I was delighted by this article about O. Henry (no relation). This section about the "effect" of a short story was particularly interesting:
If you think about the experience of reading a short story, you can feel, even in the case of stories by “literary” writers like Chekhov or Hemingway, that the ending is the money note of the form, the high C of the composition. And the pleasure it gives us is, in some way, sensory. It produces a brief thrill, a frisson—sometimes (as with many Kipling stories) a sense of mystery (“What really happened?”), sometimes (as with ghost stories) a little shiver of horror, sometimes (as with detective stories) a satisfying “Aha!”
Edgar Allan Poe, who wrote both detective stories and ghost stories, called this sensation the “effect,” and he thought that producing it was the purpose of all short-form writing, including poetry. “A skillful literary artist has constructed a tale,” he wrote in 1842. “If wise, he has not fashioned his thoughts to accommodate his incidents; but having conceived, with deliberate care, a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out, he then invents such incidents . . . as may best aid him in establishing this preconceived effect.”
For a stretch in college, I would read one of O. Henry's stories each night before bed. I can't recommend this practice enthusiastically enough. "The Last Leaf" remains my favorite short story ever. Nothing but respect for unabashed sweetness..
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