On short stories 2

In a previous blog I mentioned that Richard Ford felt it was impossible to define a short story other than saying it's short. In an article for Prospect, William Boyd goes back to Edgar Allan Poe to define the short story. It's not much more than the Richard Ford one but claims it should be readable in one sitting. This depends on where you read. If you're on the tube and you arrive at your station, then you've got to put your book away. William Boyd catagorizes short stories as event-plot and Chekhovian; then there's the cryptic/ludic where there's 'a meaning to be deciphered', the mini-novel and the poetic/mythic story and what William Boyd identifies as the most recent addition to the genre, the biographical story, which pretends to be factual and uses foot-notes and other devices to appear real.I've probably done William Boyd a disservice but to test his catagories we should be able to use them to label the Rooinecks' stories. I'll have a try and see if it can catagorize our stories.

Michael