short fiction
Compact narrative works
Short fiction is narrative prose brief enough to read in one sitting—typically under 20,000 words.
The category includes flash fiction, short stories, and novellas, though boundaries blur.
Short fiction often appears in literary magazines, anthologies, and collections: She published her short fiction in The New Yorker before releasing a novel.
- microfictionVery short stories
- vignetteBrief evocative description
- anecdoteBrief account of incident
- parableInstructive allegorical narrative
- foreshadowingHinting at later events
narrative arc · pulp magazines · prose poem · twist ending · magical realism · characterization · character study · anthology · slice of life · Borges · irony · realism · story · modernism · compression · fantasy · plot · tale
- talestale, funny stories, tall tales, yarns, folk tale
- literary contentpoetry, prose, essays, verse, anthology
- writing traditionscalligraphy, poetry, prose, haiku, sonnet
- literary studiescriticism, literary history, modernism, literary movements, literary themes
- Latino LiteratureHispanic literature, Sandra Cisneros, borderlands, novela, corridos
- immigrant literatureimmigrant stories, displacement, cultural memory, belonging, assimilation
truth value
short fictionnonfiction
Literature about real events
essay · journalism · reportage · memoir · biography