What makes a flash fiction different from a traditional short story? “‘ Flash Fiction is defined as a fiction that contains all the classic story elements we’d expect- protagonists, conflicts, obstacles or complications, and their resolution.”’(web) For example, Margaret Atwood’s flash story “Happy Endings” has several plots and several different settings with different obstacles, and complications. Whereas “A traditional short story is shorter than a novel, with a few characters and plot settings.” (web) As to the flash fiction story “Happy Endings”, “Pillow Talk” is more of a traditional short story with several different characters and several different settings. This essay will compare the similarities in “Happy Endings” and “Pillow Talk”, …show more content…
In “Pillow Talk” the main plot is about a married couple where one of the spouses is a alcoholic and the other wants to leave the relationship but does not because they believe they could not find anyone better as said on (pg.30-31). “‘ You’re an alcoholic bore but not violent and i’m too old to find anyone better”’ (pg.31). In “Happy Endings” one loves the other and the other does not feel the same way, for example “ Mary falls in love with john but john doesn’t fall in love with Mary” (pg.96). There are also several other plots in “Happy Ending” such as, an older man falls in love with a younger girl and she just feels sorry for him “ John, who is an older man, falls in love with mary, and mary, who is only twenty-two, feels sorry for him because he’s worried about his hair falling out”’ (pg.96). Another plot is “they get along exceptionally well and are good at working out any little difficulties that may arise” (pg.97). For the last two plots in “Happy Ending” the couple is in love but one dies and the other devotes herself to charity work, and lastly “ John is a revolutionary and Mary a counterespionage agent”(Pg.97). Even though one story had several different plots and one story only had one they were still …show more content…
In Alasdair Gray’s “Pillow Talk” there is only one ending. The ending never changes because it has only one plot. The couple in the end ultimately stays together because the wife does not believe she could ever find someone better, nor the man does not want her to leave. Unlike “Pillow Talk” the story by Margaret Atwood's “Happy Endings” has several different ]endings because it is nothing like a traditional story. The endings in “Happy Endings” go from the couple living happily, to one dying, or one loving the other and the other does not feel the same way, and one of the spouses finding the other with another person and killing them
Making shapely fiction by Jerome stern actually taught me a lot more about writing than I anticipated. Before I read the chapters I needed to read I had already written my flash fiction. After I finished all my pages I quickly went back to my flash fiction and change everything that I saw that I did wrong, since I just learned it in the book. For example, in my flash fiction I had my character express thinking and her thoughts. Before reading this book, I was unaware that one didn’t have to put it in quotation marks when expressing a thought. Therefore, I quickly went and changed it.
The editors of “Flash Fiction” asked themselves the question, “How short can a story be and still truly be a story?” (11). With this in mind, they settled on a maximum word count of 750, with a minimum of 250. They debated keeping it as “one story to a page, just a little book of little stories,” but soon realized that, without the turn of a page during a story, the reader is easily bored (13). Instead, they allowed the stories to begin and end naturally in the book’s layout.
The ends of the story are very different from each other in quite a few ways. Let just say there is a good ending in one story and a bad ending in another. Lets go deeper
The flash fiction selection I chose for my performance is the story Mythologies written by R. L. Futrell. I chose this story initially because of the title, having an interest in most cultures ' mythologies and stories I started to read the story. However, upon reading the story I was drawn in by the world surrounding the text. A single paragraph of context is all that is given about why the story is being told. The rest is dedicated to a boring drive to West Virginia and the trivialities of the expedition and the sights, smells, and sounds of the world around them. The apparent lack of a central message is what really drew me towards the story.
The denouement occurs with each main character with their own page with a close up of their happy face and sunshine and flowers and colours with a happy connotation. The picture book closes with Mr. happy saying that he didn’t know such a place as Miseryland existed and little miss sunshine replying with ‘there isn’t!’
The irony of each story came to light at the close of the writings. The ending turned out to be something totally different than what it would initially have thought to be, because of how the narratives
Margaret Atwood’s “Happy Endings” is not a typical short story. With remarkable brevity, it provides readers a gold mine for discussion on the nuances of relationships and storytelling. Best described as metafiction, “Happy Endings” self-consciously draws attention to its artificiality; it is less a story and moreover an instruction manual on how to write one. From a surface level, the author parodies storytelling conventions. Upon deeper examination, however, the story is actually a satire on on the collective psyche of the middle class. This essay will explore the story’s meaning from these two levels.
The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, and the impossible love of Ethan Frome and Mattie Silver. These two stories have more in common than you think. They both end sourly, as each resists a “happy ever after” ending. Both romances also seem to convey that love isn’t always what it seems. And both their characters set unrealistic expectations for the others. As these stories unfold side by side, they seemed unlikely qualifiers of similarities, at first. But as one reads more and more, each tale exists to try to give a message to all who read. In reality, life and love don’t often end happily ever after.
In the final analysis, characters from both stories carried with them a dream that inevitably led them to irrational thinking and an ultimate downfall. In simple
Story A of Happy Endings, is the ultimate story of love. Everything is smooth throughout the whole story and both characters are happy and live happy lives. We as the readers find out that John and Mary go on “fun vacations” and that their children “turn out well”. This is by far my most favorite story out of all six. I find it interesting and funny that Atwood uses
In the story “Happy Endings” the author Margaret Atwood gives 6 scenarios in alphabetical order from A to F of how a couples life could play out over the span of their lives. In these six scenarios Atwood uses satire to emphasize how interchangeable and simple each couples life is. In this story Atwood uses character, style, and point of view to chastise the desire for the everyday common life and the concern for only the “whats” in life and not “how or why”.
In “Happy Endings” the main symbols are how the relationships end –be it cheating, age, or health complications. Cheating is symbolic of the relationship being dominated by only one person involved in it. Age is symbolic of both partners sharing or being equal in the relationship. Lastly health complications are a way of saying that fate, be it good or bad, can be involved, or that not everything works out according to plan. These are all related to the idea that by placing a dominant person in the relationship
The idea of a happy ending, to the common person, is the cliche ending of a story in which the protagonist gets the damsel, saves the world, and survives near death. However, this is a very simple way to look at the concept of a “happy ending” and neglects the grand scheme of things, just as there are more complicated equations in mathematics as one progresses in school, there are more complicated elements in a story as we look to dig deeper into literature. A story that has a complex happy ending is Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the story of a man seeking revenge on his family that has caused him much despair. If we look at this play in a simple manner, we will probably not look at the ending as happy ending as our beloved characters die,
Arguments for the position held by Atwood with respect to the perfect ending to a work of fiction can be drawn from the societal relationships such as marriages and romantic affairs. These relationships are perceived as beautiful and comes with a form of fulfillment, thus should have a beautiful ending. Life should be easy and relationships should be successful. The ‘happy ending’ adopted by Atwood is an illustration of how easy life should be and how successful relationships such as marriages should turn out. She
The short story is a concise form of narrative prose that is usually simpler and more direct compared to longer works of fiction such as novels. Therefore, because of their short length, short stories rely on many forms of literary devices to convey the idea of a uniform theme seen throughout the script. This theme is illustrated by using characteristics that are developed throughout the story such as, plot, setting and characters. The three main components are developed throughout the story in order to guide the reader to the underlying theme, which is necessary as a short story lacking a theme also lacks meaning or purpose.