A BRIEF DESCRIPTION ON TECHNIQUES OF WRITING A SHORT STORY
A PAPER BY
DINDA ARTIKA REG. NO: 062202048
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH SUMATERA FACULTY OF LETTERS
DIPLOMA III ENGLISH PROGRAM STUDY MEDAN
2009
Approved by
Supervisor
NIP. 131570483
Drs. Yulianus Harefa, MEd TESOL
Submitted to Faculty of Letters, University of North Sumatera
In partial fulfillment of the requirements for DIPLOMA (D-III) in English.
Approved by
Head of Department,
NIP. 130702287
Dra. Syahyar Hanum, DPFE
Approved by the Diploma III English Program Study
Faculty of Letters, University of North Sumatera
Accepted by the Board of Examiner in partial fulfillment of the requirements for
the D-III Examination of the Diploma III Program Study, Faculty of Letters,
University of North Sumatera.
The examination is held on the May 18, 2009
Dean,
Drs. Syaifuddin, M.A, Ph.D NIP. 1320981
Board of Supervisor and Reader:
Supervisor : Drs. Yulianus Harefa, MEd TESOL
AUTHOR’S DECLARATION
I am DINDA ARTIKA, declare that I am the sole of this paper. Except where
reference is made in the text of this paper, this paper contains no material published
elsewhere or extended in whole or in part from a paper by which I have qualified for
or awarded another degree.
No other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the main text
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any tertiary education.
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Name : DINDA ARTIKA
Title of Paper: A BRIEF DESCRIPTION ON TECHNIQUES OF WRITING A
SHORT STORY
Qualification : D-III/Ahli Madya
Study Program: English Department
I am willing that my paper should be available for reproduction at the discretion of
the librarian of the Diploma III English Program Faculty of Letters USU on the
understanding that users are made aware of their obligation under law of the Republic
of Indonesia.
Signed :
ABSTRAC
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank The Almighty Allah SWT, who has given me health and
capability to finish this paper as my last assignment to finish my study at Diploma III
English Program Study, Faculty of Letters, University of North Sumatera.
I also would like to thank the Dean of Faculty of Letters, Drs. Syaifuddin, M
A, Ph.D and the Head of Diploma III English Program Study, Dra. Syahyar Hanum,
DPFE and my Supervisor Drs. Yulianus Harefa, MEd TESOL for his time, patience,
and suggestion, I also would like to thank my Reader Drs. Muhizar Muchtar, M. S.,
for his time and attention.
To my beloved mother Rusilawati, and my beloved father Sunaryo. I would
like to express my gratitude for their love, time, material, and supporting during my
live. To my sister Yenni, my brother Dian, and my younger sister Sukma, thank you
for supporting me in finishing this paper.
To my friend at class B and A of the 2006 academic year who can not be
mentioned one by one, thank for our friendship while we are in this Faculty.
In writing this paper, I found many difficulties. Without any helps and support
from all parties, this paper would not be completed. Finally, I hope that this paper
would be useful for the readers in the future.
Medan,
TABLE OF CONTENT
AUTHOR’S DECLARATION ... i
COPYRIGHT DECLARATION ... ii
ABSTRACT ... iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS ... v
1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 The Background of the Study ... 1
1.2 The Scope of the Study ... 2
1.3 The Purpose of the Study ... 2
1.4 The Significance of the Study ... 2
1.5 The Method of the Study ... 3
2. STREED UP INSPIRATION ON PEN TIP 2.1. About Inspiration or Ilham ... 4
2.2. Learn from Some Foremost Writer Experience ... 5
2.3. Commitment is the Inspiration Source ... 7
3. TECHNIQUES OF WRITING A SHORT STORY 3.1. General Meaning of a Short Story... 8
3.2. Characteristic of a Short Story ... 11
3.3. Elements of a Short Story ... 12
3.3.1 Theme ... 12
3.3.3 Character ... 15
3.3.4 Setting ... 17
3.3.5 Point of View... 17
3.3.6 Anatomy of Short Story ... 19
3.3.7 Final Stage ... 20
4. THE SHORT STORY ... 23
Father and I (PÄR LAGERKVIST) ... 23
The King of Jazz (DONALD BARTHELME) ... 28
The Lottery Ticket (ANTON CHEKOV) ... 34
5. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION 5.1 Conclusion ... 41
5.2 Suggestion ... 41
ABSTRAC
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1The Background of the Study
Every human can write a short story. Being a writer needs a biggest courage,
in which powerful sentences and amazing influence existed. Actually, all the work is
depend on a set up plan. Relation between plan and writing is very close, because
plan, desire, and seriousness which have been created and planed determine the
expertise of the human being.
The plan of the desire purpose will influence to the success or not for
someone in finishing his work, all of these will influence his final job (in context
writing). Without stick to the plan, someone will never success in finishing even
simple writing.
Without the correct plan and be awakened seriously, the desire to write very
well, and be the best material writer. Composing and writing is very interesting as
long as not illiterate, added interested and strong desire whish is not easy breakdown.
We can be the best writer. That only basic knowledge required in producing a real
piece of writing.
This paper intends to open public curiosity on techniques of writing a short
story, until someone who faced difficulties in some writing a short story, can produce
According to Herfanda the editor of Republika Daily (in Fenomena Ayat-Ayat
Cinta, page 250) who said that an, “Everyone who can write literary work or write a
paper, actually, has a certain capacity to be a writer.”
Finally, as human has been giving intelligence should be able to do anything
that best for us in doing good things, like writing.
1.2The Scope of the Study
Many problems can be faced in writing a short story, but in this paper, I
would like to limit the discussion on meaning of a short story and about techniques of
writing a short story.
1.3The Purpose of the Study
This paper is writing for some purposes, they are as follows:
- To know more about techniques of writing a short story.
- To give more information about techniques of writing a short story.
- To inform the readers the effective way in writing a short story.
1.4The Significance of the Study
The findings of this study are expected to be significant to the readers of
literature, because someone should have on awareness before writing that is someone
should have something to prepare if one wants to be a writer. That is not just to know
I expected that the reader will get knowledge, and motivated to have a desire
to be a writer.
1.5The Method of The Study
If we want write a paper, we should have the method of writing, so in making
his paper, I used two method, they are, the library research and the internet on
2. STREED UP INSPIRATION ON PEN TIP
2.1. About Inspiration or Ilham and Imagination
Inspiration, in Arabic is ilham. Usually, ilham used to mention divine
guidance from God which growth in heart. Possible inspiration or ilham means idea
which coming from heart, for a writer, inspiration is something which move the heart
to make the literary work. Arswendo (2005, 259) define inspiration or ilham as the
pen sketch which make the author awakened.
However to show an idea if often be any problem for beginner writer, they are
sometimes complain do not stirred up inspiration and idea which often not come.
“I do not think you can write a good short story without having a good story
in you,” Whit Burnett (1983, 11) used to tell his class at Columbia University. “I
would rather you had something to say with no technique with nothing to say.”
“Something to say” is assuredly of first importance when we presume to
demand the attention of a reader: we owe him no less than that. We ask his attention,
perhaps an hours out of his life, and even his affection. We perform on the printed
page as actors: yet at the same time, without sight or sound, the final interpretation
must be the reader’s own. If our story or act, if you will has failed to interest,
stimulate, or evoke some responsive emotion, he will not wish to read us again.
(Burnett, On Writing The Short Story, 1984, 11)
Besides inspiration or ilham the effective short story come also from the
how, as a lonely boy, he was necessary. “He writes in An Autobiography, “I was
always going about with some castle in the air firmly built within my mind…. For
weeks, for months, from year to year, “he would carry on the same task of continuing
this imaginary fable. “I learned in this way to maintain interest in a fictitious story, to
dwell on a work created [solely] by my own imagination…. I doubt, had it not been
for my practice, I should ever have written a book.”
This, for writers of fiction, brings us to an essential which cannot be stressed
often enough: the strength of our belief in the story we relate. One must deeply and
profoundly believe in the direction of one’s imagination and, while at work, in the
story waiting to be told. A writer must practice, to a profound degree, the “suspension
of disbelief.” He must not only care about what he is writing, he must believe
without question that he is re-creating truth, that the truth of his story is what is must
be, and let one be in any doubt about that. And, if one writers as believingly as
possible, the story will then ring true for the reader.
And remember Kipling (1981, 8) has said, he will not succeed nor will he be
read or long remembered. “When your ‘daemon’ (imagination) is in charge, do not
try to think, consciously,” wrote Kipling. “Drift, wait, and Obey.”
2.2. Learn from Some Foremost Writer Experience
The experience from some foremost writer in world prove that ilham can
exerted the presence, for example:
- Ernest Hemingway, American letters who won the Noble Prize for
prepared his heart, as successfully, his novel The Old Man and The Sea
(1952) brought him the highest critical praise.
- Gerson Pyok, many found his inspiration in the hospital, at the train
station. He did not just stay at home moreover he should slept in station to
put his inspiration.
- Gola Gong, he often puts inspiration from the newspaper. He is very
sharp read the news, his novel Kupu-Kupu Pelangi, the idea is get after he
read a newspaper about “The drifter child who get first menstruation is to
put “mami” to become prostituted.”
- A.A Navis, The Letters from Padang often gets inspiration when he squat
at latrine (WC), he was hemorrhoids just because he often squat at latrine.
- Agatha Christie, like to wait inspiration when she submerged in warm
water and shells apple.
- Ali Muakhir, for him, a sheet of newspaper can give inspiration. His
short story Sekeping Logam Cinta is be the first winner in Young Writer
Competition, and the idea is he put from a sheet of newspaper.
- And it is another with Habiburrahman El Shirazy, his best novel
Ayat-Ayat Cinta, he gets the inspiration when he stay at the train when he back
from campus.
One must deeply and profoundly believe in the direction of one imagination
and while at work, in the short story sating to be told. A writer must practice to a
But we do not deny, sometimes that inspiration came just like that without
must difficulties to way it. Possible when we enjoyed in the afternoon have to sleep,
suddenly the inspiration double-bladed paddle to write something. At that time which
need is our heart readiness to get that inspiration never neglected, because inspiration
or ilham granted of Allah which very expensive.
2.3. Commitment is The Inspiration Source
Commitment in our strong believe in ourselves could extend the commitment
for the other persons that is it can be power full in giving an inspiration to write. Is it
right M. Fauzil Adhim said in his Dunuia Kata (2005, 265): “if your heart full of
heartache, strength of wish could show other persons a commitment which you
believe of good deeds, so your mind will alive. The idea springs up and initiative will
follow the others. What ever you look, will always give an inspiration in your soul in
accordance with what you found, always become an inspiration in your soul in
accordance with be your restlessness.”
And also who did not know with W.S Rendra. A letter who just reached 70
years old is know with his poems which is very committed to struggle for his believe.
If we are carefully, many master pieces who born from power of commitment, and
many work to influence his history.
3. TECHNIQUES OF WRITING A SHORT STORY
3.1. General Meaning of a Short Story
The compact from of the short story requires different writing techniques to
the novel. Reading and planning can form a foundation for success. The short story
from as we know it today has developed from Greek mythology, Aesop’s fable,
Chaucerian contemporary tales, French contes, Italian novellas, and Germany
Novellen , then came the sketches of Washington Irving, the tales of Hawthorne, Poe,
Melville, mark Twain, de Maupassant, Chekhov, and Henry James. In our time we
have Ernest Hemingway, Sherwood Anderson, F. Scoott Fitzgerald, Katherine Anne
Porter, William Faulkner, Jhon Updike, Jhon Cheever, Flannery O’Connor, Bernard
Malamud, Eudora Welty—and there are all those talented new writers whose work
vivifies and examines the realities of today. (Burnett, On Writing The Short Story,
1983, 1)
What is the short story? Is it only a truncated and incomplete version of the
novel? Or is it a genre, that is, a category of art with a distinctive content, form, and
style? This question has occupied a great many thoughtful practitioners of the forms,
Frank O’Connor, Sean O’Faolain, H. F. Bates eminent among them. Generally
speaking these writers-critics do not think of a story as merely a work that happens to
be short, but as a unique literary form, with techniques and effects that cannot be
One of the most useful answers can from Edgar Allan Poe in 1842 when the
short story was in its infancy. He believed that the prose tale stood just below the
lyric poem in the hierarchy of literary art. For Poe, the “unity of effect or impression”
was of prime importance, but, he, felt, this unity could be obtained only in works that
could be read ‘at one sitting’. For Poe, a novel not do have this unity, is incapable of
achieving the “immense force derivable from totality” Poe believed the short story is
different from the novel, and superior to it. It was not shortness but intensity of
impact that Poe the romantic valued most highly
Although Poe’s concern with the effect, particularly the effect he chiefly
sought—terror, passion, horror—has had little influence on important writers of the
short story, his views on singleness and unity are widely shared.
The short story requires the reader’s utmost attention, a focusing of the mind
on each detail in order to realize the final fullness of effect. The short story depends
on concreteness, on sensual impression that deliver their meaning without waste. The
action of a conventional short story id compressed within a short (usually continuous)
time frame and space. The character, few in number, are revealed, not developed, the
background and the setting are implied, not rendered, and the short story gets going
as quickly as possible. (Stone, Packer, Hoopes. The Short Story 1076, 5)
What is a story? Erskine Caldwell defines it best as “an imaginary tale with a
meaning, interesting enough to hold the reader’s attention, profound enough to
express human nature, “It does not matter where the reader’s attention has been
directed, so long as it is stimulated and held. Our only concern as reader is, to
you away feeling you have had an experience more absorbing than any in your own
life? Katherine Anne Poerter defines the short story from the perspective of the
writer: the short story presents “first a theme, then a point of view; a certain
knowledge of human nature and strong feeling about it; and style.” (Burnett, On
Writing The Short Story, 1983, 2)
As Elizabeth Bowen has said, the short story’s disadvantage is an “emotional
narrowness”. XJ Kennedy told that “a short story is more than a sequence of
happenings. A finely wrought short story has the richness and conciseness of an
excellent lyric poem. Spontaneous and natural as the finished story may seem, the
writer has written it so artfully that there is meaning in even seemingly casual speech
and apparently trivial details.
Writing in 1917, Herbert Ellsworth Cory said “the every technique of the
short story is pathological, and titillates our nerves in our pathological moments. The
short story is the blood kinsman of he quick-lunch, the vaudeville, and the joy ride,”
No doubt the short story is one manifestation of the modern speedup, thought Cory’s
rather shuddering vision of a world full of “pathological moment” is one that even
Kafka might reject. However, he does touch on the short-story writer’s chief
difficulty: how to be succinct without being shallow, how to create a single effect
without creating a merely transitory one.
Actually, do not have standard meaning about, what is a short story? Every
letters have different meaning, H.B Jassin Inhdonesian Paus of Letters, defines
Meaning of Short Story “a short story is should find from quality, that is how many
words: between 500-20.000 words, have a plot, character and impression.”
But according to Aoh, KH “short story is one of variation fiction or
fabrication which often told short of prose metaphor.” And the other defines about
short story. That means no one exactly, and also is not contradiction one of the others,
near all of them is agree on one conclusion, that short story is short fabricated.
3.2. Characteristic of a Short Story
From some books and meaning which suitable for guidelines is opinion from
the best of short story writer, Edgar Allan Poe, it is can be guidelines, because
theoretically it meet characteristic of scientific and as practice it can to application.
His detailed opinion was written by is it M. Diponegoro in his book Yuk Nulis Cerpen
Yuk, as followed.
First, short story should be short, how short? As long as one sitting time when
we are waited for a bus or train, beside that, the short story writer not like other
novelists, stop his narrative. However the physical characters analyzed or their
portraits painted, he cannot take time out to draw a scene. The writer must intimate
the setting, imply the complexity, insinuate character, and the reader must infer the
rest.
Second, the short story made one effect and unique. According to Poe,
oneness mind and action can improve by one line from beginning until the end. In
Third, the short story should be limited and compact. Every detail should have
an end and a conclusion. Because the making of words and sentences. Because the
making of words and sentences as side as possible is a capability that should be
possessed by a short story writer.
Fourth, the short story should make his reader confident, that his story is true,
not just a fiction. It needs special skills, have concerns in the character, that they are
real, as a human being.
Fifth, the short story should give ending conclusion. No more touched. That
the story has been ended.
There are three main qualities that mark the short story as clearly different
from prose fiction that make it a “genre”. The first quality is, of course brevity. The
second is, it power of compensating for the consequences of shortness and the third
is, the interaction of one to two.
The beauty of the short story is that all its elements can be drawn to a single
point that shines with such brightness that all the past moments of the tale are bathed
in light seen as a whole, as a radiance.
3.3. Elements of a Short Story
The elements of a short story are:
3.3.1. Theme
A short expresses the value of a writer and his conception of
But thoughts and feelings that a writer embodies in a story are
seldom very simple. Most stories cannot be reduced, like Aesop’s
Fables to a simple moral. A modern short story is not fertile soil in
which to plant a sermon. Chekhov wrote to his editor.
“You upbraid me about objectivity, styling it indifference to good and
evil, absence of ideals and ideas, etc. you would have me say, in
depicting horse thieves, that stealing horses is an evil. But them, that
has been known a long while, even without me. Let jurors judge me
them, for my business is only to show them as they are… of course, it
would be gratifying to couple art with sermonizing, but, personally, I
find this exceedingly difficult and, because of condition imposed b
technique, all but impossible.”
Nor can a short story be translated into a philosophic treatise or
a sociological tract. Weighty ideas need systematic presentation as free
as possible from the mess that is human being. Organized knowledge
by its very nature deals in generalities, but fiction deals with the
specific person in the specific situation. And sometimes character can
take on a life of their own—almost in defiance of their creator’s
intention.
Still and all, as Chekhov well knew, serious reader demand
more than an accounting of events; they demand that these events in
some way illumine their own lives—that events be shaped into a
by the story has receded, the raider if left with a residue, a distillation
that we call its theme. (Stone, Packer, Hoopes, The Short Story 1976,
23)
3.3.2. Plot
Plot is essential to fiction as the nerve that runs the length of a
caterpillar, directing its exertions and its progress toward its destination.
Plot is a means of keeping our characters in motion and holding the
reader’s participation to the conclusion of our story. It is also the line on
which to hang suspense, curiosity, drama, behavior, and the sense of
time’s passing. Without plot, it is unlikely a reader would care very much
about following a story thought to the end.
Someone has said that plot shows the writer’s ability to think
in several directions at once and thus keep his story moving. It also
indicates that the limits of our imagination have been extended beyond
the point of known facts and events, which is the short story are
justifiably created whole from true happening, but in the telling events,
to circle freely around the subjects so that he may use the fiction writer’s
privilege to judge characters he knows better than anyone else.
Plot is about many things—character, imagination, irony,
not only the reader, but the author as well. And a good plot is fun for
everybody.
What makes a good plot? Most important is consistency and
logic in mood and point of view. We do not approach light,
inconsequential characters with solemnity unless our purpose is satire, or
create a death scene in a mood of hilarity, unless we possess the great
gifts of a Mark Twain or a Rossini. Which is not to day that deeper
meanings are not to be found in comedies, or that lighter moments are
not used sometimes for relief in tragic dramas. It was P. G.
Wodehouse, the great humorist, who stated that the plot must determine
the mood in which a story is written, not visa versa.
Plots, as said before, may come from memory, from subjective
reactions to experiences (indeed, some feeling memory or emotion must
be present in any fictional narrative), or from a provocative situation we
have been told (gossip again!) or read about. (Burnett, On Writing the
Short Story, 1983, 14, 15 and 17)
3.3.3. Character
We engage in characterization almost every day our lives. We
tell our family or friends what happened at work or school, who said
what, maybe why. Perhaps we mimic a voice or gesture; we may even
as characterization is, it is one of the mysteries of tale-telling. T. S. Eliot
said:
“A ‘living character’ is not necessarily ‘true to life’. It is person whom
we can see and hear, whether he be true or false to human nature as we
know it. What the creator of character needs is not so much knowledge
of motives as keen sensibility; the dramatist need not understand people,
but he must be exceptional aware oh them”.
What goes into living character? How does a writer create the
breath of life on a page with words? Perhaps w few notions will cast a
little light the mystery. All that we have said about point of view touches
on character, for the way we seen the character determines the character
we see.
Tone also creates character. If the author’s tone is
contemptuous or humorous, the reader will likely see the character as
contemptible or funny.
Everything about a character defines him and contributes to the
impact on us: looks, gesture, attire, social class, words spoken, views
held, motives revealed, deeds done or not done. Some writers prefer to
tell about their characters.
In collected impression, Elizabeth Bowen says, “Characters
must materialize—that is, must have palpable physical reality. They must
Physical personality belongs to action…. Pictures must be in movement.
Eye, hand, stature, etc. Must appear, and only appear, in play.”
A character can be reveled in the way others see him and his
views of others. Characters in a story are only part of a whole; it is within
the whole context that we finally read the story.
3.3.4. Setting
Setting is the place where the action happens can powerfully
focus the reader’s expectations. Without it, there would be vagueness,
uncertainty.
Most story writers try to reader the setting swiftly, sparsely, or
impressionistically, by slipping representative concrete details into other
part of the narrative.
3.3.5. Point of View
As we come to read a short story, we usually notice carefully
who is telling the story (whether in first or third person) and how the
story’s conflicts and characterizations might be affected by this point of
view. In reading a play, on the other hand, we are much more likely to
transform the writer action into scenes that play out in our minds as they
might be acted on stage. (Stanford, 2003, 56)
Some writers believe that the second most important decision
Faulker identified as the source of a story, is point of view. Point of view
is a term of art which refers to the relationships between the storyteller,
the story, and the reader.
Omniscient Point of View
The omniscient narrator is free to bring his own view a into the story.
Direct Observer
Almost the exact opposite of the omniscient is the direct
observer.
The disadvantage of this method are obvious. Limited as he is
to speech, gesture, action, and setting, the direct observer will find it
difficult to render subtly shifting psychological states or o provide a wide
range of understanding and feeling. Complexity and subtlety can only
suggest.
First-Person Narration
First-person narration can avoid the sprawling quality of omniscience and the narrowness of direct observer. But it has other
limitations.
Which this point of view, the reader is told what he knows by a
“person” who speaks in his own voice. The reader knows only what that
angles the narrator does not provide. He cannot be taken into other
minds. But first person has a special authenticity and special vibrancy.
The reader feels in touch with a real person who cares about what he is
feeling.
Third Person Intimate
Third person intimate provides a double vision. The reader not
only observers the main character, he is also intimately involved the
character’s feelings and thoughts. This point of views creates tension
between what the storyteller and the reader understand and what
character knows, between external action and internal reaction, between
the grossness of gesture and the refinement of thought between that
really is and what the character thinks. Third person intimate can be
flexibly adapted to a writer’s intention (Stone, Packer, Hoopes. The
Short Story, 1976, 11, 12, 13, 14)
3.3.6. Anatomy of Short Story
After understand defines of short story, characteristic of short
and the element of short story, so we should ready to create a short story.
Before write it we would knows the anatomy of short story or sometimes
it said structure of story. Generally the anatomy of short story, any kinds
of point of view, and however a plot should have anatomy, they are is;
1. Situation (the writer opened the story)
3. Affairs of peak
4. Climax
5. Anti climax
Or composition of short story, in the same manner as H. B
Jassin could like this:
1. Introduction
2. Conflict
3. Solution
A good short story is which have balance in anatomy and
structure of story. First weakness from beginner usually in this structure
of story.
3.3.7. Final Stages
Most writers however, do put a story after the first draft, and
come back to it later. And sometimes it is better, after the final draft, to
still wait a bit until you can read it through with totally impartial eye that
comes after some removal. It has been my own experience that one is
seldom able to judge one’s own work successfully when it is new and
still raw from the paints of birth or glossed with the author’s euphoria at
having given birth, perhaps the most ephemeral stage of all. Therefore, it
is usually advisable, even essential, to abandon your newborn for
trifle with it at this time. Neither embellish nor edit your story until it has
had a chance to better, when your own mind and he strength of your
critical judgment will have been renewed.
In the next stage, the day, the hour, comes when you will sit
down and read your story through without a pen in your hand, trying to
see it as though written be someone else. You will have left it alone long
enough so that, as Sidney Cox wrote, “You will see not what you felt and
thought as the time, but what is now on the paper.”
It is the next stage when you read it again that you will expand
those passages needing to be amplified and rework those needing to be
improved. You will mark your passage freely, crossing out and throwing
away with a clear head and cruel and ruthless disregard, excess verbiage
or rhetoric, passages which is should be cut, passages which are not
right. Listen to your ears to the dialogue you have written: read it aloud,
attach it clearly to a face, a person, and always try to strip it to the
essential of character, speech patterns, and development of the plot or
situation. Write fresh dialogue if the first seems stilted, or put in new
dialogue where there was none before. Fill out you descriptions and
developments, or condense where you have been profligate; even,
perhaps, add new episodes for emphasis and drama.
Then retype entirely (do not ever follow the amateur’s way of
saving scraps of old typescripts and pasting them all together), and read
Finally, study your story as a whole, as thought you were still
another impersonal reader. Ask yourself, does it hang together in logical
developments? Are they right? Will the ultimate reader—and—editor—
identify with your characters, or at least be so absorbed by their behavior
and thought processes as you written them that he takes both your story
and your authority seriously?
Also, if we are good, we will find evidence that we are good;
and if we are not, well have seen how others managed to succeed; or we
4. THE SHORT STORY
PÄR LAGERKVIST
FATHER and I
When I was getting on toward ten, I remember, father took me by the hand on
Sunday afternoon, as we were to go out into the woods and listen to the birds singing.
Waving good-bye to Mother, who had stay at home and get the evening meal, we set
off briskly in the warm sunshine. We didn’t make any great to-do about this going to
listen to the birds, as though it were something extra special or wonderful; we were
sound, sensible people, Father and I, brought up with nature and used to it. There was
nothing to make a fuss about. It was just that it was Sunday afternoon and Father was
free. We walked along the railway line, where people were not allowed to go as a
rule, but Father worked on the railway and so he had a right to. By doing this could
get straight into the woods, too, without going a round-about way.
Soon the bird song began and all the rest. There was a twittering of finches
and willow warblers, thrushes and sparrows in the bushes, the hum that goes on all
around you as soon as you enter a wood. The ground was white with wood anemones
, the birches has just come out into leaf, and the spruces had fresh shoots; there were
scents on all sides, and underfoot the mousy earth lay steaming in the sun. There was
noise and movement everywhere; bumblebees came out of their holes, midges
swarmed wherever it was marshy, and birds darted out of the bushes to catch them
All at once a train came rushing along and we had to go down on to go to the
embankment. Father hailed the engine driver with two fingers to his Sunday hat and
the driver saluted and extended his hand. It all happened quickly; then on we went,
taking big strides so as to tread on the sleepers and not in the gravel, which was heavy
going and rough and the shoes. The sleepers sweated tar in the heat, everything
smelled, grease and meadowsweet, tar and heather by turns. The rails glinted in the
sun. On either side of the line were telegraph poles, which sang as you passed them.
Yes, it was a lonely day. The sky was quite clear, not a cloud to be seen, and there
couldn’t be any, either, on a day like this. From what Father said.
After a while we came to a filed of oats to the right of the line, were a crofter
we knew had a clearing. The oats had come up close and even. Father scanned them
with an expert eye and I could see he was satisfied. I knew very little about such
things, having been born in a town. Then we came to the bright over a stream, which
most of the time had no water to speak of but which now was in full spate. We held
hands so as not to fall down between the sleepers. After that it is not long before you
come to the platelayer’s cottage lying embedded in greenery, apple trees and
gooseberry bushes. We called in to see them and were offered milk, and saw their pig
and hens and fruit trees in blossom; then we went on. We wanted to get to the river,
for it was more beautiful there than anywhere else; there was something special about
it, as farther upstream it flowed past where Father had lived as a child. We usually
liked to come as far as this before we turned back, and today, too, we got there after a
We stopped by the river, which murmured in the hot sun, broad and friendly.
The shady trees hung along the banks and were reflected in the backwater. It was all
fresh and light here; a soft breeze was blowing off the small lakes higher up. We
climbed down the slope and walked a little way along the bank, Father pointing out
the spots for fishing. He had sat here on the stones as a boy, waiting for perch all day
long; often there wasn’t even a bite, but it was a blissful life. Now he didn’t have
time. We hung about on the bank for a good while, making a noise, pushing out bits
of bark for the current to take, throwing pebbles out into the water to see who could
throw farthest; we were both gay and cheerful by nature, Father and I. At least we felt
tired and that we had had enough, and we set off for home.
It was beginning to get dark. The woods were changed-it wasn’t dark there
yet, but almost. We quickened our steps. Mother would be getting anxious and
waiting with supper. She was always afraid something was going to happen. But it
hadn’t; it had been a lovely day, nothing had happen that shouldn’t. We were content
with everything.
The twilight deepened. The trees were so funny. They stood listening to every
step we took, as if they didn’t know who we were. Under one of them was a
glow-warm. It lay down there in the dark staring at us. I squeezed Father’s hand, but he
didn’t see the strange glow, just walked on. Now it was quite dark. We came to the
bridge over the stream. It roared down there in the depths, horribly’ as thought it was
wanted to swallow us up; the abyss yawned bellow us. We trod carefully on the
would carry me across, but he didn’t say anything; he probably wanted me to be like
him and think nothing of it.
We went no. Father was so calm as he walked there in the darkness, with even
strides, not speaking, thinking to himself. I couldn’t understand how he could be so
calm when it was so murky. I looked all around me in fear. Nothing but darkness
everywhere. I hardly dared take a deep breath, for then you got so much darkness
inside you, and that was dangerous. I thought it meant you would soon die. I
remember quite well that’s what I thought then. The embankment slope steeply down,
as thought into chasms black as night. The telegraph poles rose, ghostly, to the sky.
Inside them was a hollow rumble, as thought someone were talking deep down in the
earth and the white porcelain caps sat huddled fearfully together listening to it. It was
all horrible. Nothing was right, nothing real; it was all so weird.
Hugging close to Father, I whispered, “Father, why is it so horrible when it’s
dark?”
“No, my boy, it’s not horrible,” he said, taking me by the hand.
“Yes, Father, it is.”
“No, my child, you mustn’t think that. Not when we know there is a God.”
I felt so lonely, forsaken. It was so strange that only I was afraid, not Father,
that we didn’t think the same. And the strange that what he said didn’t help me and
stop me from being afraid. Not even what he said about God helped me. I thought he
was horrible. It was horrible that he was everywhere here in the darkness, down under
We walked in silence, each with his own thoughts. My heart contracted, as
thought the darkness had got in was beginning to squeeze it.
Then, as we were rounding a bend, we suddenly heard a mighty roar behind
us! We were awakened out of our thoughts in alarm. Father pulled me down on the
embankment, down into the abyss, held me there. Then the train tore past, a black
train. All the lights in the carriages were out, and it was going at frantic speed. What
shot of train was it? There wasn’t one due now! We gazed at whirled out into the
night. It was terrible. The driver stood there in the light of the fire, motionless, his
features as though turned to stone. Father didn’t recognize him, didn’t know who he
was. The man just stared straight ahead, as though intent on rushing into the darkness,
far into the darkness that had no end.
Beside myself with dread, I stood there painting, gazing after furious vision. It
was swallowed up by the night. Father took me up on to the line; we hurried home.
He said, “Strange, what train was that? And I didn’t recognize the driver.” Then we
walked on in silence.
But my whole body was shaking. It was for me, for my sake. I sensed what it
mean: it was aguish that was to come, the unknown, all that Father knew nothing
about, that he wouldn’t be able to protect me against. That was how this world, this
life, would be for me; not like Father’s where everything was secure and certain. It
wasn’t a real world, a real life. It just hurtled, blazing, into the darkness that had no
DONALD BARTHELME The King of Jazz
Well I’m the king of jazz now, thought Hokie Mokie to himself as he oiled the
slide on his trombone. Hasn’t been a ‘bone man been king of jazz for many years. But
now that Spicy MacLammermoor, the old king, is dead, I guess I’m it. Maybes I
better play a few not of his window here, to reassure myself.
“Wow!” said somebody standing on the sidewalk. “Did you here that?”
“I did,” said his companion.
“Can you distinguish or grate homemade American jazz performance, each
from the other?”
“Used to could.”
“Then who was the playing?”
“Sounds like Hokie Mokie to me. Those few but perfectly selected notes have
the real epiphanic glow.”
“The what?”
“The real epiphanic glow, such as is obtained only by artists of the caliber of
Hokie Moike, who’s from Pass Christian, Mississippi. He’s the king of jazz, now that
Spicy MacLammermoor is gone.”
Hokie Mokie put his trombone in its trombone case and went to a gig. At the
gig everyone fell back before him, bowing.
“Hi Bucky! Hi Boot! Hi Freddie! Hi George! Hi Thad! Hi Roy! Hi Dexter! Hi
“How ‘bout ‘Smoke?”
“Wow!” every body said. “Did you hear that? Hokie Mokie can just knock a
fella out, just the way he pronounces a word. What a intonation on that boy! God
Almight!”
“I don’t want to play ‘Smoke’,” somebody said
“Would you repeat that, stranger?”
“I don’t want to play ‘Smoke’.’Smoke’ is dull. I don’t like the changes. I
refuse to play ‘Smoke,’”
“He refuses to play ‘Smoke’! But Hokie Mokie is the king of jazz and he says
‘Smoke’!”
“Man, you from outa town or something? What do you mean reafuse to play
‘Smoke’?” Who hired you?”
“Oh you’re one of those Japanese cats, eh?”
“Yes I’m the top trombone man in all of Japan.”
“Well you’re welcome here until we hear you play. Tell me, is the Tennessee
Tea Room still the top jazz place in Tokyo?”
“No, the top jazz place in Tokyo is the Square Box now.”
“That’s nice, O. K., now you gonna play ‘Smoke’ just like Hokie said. You
ready, Hokie? O.K., give you four for nothin’. One! Two! Three! Four!”
The two man who had been standing under Hokie’s window had followed him
to the club. Now they said:
“Yes, that’s Hoke’s famous ‘English sunrise’ way of playing. Playing with
lots of rays coming out of it, some red rays, some blue rays, some green rays, some
green steaming from violet center, some olive steaming from violet center—“
“That young Japanese fellow is pretty good, too.”
“Yes, he is pretty good. And he holds his horn in a peculiar way. That’s
frequently the mark of the superior player.”
“Bent over like that with his head between his knees—good God, he’s
sensational!”
He’s sensational, Hokie thought. Maybe I ought to kill him.
But at the moment somebody came in the door pushing in front of him a
four-and-one-half-octave marimba. Yes, it was Fat Man Jones, and he began to play even
before he was fully in the door.
“What’re we playing?”
“Billie’s Bounce.”
“That’s what I thought it was, what’re we in?”
“F.”
“That’s what I thought we were in. Didn’t you use to play with Maryand?”
“Yeah I was on the band for a while until I was in the hospital.”
“What for?”
“I was tired.”
“What we can add to Hokie’s fantastic playing?”
“You ask him, I’m scared. You don’t fool around with the king of jazz. That
young Japanese guy’s pretty good, too,”
“He’s sensational.”
“You think he’s playing in Japanese?”
“Well I don’t think it’s English.”
This trombone’s been makin’ my neck green for thirty-five years, Hokie
thought. How come I got to stand up to yet another challenge, this late in life?
“Well, Hideo—“
“Yes, Mr. Mokie?”
“You did well on both ‘Smoke” and ‘Billie’s Bounce’, you’re just about as
good as me, I regret to say. In fact, I’ve decided you’re better than me. It’s a hideous
thing to contemplate, but there it is. I have only been the king of jazz for twenty-four
hours, but the unforgiving logic of this art demands we bow to Truth, when we hear
it.”
“Maybe you’re mistaken?”
“No, I got ears, I not mistaken. Hideo Yamaguchi is the new king of jazz.”
“You want to be king emeritus?”
“No, I’m just going to fold up my horn and steal away. This gig is yours,
Hideo. You can pick the next tune.”
“How ‘bout ‘Cream’?”
“O. K., you heard what Hideo said, it’s ‘Cream.’ You ready, Hideo?”
“Hokie, you don’t have to leave. You can play too. Just move a little over to
“Thank you, Hideo, that’s very gracious of you. I guess I will play a little,
since I’m still here. Sotto voce, of course.”
“Hideo is wonderful on ‘Cream’!”
“Yes, I imagine it’s his best tune.”
“What’s that sound coming in from the side there?”
“The left.”
“You mean that sound that sounds like the cutting edge of life? That sounds
like a herd of musk ox in full flight? That sounds like male walruses diving to the
bottom of the sea? That sounds like fumaroles smoking on the slopes of Mt. Katmai?
That sounds like the wild turkey walking through the deep, soft forest? That sounds
like beavers chewing trees in an Appalachian marsh? That sounds like an oyster
fungus growing on an aspen trunk? That sounds like a mule deer wandering a
montane of the Sierra Nevada? That sounds like prairie dogs kissing? That sounds
like witch grass tumbling or a river meandering? That sounds like coatimundis
moving in packs across the face of Arkansass? That sounds like—“
“Good God, it’s Hokie! Even with a cup mute on, he’s blowing Hideo right
off the stand!”
“Hideo’s playing on his knees now! Good God, he’s reaching into his belt for
a large steel sword—Stop him!”
“Wow! That was the most exciting ‘Cream’ ever played! Is Hideo all right?”
“Yes, somebody is getting him a glass of water.”
“Hokie Mokie is the most happening thing there is.”
“Yes, Mr. Hokie sir, I have to admit it, you blew me right off the stand. I see I
have many years of work and study before me still.”
“That’s O. K., son. Don’t think a thing about it. It happens to the best of us.
Now I want everybody to have a good time because we’re gonna play ‘Flats’ is next.”
“With your permission, sir, I will return to my hotel and pack. I am most
grateful for everything I have learned here.”
“That’s O. K., Hideo. Have a nice day. He-he. Now, ‘Flats.’”
ANTON CHEKHOV The Lottery Ticket
Ivan Dmitritch, a middle-class man who lived with his family on an income of
twelve hundred a year and was very well satisfied with his lot, sat down on the sofa
after supper and begun reading the newspaper.
“I forgot to look at the newspaper today,” his wife to him as she cleared the
table. “Look and see whether the list of the drawings is there.”
“Yes it is,” said Ivan Dmitritch: “But, hasn’t your ticket lapsed?”
“No, I took the interest on Tuesday.”
“What is the number?”
“Series 9,499, number 26.”
“All right . . . we will look . . . 9,499 and 26.”
Ivan Dmitritch had no faith in lottery luck, and would not, as a rule, have
consented to look at the list of winning number, but now, as he has nothing else to do
and as the newspaper was before his eyes, he passed his finger downwards along the
column of numbers. And immediately, as though in mockery of his scepticism, no
further than the second line from the top, his eyes was caught by the figure 9,499!
Unable to believe his eyes, he hurriedly dropped the paper on his knees without
looking to see the number of the ticket, and, just as though some one had given him a
douche of cold water, he felt an agreeable chill in the pit of the stomach; tingling and
terrible and sweet!
His wife looked at his astonished and panic-stricken face, and realized that he
was not joking.
“9,499?” She asked, turning pale and dropping the folded tablecloth on the
table.
“Yes, yes . . . it really is there!”
“And the number of the ticket?”
“Oh, yes! There’s the number of the ticket too. But stay . . . wait! No, I say!
Anyway, the number of our series is there! Anyway, you understand . . .”
Looking at his wife, Ivan Dmitritch gave a broad, senseless smile, like a baby
when a bright object is shown it. His wife smile too; it was a pleasant to her as to him
that he only mentioned the series, and did not try to find out the number of winning
ticket. To torment and tantalize oneself with hopes of possible fortune is so sweet, so
thrilling!
“It is our series,” said Ivan Dmitritch, after a long silence. “So there is a
probability that we have won. It’s only a probability, but there it is!”
“Well, now look!”
“Wait a little. We have plenty of time to be disappointed. It’s on the second
line from the top, so the prize is seventy-five thousand. That’s not money, but power
capital! And in a minute I shall look at the list, and there-26! Eh? I say, what if we
really have won?”
The husband and wife begun laughing and staring at one another in silence.
The possibility of winning bewildered them; they could not have said, could not have
where they would go. They thought only of the figures 9,499 and 75,000 and pictured
them in their imagination, while somehow they could not think of the happiness itself
which was so possible.
Ivan Dmitritch, holding the paper in his hand, walked several times from
corner to corner, and only when he had recovered from the first impression began
dreaming a little.
“And if we have won,” he said—“why, it will be a new life, it will be a
transformation! The ticket is yours, but if it were mine I should, first of all, of course,
spend twenty-five thousand on real property in the shape of an estate; ten thousand on
immediate expenses, new furnishing . . . traveling . . . paying debts, and so on . . . the
other forty thousand I would put in the bank and get interest on it.”
“Yes, an estate, that would be nice,” said his wife, sitting down and dropping
her hands in her lap.
“Somewhere in the Tula or Oryol provinces . . . In the first place we shouldn’t
need a summer villa, and besides, it would it would always bring in an income.”
And pictures came crowding on his imagination, each more gracious and
poetical then the last. And in all these pictures he saw himself well fed, serene,
healthy, felt warm, even hot! Here, after eating a summer soup, cold as ice, he lay on
his back on the burning and close to a stream or in the garden under a line-tree . . . It
is hot . . . His little boy and girl are crawling about near him , digging in the sand or
catching ladybirds in the grass. He dozes sweetly, thinking of nothing, and feeling all
peasants catching fish with a net. When the sunset he takes a towel and soap and
saunters to the bathingshed, where he undresses at his leisure, slowly rubs his bare
chest with his hands, and goes into the water. And in the water, near the opaque
soapy circles, little fish flit to and fro and green water-weeds nod their heads. After
bathing there is tea with cream and milk rolls . . . In the evening a walk or vint the
neighbors.
“Yes, it would be nice to buy an estate,” said his wife, also dreaming, and
from her face it was evident that she was enchanted by her thoughts.
Ivan Dmitritch pictured to himself autumn with its rains, its cold evenings,
and its St. Martin’s summer. At that season he would have to take longer walks about
the garden and beside the river, so as to get thoroughly chilled, and then drink a big
glass of vodka and eat a salted mushroom or a soused cucumber, and then—drink
another . . . The children would come running from the kitchen-garden, bringing a
carrot and a radish smelling of fresh earth . . . And then, he would lie stretched full
length on the sofa, and in leisurely fashion turn over the pages of some illustrated
magazine, or, covering his face with it and unbuttoning his waistcoat, give himself up
to slumber.
The St. Martin’s summer is followed by cloudy gloomy weather. It rains day
and night, the bare trees weep, the wind is damp and cold. The dogs, the horses, the
fowls—all are wet, depressed, downcast. There is nowhere to walk; one can’t go out
for days together; one has to pace up and down the room, looking despondently at the
grey window. It is dreary!
“I should go abroad, you know, Masha,” he said.
And he began thinking how nice it would be in late autumn to go abroad
somewhere to the Shout of France . . . to Italy . . . to India!
“I should certainly go abroad too,” his wife said. “But look at the number of
the ticket!”
“”Wait, wait! . . .”
He walked about the room and went on thinking. It occurred to him: what if
his wife really did go abroad? It is pleasant to travel alone, or in the society of light,
careless women who live in the present, and not such as think and talk all the journey
about nothing but their children, sigh, and tremble with dismay over every farthing.
Ivan Dmitritch imagined his wife in the train with a multitude of parcels, baskets, and
bags; she would be sighing over something, complaining that the train made her head
ache, that she had spent so much money. . . At the situation he would continually be
having to run to boiling water, bread and butter . . . She wouldn’t have dinner
because of its being too dear. . .
“She would begrudge me every farthing,” he thought, with a glance at his
wife. “The lottery ticket is hers, not mine! Besides, what is the use of her going
abroad? What dose she want there? She would shut herself up in the hotel, and not let
me out of her sight . . . I know!”
And for the first time in his life his mind dwelt on the fact that his wife had
grown elderly and plain, and that she was saturated through and through with the
“Of course, all that is still nonsense,” he thought; “but . . . why should she go
yet she would go, of course . . . I can fancy . . . In reality it is all one to her, whether
it is Naples or Klin. She would only in my way. I should be dependent upon her. I can
fancy her, like a regular woman she will lock the money us as soon as she gets it . . .
she will look after her relation and grudged me every farthing.”
Ivan Dmitritch thought of her relations. All those wretched brothers and
sisters and aunts and uncle would come crawling about as soon as they heard of the
whining like beggars, and fawning upon them with oily, hypocritical smiles.
Wretched, detestable people! If they were given anything, they would ask for more;
while if they were refused, they would swear at them, slander them, and wish them
every kind of misfortune.
Ivan Dmitritch remembered his own relation, and their faces, at which he had
looked impartially in the past, struck him now as repulsive and hateful.
“They are such reptiles!” he thought.
And his wife’s faced, too, truck him as repulsive and hateful. Anger surged up
in his heart against her, and he thought malignantly:
“She knows nothing about money, and so she is stingy. If she won it she
would give me a hundred roubles, and put the rest away under lock and keys.”
And he looked at his wife, not with a smile now, but with hatred. She glanced
at him too, and also with hatred and anger. She had her own daydreams, her own
plans, her own reflection; she understood perfectly well what her husband’s dreams
“It’s very nice making daydream at other’s people’s expense!” is what her
eyes expressed. “No, don’t you dare!”
Her husband understood her look; hatred began stirring again in his breast,
and in order to annoy his wife he glanced quickly, to spite her, at the fourth page on
the newspaper and read out triumphantly:
“Series 9,499, number 46! Not 26!”
Hatred and both disappeared at once and it begun immediately to seem to Ivan
Dmitritch and his wife that their rooms were dark and small and lowpitched, that the
supper they had been eating was not doing them good, but laying heavy on their
stomachs, that the evenings were long and wearisome . . .
“What the devil’s the meaning of it?” said Ivan Dmitritch, beginning to be
ill-humored . “Wherever one steps there are bits of paper under one’s feet, crumbs,
husks. The rooms are never swept! One is simply forced to go out. Damnation take
my soul entirely! I shall go and hang myself on the first aspen-tree!”
5. CONCLUSION AND SUGGESTION
5.1 Conclusion
After making a brief description on techniques of writing a short story, finally
it could be concluded that:
- Techniques of writing a short story is very important to know if we want
to create a story.
- If we want to be a good and success writer, we should not know the
elements of a short story, and also we should know its anatomy.
- And then strong desire which is not easy to be justified.
5.2 Suggestion
How do I know I am a writer? This question is often asked by those of us who
talk and write as well as giving a lecture on the short story. What characteristics are
most essential to those of us wish to succeed?
As in any art from, the quick answer is relatively easy. You have the desire.
The talent. You are willing to practice. You add to these, persistence; stubbornness in
the face of rejection; the habit of self criticism, and faith in yourself, in equal parts.
And always you will remember that if a writer withholds his vital self, ignores the
promptings of his own unique “daemon”, as Rudyard Kipling has said, he will not
succeed nor will he be read or long remembered, “When daemon is in charge, do no
But not too long a drift. Not too patient a wait. And be quick to obey your
REFERENCES
Bonazza, Blaze O, Emil Roy, and Sandra Roy, 1982. Studies in Fiction enlarge third
edition, New York: Harper and Row Publisher.
Burnett, Hallie, 1983. On Writing the Short Story, New York: Barnes & Noble
Books.
El Shirazy, Anif Sirsaeba, 2007. Fenomena Ayat-Ayat Cinta, Jakarta: Republika.
Kennedy, X J, 1991. An Introduction of Fiction, Poetry, and Drama fifth edition,
New York: Harper Collins Publisher.
Mills, Nicolaus, 1972. Comparisons a Short Story Anthology, New York: Mc
GRAW-HILL BOOK COMPANY.
Novakovincin, Josip, 2003. Berguru kepada Sastrawa Dunia, Bandung: Kaifa.
Stanford, Judith A, 2003. Responding to Literature Stories, Poems, Plays, and Essays
fourth edition, New York: Mc GRAW-HILL BOOK COMPANY.
Stone, Willferd, Nancy Huddleston Packer, and Robert Hoopes, 1976. The Short
Story an Introduction, New York: Mc GRAW-HILL BOOK COMPANY.
Sumardjo, Jacob, 2004. Catatan Kecil Tentang Menulis Cerpen, Yogyakarta: Pustaka
Pelajar.
