What Are The Best Short Story Collections?

by | Last updated on January 24, 2024

, , , ,
  • The Thing Around Your Neck. by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. …
  • The Safety of Objects. …
  • American Housewife. …
  • Awayland. …
  • Sour Heart. …
  • The King Is Always Above the People. …
  • After the Quake. …
  • The Largesse of the Sea Maiden.

What makes a good short story collection?

Most short story collections will have the

reader thinking about a topic from different angles

, an experience of exploration, but those that manage to include one or two gut-punching stories are the ones that truly elevate themselves above the masses.

What is the best short story ever written?

  • The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe.
  • The Lottery by Shirley Jackson.
  • The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.
  • Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin.
  • The Dead by James Joyce.
  • The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka.
  • Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway.
  • Cathedral by Raymond Carver.

Where is the best place to read short stories?

  1. Electric Literature. One of the most popular websites to read short stories on, Electric Literature is a nonprofit digital publisher focused on unveiling elevating new voices. …
  2. The New Yorker. …
  3. Project Gutenberg. …
  4. Fictionaut. …
  5. Wattpad. …
  6. 3:AM Magazine. …
  7. Inkitt.

What is the best collection of short stories?

  • “Lamb to the Slaughter” by Roald Dahl. …
  • “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson. …
  • “How to Become a Writer” by Lorrie Moore. …
  • “Cat Person” by Kristen Roupenian. …
  • “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver. …
  • “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor. …
  • “Symbols and Signs” by Vladimir Nabokov.

Do short story collections sell?

A short story collection is often

a tough sell to big national publishers

. The writers who are most likely to score a paying book deal are usually those who have already built up their reputations via literary magazine publications. The opportunity to be nominated for a well-known award.

How many words are short story collections?

The average short story should run anywhere from

5,000 to 10,000 words

, but they can be anything above 1,000 words. Flash fiction is a short story that is 500 words or less.

How many pages is 40000 words?

Answer: 40,000 words is

80 pages single-spaced or 160 pages double-spaced

. Typical documents that are 40,000 words include include novels, novellas, and other published books. It will take approximately 133 minutes to read 40,000 words.

How many stories should be in a collection?

I think the thumb rule is 40,000 words totally. The reader who buys your collection will feel he/she has got his/her money’s worth if there are at least 40,000 words to read. At an average of 2500 words per story, that makes

16 stories

.

What do you call a short story collection?

In genre fiction, the term “

anthology”

typically categorizes collections of shorter works, such as short stories and short novels, by different authors, each featuring unrelated casts of characters and settings, and usually collected into a single volume for publication.

What is the most famous story?

  1. The Odyssey (Homer, 8th Century BC) …
  2. Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1852) …
  3. Frankenstein (Mary Shelley, 1818) …
  4. Nineteen Eighty-Four (George Orwell, 1949) …
  5. Things Fall Apart (Chinua Achebe, 1958) …
  6. One Thousand and One Nights (various authors, 8th-18th Centuries)

What is the longest short story?


A novella

is the longest of the short fiction forms, granting writers freedom for an expanded story, descriptions, and cast of characters, but still keeping the condensed intensity of a short story. Modern trends generally seem to be moving away from publishing novellas.

What do the best short stories have in common?

They are true masters at combining the five key elements that go into every great short story:

character, setting, conflict, plot and theme

. The ELLSA web-site uses one of these five key elements as the focus of each of the five on-line lessons in the Classics of American Literature section.

How can I get free stories?

  1. Narrative Magazine. Narrative Magazine is a free space for readers to enjoy some of the best short stories, essays, and poetry written by both established and emerging writers. …
  2. The New Yorker. …
  3. Electric Literature. …
  4. Wattpad. …
  5. Granta. …
  6. Tor.com. …
  7. Lightspeed Magazine. …
  8. American Short Fiction.

What are the 3 types of short stories?

While there are many different short story styles, here we will consider three popular short story types:

lyrical, flash fiction, and vignette

.

What are 3 short stories?

  • “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” by Robert Southey.
  • “Little Red Riding Hood” by Charles Perrault.
  • “Hansel and Gretel” by the Brothers Grimm.
  • “Peter Pan” by James Matthew Barrie.
  • “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” by Aesop (from Aesop’s Fables)
  • “The Tortoise and the Hare” by Aesop (from Aesop’s Fables)
Emily Lee
Author
Emily Lee
Emily Lee is a freelance writer and artist based in New York City. She’s an accomplished writer with a deep passion for the arts, and brings a unique perspective to the world of entertainment. Emily has written about art, entertainment, and pop culture.