Questions

I need some brainstorming ideas for my essay topic on influential ***?ople in history. So for I’ve got that he was the first american to survive on his writing money, and he created the detective-fiction genre. Do you have any interesting ideas or somewhere I can start?
- Lunar

He is a famous mystery fiction writer in Japan. One of is works include the “Human Chair”.
Sorry for my bad English. He is not a recent writer. His wrote his first story in 1923.
He was a big admirer of Edgar Allan Poe and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
- khoru

Short stories have not always found their place in great literature. Thanks to great writers like Edgar Allan Poe, Ernest Hemingway, Anton Chekhov and others, short stories have received great notoriety.

Short story writing is a unique art and vastly different than novel writing in form and purpose. Where novel writing is complicated, has many things going on and creates a world of possibilities, short story writing focuses on a quick, powerful impact.

Charles May wrote, “If the novel creates the illusion of reality by presenting a literal authenticity to the material facts of the external world, as Ian Watt suggests, the short story attempts to be authentic to the immaterial reality of the inner world of the self in its relation to eternal rather than temporal reality.

“If the novel’s quest for extensional reality takes place in the social world and the material of its analyses are manners as the indication of one’s soul, as Lionel Trilling says, the field of research for the short story is the primitive, antisocial world of the unconscious, and the material of its analysis are not manners, but dreams.

“The results of this distinction are that whereas the novel is primarily a social and public form, the short story is mythic and spiritual. While the novel is primarily structured on a conceptual and philosophical framework, the short story is intuitive and lyrical. The novel exists to reaffirm the world of ‘everyday’ reality; the short story exists to ‘defamiliarize’ the everyday.

“Storytelling does not spring from one’s confrontation with the everyday world, but rather from one’s encounter with the sacred (in which true reality is revealed in all its plenitude) or with the absurd (in which true reality is revealed in all its vacuity).”

Thus writers of short stories take a different approach and use different techniques than that of novel writers. Rather than looking at the outward world for familiar like the novel, the short story looks at the inward world of the individual and tries to defamiliarize the outside world. By doing so the short story is a powerful way to point out individual and social misunderstandings.

As a result the reader of short stories can focus on the pivotal climax of the short story as the peak of what the author is trying to get across. The art is to see the short scenes before the climax and how the make the pivotal moment happen in such a short amount of time.

Being that the short story is short, authors need not concern themselves with unnecessary details that will distract from the authors goal. When writing short stories it may be appropriate to write and write and write, then cross out half of what has been written. This will help eliminate unnecessary, distracting details.

Short stories are not novellas either. Novellas are simply short novels and they strive for a similar effect of a novel. Some longer short stories may resemble a novella because of length but; the intent, design and focus is different.

The short story gives glimpses of lives and events; whereas, the novel or novella encapsulate entire lives and multiple events. Some short stories span whole lives, showing different glimpses of a life. This is different than a novel or novella because, the short story will show certain events that work toward its aim and focus.


- Christopher Anderson

I suppose for a beginning we should really consider what detective fiction is. A reasonable definition would probably be that it would be a story based on the investigation of a crime, mostly, but not always a murder. By a detective who in the early days would usually be a gifted amateur of independent means.

Probably, in the broader realm of general crime fiction, detective fiction is the most popular, combining mystery, intrigue, all elements of society, and any physical background you could think of.

As well as independent means, the earliest popular fictional detectives would be somewhat eccentric, and have at least a few character flaws to make them interesting (Sherlock Holmes’ drug habits for example). They would often have an assistant (Dr. Watson for Holmes), who would be loyal, staunch, and a little slow on the uptake, although by no means stupid. The assistant would come in handy for talking over theories, and through that character, explaining things to the reader.

It is generally accepted that the first “modern” detective story on these lines was “The Murders In The Rue Morgue” by Edgar Allan Poe, published in 1841. In this short story Poe introduced his detective C. Auguste Dupin. Genius and eccentric, Dupin is generally thought to be the inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. Poe worked to a formula that has been used, with a few changes here and there, ever since. The hero has to solve whatever mystery is presented by using logic, observation, and occasional flashes of intuition.

The authorities are usually described as inefficient bunglers, who after a few false trails, often involving accusing the wrong person, grudgingly accept the help (interference) of the lead charcter. Who magnanimously solves the case, and lets the authorities take the credit. Although the main characters and the reader are left in no doubt as to who is really responsible. On occasion the detective will accept a fee from a wealthy client, but will more usually turn it down with just a touch of arrogance.

Sometimes in the early days of detective fiction authors would use real life events as inspiration for a story. One such, was the infamous case of the murder of Mary Cecilia Rogers in New Jersey in 1841. It was a brutal murder, her body found floating in the Hudson River, having been subjected to considerable violence. No-one was ever brought to account for her death. Edgar Allen Poe used this story for the basis of his second novel featuring C. Auguste Dupin. He changed Mary Rogers name to Marie Roget, transporetd the whole thing to Paris and had Dupin solve the case.

From these beginnings grew a whole genre, which we still enjoy, possibly even more so, today.


- Chris Haycock

I’ve read a few books recently:

Mother Night- Kurt Vonnegut (Loved it!)
Slapstick- Kurt Vonnegut (Ehhhh, so so)
Faust, Part.1- Goethe (It was good but not what I expected. Way overhyped.)

I’ve pretty much read all of Kurt Vonnegut so don’t suggest him either, but any suggestions?
My favourite novelists (and their works) are:

Ernest Hemingway (His short stories, A Farewell to Arms, The Old Man and the Sea)
Kafka (Short stories and The Trial)
Kurt Vonnegut (Breakfast of Champions, Slaughterhouse-Five, Bluebeard, Hocus Pocus, Mother Night)
John Steinbeck (Of Mice and Men, The Moon is Down, Tortilla Flat, The Pearl, Cannery Row)
Elie Wiesel (Night, Dawn, and Day)
Shakespeare (Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, Julius Caesar)
also…:P

Hermann Hesse- (Steppenwolf, Siddhartha)
I have read Edgar Allan Poe’s works. I have read a whole short story collection by him. It’s very good.
Whoops. I forgot Orwell. I’ve already read 1984 and Animal Farm and they’re in my favourites. :X
Night was based on Wiesel’s experiences in Buchenwald.

Dawn and Day were fiction.
Already read Giver, Lord of the Flies, read some but not a fan of Harry Potter.
NOT reading Twilight.
- John J

I’m writing a gothic short story for school, you know, like Edgar Allan Poe wrote. It’s about this guy who kills his fiancee because she found out his horrible secret and hides her body in the river. Then she haunts him through water (rain, a river) until he goes crazy and tells his secret to the world and drowns in the river himself. I can’t think of a title for it, though.
- riku_oblivion16

I usually write dark poetry but i wanted to learn how to get my poetry to be as dark like never b4,i usually get my inspiration for edgar allan poe and the legendary Dani Filth but i want more of my writing
- Dani Filth