The story genre is one of the most popular in literature. Many writers have turned to him and are turning to him. After reading this article, you will find out what are the features of the short story genre, examples of the most famous works, as well as popular mistakes that authors make.
Story is one of the small literary forms. It is a small narrative work with a small number of characters. In this case, short-term events are displayed.
A brief history of the short story genre
B. G. Belinsky (his portrait is presented above) as early as 1840 distinguished the essay and the story as small prose genres from the story and the novel as larger ones. Already at this time, the predominance of prose over verse was quite apparent in Russian literature.
A little later, in the 2nd half of the 19th century, the essay was widely developed in the democratic literature of our country. At this time, there was an opinion that it was documentary that distinguished this genre. The story, as it was believed then,created using creative imagination. According to another opinion, the genre we are interested in differs from the essay in the conflict of the plot. After all, the essay is characterized by the fact that it is mainly a descriptive work.
Unity of time
In order to more fully characterize the genre of the story, it is necessary to highlight the patterns inherent in it. The first of these is the unity of time. In a story, the action time is always limited. However, not necessarily only one day, as in the works of the classicists. Although this rule is not always observed, it is rare to find stories in which the plot spans the entire life of the protagonist. Even rarer are works in this genre, the action of which lasts for centuries. Usually the author depicts some episode from the life of his hero. Among the stories in which the whole fate of the character is revealed, one can note "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" (author - Leo Tolstoy) and "Darling" by Chekhov. It also happens that not all life is represented, but a long period of it. For example, Chekhov's "The Jumping Girl" depicts a number of significant events in the fate of the characters, their environment, and the difficult development of relationships between them. However, this is given extremely compacted, compressed. It is the conciseness of the content, greater than in the story, that is the general feature of the story and, perhaps, the only one.
Unity of action and place
There are other features of the short story genre that need to be noted. The unity of time is closely connected anddue to another unity - action. A story is a genre of literature that should be limited to describing a single event. Sometimes one or two events become the main, meaning-forming, culminating events in it. Hence comes the unity of place. Usually the action takes place in one place. There may be not one, but several, but their number is strictly limited. For example, there may be 2-3 places, but 5 are already rare (they can only be mentioned).
Unity of character
Another feature of the story is the unity of the character. As a rule, one main character acts in the space of a work of this genre. Occasionally there may be two, and very rarely - several. As for the secondary characters, there can be quite a lot of them, but they are purely functional. The story is a genre of literature in which the task of minor characters is limited to creating a background. They can interfere or help the main character, but no more. In the story "Chelkash" by Gorky, for example, there are only two characters. And in Chekhov's "I want to sleep" and all alone, which is impossible either in the story or in the novel.
Unity Center
The signs of the story as a genre, listed above, one way or another are reduced to the unity of the center. Indeed, a story cannot be imagined without some defining, central sign that "pulls together" all the others. It does not matter at all whether this center will be some static descriptive image,the climactic event, the development of the action itself, or a significant gesture of the character. The main image should be in any story. It is through him that the whole composition is kept. It sets the theme of the work, determines the meaning of the story told.
The basic principle of building a story
It is not difficult to draw a conclusion from thinking about "unities". The idea suggests itself that the main principle of constructing the composition of a story is the expediency and economy of motives. Tomashevsky called the motive the smallest element of the structure of the text. It can be an action, a character or an event. This structure can no longer be decomposed into components. This means that the author's biggest sin is excessive detail, oversaturation of the text, a heap of details that can be omitted when developing this genre of work. The story should not go into details.
It is necessary to describe only the most significant in order to avoid a common mistake. It is very typical, oddly enough, for people who are very conscientious about their works. They have a desire to express themselves to the maximum in each text. Young directors often do the same when they stage diploma films and performances. This is especially true for films, since the author's fantasy in this case is not limited to the text of the play.
Authors with developed imaginations love to fill the literary genre of the story with descriptive motifs. For example, they depict how a pack of cannibal wolves is chasing the main character of the work. However, if dawn breaksthey necessarily stop at the description of long shadows, blurred stars, reddened clouds. The author seemed to admire nature and only then decided to continue the pursuit. The fantasy story genre gives maximum scope to the imagination, so avoiding this mistake is not at all easy.
The role of motives in the story
It should be emphasized that in the genre we are interested in, all motifs should reveal the theme, work for meaning. For example, the gun described at the beginning of the work must certainly fire in the finale. Motives that lead to the side should not be included in the story. Or you need to look for images that outline the situation, but do not overly detail it.
Features of composition
It should be noted that it is not necessary to adhere to traditional methods of constructing a literary text. Their violation can be effective. The story can be created almost on the same descriptions. But it is still impossible to do without action. The hero is simply obliged to at least raise his hand, take a step (in other words, make a meaningful gesture). Otherwise, it will turn out not a story, but a miniature, a sketch, a poem in prose. Another important feature of the genre we are interested in is a meaningful ending. For example, a romance can last forever, but a story is built differently.
Very often his ending is paradoxical and unexpected. It is with this that Lev Vygotsky associated the appearance of catharsis in the reader. Modern researchers (in particular, Patrice Pavie) consider catharsis as an emotional pulsation that appearsas you read. However, the significance of the ending remains the same. The ending can radically change the meaning of the story, push to rethink what is stated in it. This must be remembered.
The place of the story in world literature
The story is an epic genre that occupies an important place in world literature. Gorky and Tolstoy turned to him both in the early and in the mature period of creativity. Chekhov's story is the main and favorite genre. Many stories became classics and, along with major epic works (stories and novels), entered the treasury of literature. Such, for example, are Tolstoy's stories "Three Deaths" and "The Death of Ivan Ilyich", Turgenev's "Notes of a Hunter", Chekhov's works "Darling" and "The Man in a Case", Gorky's stories "Old Woman Izergil", "Chelkash" and others.
Advantages of the story over other genres
The genre we are interested in allows us to single out one or another typical case, one or another side of our life, with particular convexity. It makes it possible to depict them in such a way that the reader's attention is completely focused on them. For example, Chekhov, describing Vanka Zhukov with a letter "to the village of grandfather", full of childish despair, dwells in detail on the content of this letter. It will not reach its destination and because of this it becomes especially strong in terms of accusation. In the story "The Birth of a Man" by M. Gorky, the episode with the birth of a child that occurs on the road,helps the author in revealing the main idea – affirming the value of life.
