The art of brevity : crafting the very short story

Faulkner, Grant (author.). Giddings, Megan, (writer of foreword.).

Summary: "With increased compression, every word, every sentence matters more. A writer must learn how to form narratives around caesuras and crevices instead of strings of connections, to move a story through the symbolic weight of images, to master the power of suggestion. With elegant prose, deep readings of other writers, and scaffolded writing exercises, The Art of Brevity takes the reader on a lyrical exploration of compact storytelling, guiding readers to heighten their awareness of not only what appears on the page but also what doesn't"--Publisher's description.

Record details

ISBN: 9780826364739
Physical Description: x, 173 pages ; 22 cm
print
Publisher: Albuquerque : University of New Mexico Press, 2023.
Copyright: ©2023

Content descriptions

Formatted Contents Note:

Foreword / Megan Giddings -- Introduction: Going Long. Going Short. -- Thirteen Ways of Looking at Flash Fiction -- The Freedom of Constraints -- Telling a Story in Fragments -- The Erotics of Brevity -- Context: How Much Is Enough? -- The Fullness of Omission -- White Spaces -- Plotting in Miniature (and with a Slant) -- Writing Characters in Fleeting Profile -- Writing for the Essence -- The Sounds of Silence -- Found Objects, Found Stories -- Story as Collage -- Going Small to Go Big: The Art of Expansion -- Going Small to Go Small -- The Poetics of Brevity -- Is It Poetry or Prose? -- How Short Can You Go? -- The Mot Juste -- The Sentence -- The Paragraph -- The Title -- The "Flash Novel" and the Novella -- Endings -- Acknowledgments -- Postscript -- One More Postscript -- Flashings: Quotes on Writing Short -- Appendix: Gleanings from The Art of Brevity.