I feel that the short short genre is very good for getting a sudden, dramatic effect from the reader. It seems useful for humor ("A Bad Joke," "In Reference to Your Recent Communications") and horror ("We Ate the Children Last" and "Incarnations of Burned Children") or a combination of the two ("My Kid's Dog"). I wonder, though, about more subtle emotions: love, compassion, sorrow. Can you all think of examples in this collection wherein the author makes you feel an emotion that comes on slowly, less dramatically? If not, why do you think that the sudden fiction is better for this high-impact, sudden response instead of the more subtle effect?
What other questions or observations do you have?
Happy Thanksgiving!
That's a good question. I believe that short stories aren't meant for love, compassion, and sorrow. It would be nice for it to happen. But from experiences of my own, I haven't seen any of my friends to tell that kind of story with shortcuts. It seems as if those 3 emotions are impossible to tell as a short story. I always see my friends go on a long run of words. It's like the whole dictionary goes into stories of those 3 emotions. Maybe one day someone will be able to do it. Love and comedy maybe.
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