something incredibly tongue-in-cheek, self referential or po-mo. Content over style.

5) Probably looking to avoid anything that has a gimmicky O'Henry like twist.

Any good authors spring to mind?

Suggestions for good and quick reading

imabanana — Mon, 18 May 2009 07:32:21 -0800

Looking for short story collection suggestions. I'm at a particularly busy point in my life where I've not been able to read nearly as much as I'd like. Short stories are perfect at the moment since they are small chunks of reading, i.e. I can finish a story and put the book down for a couple of weeks without having to struggle getting back into a narrative.

When it comes to short stories I enjoy genre fiction quite a bit, science fiction, horror, even fantasy (although I haven't come across a lot of short form fantasy). A few short story collections I've enjoyed recently have included Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman, 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill, and The Living Dead (zombie short stories by various authors). I'm already planning on ordering The Best Short Stories of J.G. Ballard (this is what got me thinking about the question), but would hopefully like to add a few more things to my Amazon cart.

Odd tales

Rinku — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 14:21:43 -0800

I'd like recommendations for short stories that are strange, humorous, or have a surprising twist. I'm in an english class where we're reading long, kind of dull, "straight" novels, one after the other. I'm enjoying the class but I need some antidotes - stories that are off the wall, exotic, mysterious, or... something like that. They need to be short enough that I can read them in one sitting.

My favorite short story ever, which definitely qualifies, is Borges' The Secret Miracle. Donald Barthelme's short stories, which I've been reading recently (and enjoying very much), would also count. Recommendations for genre short stories - fantasy, science fiction, horror, whatever - would be very much appreciated as well.

Recommendations for specific short stories, rather than collections or authors, would be appreciated - but if everything an author's done is amazing, well... go for it.

"No longer alive to obstruct the process."

ocherdraco — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 07:24:23 -0800

John Updike's death reminded me that I have a book of his short stories. Which ones should I read first? I have The Early Stories: 1953-1975. In the introduction, Updike says "This is a collection. A selection, surely, is best left to others, when the writer is no longer alive to obstruct the process." Well, he's, um, no longer alive, so if you don't mind, Hive Mind, I'd appreciate your considerable skills in pointing out the best of what's here.

Here's a link to the Table of Contents on Amazon.

I know you've got good taste. What do you like best?

Mystery book mystery

cashman — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 07:56:38 -0800

I'm looking for a short mystery stories book I read in a library. One of the stories is where a character comes up a flight of stairs and thinks he sees something (a murder?) in someone's apartment, but it's actually some kind of mirrored reflection of a mirrored reflection of someone through a window across the street. The book/collection was published before 1996 and if I remember correctly, was all short story mysteries of 5 to 20 pages.

Short story involving children seeing an alternate world in the holes of stones

lockle — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 11:37:35 -0800

Short Story Filter. I remember a short story that I read in a sci-fi story anthology back in the mid 90's that I haven't been able to find since. There are a group of three boys, one of them substantially younger, who play out in a big field. One of the older boys tells the younger boy, as a joke, that if you look through the hole in the middle of a stone, you can see into another world of some kind. Mysterious circumstances then occur. From what I remember, the three boys are playing out in a field off and on throughout the story. The youngest boy is teased and picked on by the eldest boy the most. The eldest boy decides to play a trick on the youngest and looks through the naturally occuring hole in the center of a river rock and tells the boy that he can see into another world.

The younger boy looks through the hole and gets excited; he can see the world too! This makes the older boy angry since he was just trying to make the little kid feel bad that he couldn't see another world.

The little kid gets obsessed with this other magical world and starts gathering hundreds or thousands of stones in order to construct a small hut. He builds this hut and sits inside so he can look all around him and see into the other world.

The older boy, even angrier now, decides to teach him a lesson and knocks the hut down with the child inside. Instantly feeling guilty, he shifts the stones to get the kid out and the younger kid has disappeared, presumably into this alternate world.

Any idea what the title or author might be? Thanks!

I have a boatload of arichokes. Who eats those?

Netzapper — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 12:14:45 -0800

What sci-fi market might be a good match for my shorts? And, in what fashion should I attempt to sell them? I have a 'verse. It's not especially full right now, but it's expanding rapidly. And, it turns out that, just like in film school, I can quickly churn out huge volumes of fictional prose of consistently decent quality. So, I may as well see if I can't sell it.

My style is influenced by Larry Niven and William Gibson. I have fairly fleshy characters, but the plot is really just an excuse to explore what I think is a pretty neat little universe. I drop jargon and technobabble without explaining what they are or mean--although you can generally work it out from context, I think. It's a little bit funny, in a dry Terry Pratchett's narration sort of way. The science is "hard", although it's mostly computer and cognitive science at the moment. I have one story written, notes on three more, and scribbles on napkins for dozens. I can see the cyberpunk and new weird in it, but I don't think that it's as dark as those labels might imply. You wouldn't really have the same story if you removed the sf elements.

The stories vary in dramatic tension and tone. There are several that have a more expository bent to them, a couple that are far weirder and darker, and a couple that are shaping up to be action-adventure stories.

Is there a market that would match all of these stories? Or, failing that, should I try to sell different stories to different magazines based on tone and content? I know most places don't like simultaneous submissions (or multiple submissions), so is it okay to send different manuscripts to different publishers at the same time, or is that a faux pas? Do I need an agent in these troubling and uncertain days, or can I do it through the slush pile like my heroes?

Should I try to sell them (and get them published) in the most logical order, or should I just hope that someday after I'm a known brand, I can get out the earlier stories that didn't sell?

Oh, I am as yet unpublished. And I'd like to get paid.

short story recommendations?

Salvatorparadise — Wed, 28 May 2008 15:53:47 -0800

What are your favorite short stories or short story collections, anthologies etc. Hi all. I'm interested in writing short stories, but really need to read more of them before I dive into this. What are some of your favorite short stories, anthologies or collections that I should check out?

I'm a reporter and write for a living, and wrote a book a few years ago (haven't tried to publish it, i'd like to try to write it again sometime to make it better) and want to begin writing fiction more seriously. I'd like to start with short stories but I haven't read very many, and that's a problem when one wants to write them!

help me out!

This story should totally be a comic!

overglow — Sun, 25 May 2008 14:06:53 -0800

What's the process by which published fiction gets adapted into comic book form? I'm most interested in how this happens or could happen with short stories, but if you have information on novels, feel free to share that too. Does an author/story just get famous enough for a comic book company to approach them? Or is there a way for authors to propose adaptations to comic companies? Do you know of any examples of not-already famous short stories which have been adapted into comics? Alternately, are there spaces (virtual or real) where more DIY-style comic artists who are looking for short stories to adapt might go? Thanks!

Help me name that anthology of horror stories!

bijou — Sat, 01 Dec 2007 15:08:05 -0800

It's time for another round of "Name That Book!" Looking for the title of a compilation of horror stories from the 1980s or 1990s. This is what I remember:

I read it when I was somewhere between the ages of 11 and 13 (I think; I was a precocious reader, so it could have been earlier), which means it was published by 1998 at the absolute latest. Since the copy I read was fairly old when I read it, I'd guess that more realistically it came out between 1980 and 1995.

I remember several stories: one was about a neverending traffic jam as a metaphor for hell; another was about a man who lived alone and whose apartment was infested by cockroaches; and another was about a man who used a hammer to smash the hands of the old teacher who had hit him with a ruler when he was a child. I think Stephen King wrote at least one of these three stories, or another one of the ones that appeared in the book, but I could be wrong about that.

Fiction book(s) on Mexico or Mexican History to read with my grandma

barnone — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 08:09:55 -0800

What is your favorite book or DVD series about Mexico? Particularly historical fiction or contemporary fiction. Preferably in English, but if you have a great recommendation in Spanish, I'd take that too! My grandmother thanks you! My grandma is Mexican, and is the 3rd generation of British expats who ended up in Mexico through complicated travels and drama. She's a history buff but doesn't read much in the way of contemporary novels. She's getting on in age, so something in the form of short stories would probably help her concentrate, but I won't limit the responses to that (something like Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies but set in/around Mexico?) She has a great sense of humor, but isn't particularly sympathetic to the Zapatistas at the moment, to give you a sense of her politics.

I'd love love to find her a few books that use historical fiction to tell a great tale, or contemporary fiction that interweaves history into it (like Middlesex), immigrants into Mexico, the Mexican revolution, complicated family histories, or even Mexican immigration to the US or other parts. I saw the other thread on books about Mexican immigrants to the US, and I have a few other ideas there, but other than Sandra Cisneros' Caramelo, nothing totally jumped out at me. It's a little long for her, at 400 pages, I think.

A DVD series might be good too, but she's a little deaf so without subtitles it gets complicated.

I'd like to read these books with her, so we can talk about them over our Christmas holiday and beyond. I'll take as many recommendations as you can suggest - preferably with a few little lines of explanation rather than just the title so I can figure out how to proceed with the massive selection out there!

Really what she wants is more time with her family living all over the world, so I thought if I bought a bunch of copies of a few of these books, some of us could read them together and email our thoughts. She's better on email than the phone anyway, since she's so deaf. Thanks in advance.

Sci-fi short story with Latin speaking protagonists

garyduke — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 18:22:30 -0800

I'm trying to recall a science fiction time travel short story set in a Paris cafe. The story begins when one man overhears another speaking in "antique Latin." I know that's not much to go on, but I'm hoping those few facts might ring a bell for some sci-fi loving askmetafilter genius!

MametFilter: 10000 Yen?

Slap Factory — Wed, 20 Jun 2007 19:26:51 -0800

Do you recognize this short story, possibly written by David Mamet? A Japanese couple scrimps and saves so they can incrementally improve their lives, and they go to a shopping mall/set of stores for fun, where they purchase candies/cookies that look like 1000 or 10000 or 1000000 yen. (More inside.) We find out later that the couple, whose love is as pure and as true as can exist, earn their money by performing simulated sex acts at parties. That's the irony, you see, their love is pure and they are poor, but they earn their meager but measured existence by faking love for people who are rich and needy. I recall that the title of the short story may be something like "10000 Yen," and I also recall that it may have been written by Mamet.

I will be impressed if the hive mind can help me with the title and, even better, a link to the name of the source or the source itself. I will be depressed, on the other hand, if this request is so pedestrian and my google skills are so weak that this is a really lame first time askme question. Thanks in advance.

What is this grotesque, possibly German short story?

bubukaba — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 17:53:30 -0800

Help me remember the name and author of this short story. The pathetic male main character is abused and humiliated by an abusive female character (his wife, I think). The culmination involves some sort of grotesque and humiliating performance by the main character at a party, arranged by the wife. I vaguely remember the author being German (though I could be wrong), and I read it in an anthology, so it's probably by someone pretty well known.

I can't remember and it's killing me!

tatiana wishbone — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 19:01:40 -0800

What is the name of this novel/short story? A father is speaking to his daughter (Melanie maybe?) on the phone, and she tells him either that she's pregnant or marrying a much older man, who I think was her professor. I distinctly remember the professor being older than the father by quite a bit; I think the professor gets on the phone and calls the father "sir." The father is horrified, and to make matters worse, he and his wife are getting a divorce, which he doesn't want to tell his daughter about.

Clamback! The Worst Elvis Movie Never Made

Skot — Thu, 25 May 2006 20:02:17 -0800

Dorothy Parker has beguiled and confounded me! And she's dead. What a gal. I'm looking for help figuring out a puzzling casual remark from one of her short stories. In her story "You Were Perfectly Fine," in which a young man learns of his misdeeds from the previous drunken evening, there is this passage:

"Was I making a pass at Elinor?" he said. "Did I do that?"

"Of course you didn't," she said. "You were only fooling, that's all. She thought you were awfully amusing. She was having a marvelous time. She only got a little tiny bit annoyed just once, when you poured the clam juice down her back."

"My God," he said. "Clam juice down that back. And every vertebra a little Cabot. What'll I ever do?"

It's that Cabot reference that I don't get. I've Googled my brains out, which took mere seconds, and had no luck. Was clam juice some sort of tony drink for the social set? Cabots? Vertebra? Clam juice? Snuh?

Any ideas? Man, I hope this isn't a dumb question, but it wouldn't be my first, I guess.

SFW short story rec's

ferociouskitty — Fri, 19 May 2006 06:07:48 -0800

I need recommendations for short stories suitable for discussion at a work-sponsored short story club. Preferably contemporary, on the short side of short, and the clincher - full text available online. Definitely needs to be SFW. Also, discussion time will be limited to approximatley one hour.

Short stories about a birthday?

dov — Thu, 13 Apr 2006 06:03:04 -0800

Can you name short stories, preferably from the classics, about a birthday? I just read this anthology of "Birthday stories" by Haruki Murakami and was quite disappointed. Can you recall a short story happening on a birthday? No children books, please.

Interesting, meaningful, profound short fiction for a thought- provoking final response?

ronv — Wed, 08 Mar 2006 08:49:27 -0800

a short story by a continental european writer that directly addresses or suggests conflicts within human nature-- the desire to perform "good" acts vs. our tendency (the temptation) to commit "evil" ones? as a high school british lit. teacher, i always want to challenge students to compare/ contrast their ideas and perspectives with those suggested by the events and characters of the literature we cover; as part of one of our end- of- the year assessments, i would like to present them with a "fresh" piece to explore-- some work of short fiction that they've never encountered-- in order to challenge them to compare it with a work with which they've already dealt.

my overall goal is to allow them the chance to compare/ contrast their own perspectives on human nature with these two works.

it's ambitious but meaningful, i think.

what i'm looking for are some suggestions for the "fresh" piece.
what short pieces might allow them to confront such a challenge?

(and, in case you're interested, we've discussed these kinds of questions before with: "Macbeth" by Shakespeare, "The Fifth Child" by Doris Lessing, "Lord of the Flies" by W. Golding, and "1984" by Orwell...)

Best Sci-Fi anthology?

skwm — Sun, 11 Dec 2005 11:58:32 -0800

Best Sci-Fi short story anthology? I'm trying to find a good anthology of science fiction short stories to give as a gift to someone who likes science fiction, but professes not to like short stories. I'd like to find one that has at least a few of my favorites - "Sandkings" by George R.R. Martin, either "The Nine Billion Names of God" or "The Star" by Arthur C. Clarke, "Flowers for Algernon" by Daniel Keys, "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" by Harlan Ellison. I'm not looking for a yearly anthology, just a general "best of".

Identifying a childhood book

orange swan — Tue, 22 Mar 2005 12:32:55 -0800

Fuzzy Memories Please help me identify a book I read as a child. Oddly, I can remember everything about it except the title and author. It was a slim volume of four short stories. It was likely published in the seventies. One story was about a boy who is forced by his mother to invite his grade’s social outcast (a dyslexic boy named Jason) to his birthday party. Another was about a girl whose parents ship her off to fat camp for the summer, and her subsequent experience of getting to know a mysterious camp counsellor. Another was about a girl who is the first black child to attend a newly integrated white school, and who impresses everyone with her blackboard drawing of Noah’s Ark. The final one is about a boy who goes to the park with his grandmother to watch a comet or a meteor shower or something similar – except that it doesn’t happen.

Are there novels like Raymond Carver's short stories?

bunglin jones — Tue, 08 Mar 2005 01:05:10 -0800

I love Raymond Carver's short stories because they're complete and perfect without much happening in them, in terms of action and plot development. What I'd like to find is some novels that are similarly "plotless"? Do they exist? There are Carver stories which are so good you HAVE to finish them, even though all that happens is someone goes to bingo, sees someone else there, goes home, feels sad and goes to bed. I'm looking for novels where the prime reason you keep on reading isn't to see "what happens" but because you want to spend more time with the characters or the writing itself; ideally books where very little "happens" at all...