Tale

A story (from Latin, compŭtus, 'account') is a short narrative created by one or more authors, it can be based either on facts both real and fictional, whose plot is carried out by a small group of characters and with a relatively simple plot.

The story is shared both orally and in writing, although at first the most common was by oral tradition. In addition, it can account for real or fantastic events, but always based on being an act of fiction, or a mixture of fiction with real events and real characters. It usually contains several characters that participate in a single central action, and there are those who believe that a shocking ending is an essential requirement of this genre. Your goal is to arouse a powerful emotional reaction in the reader. Although it can be written in verse, totally or partially, it is generally given in prose. It is carried out through the intervention of a narrator, and with a preponderance of the narration over the monologue, the dialogue, or the description.

The short story, says Julio Cortázar, as in boxing, wins by knock out, while the novel wins by points. The story recreates situations. The novel recreates worlds and characters (its psychology and its characters).

Basically, a short story is characterized by its short length because it must be shorter than a novel, and also, it usually has a closed structure where a story develops, and only one climax can be recognized. In the novel, and even in what is called a short novel, the plot develops secondary conflicts, which generally does not happen with the short story, since this above all must be concise.

The boundaries between a short story and a novella are somewhat blurred. A novella is a prose narrative that is shorter than a novel and has less character and plot development, but without the economy of narrative resources typical of a short story.

Types of stories

There are two types of stories:

• Popular tale: it is a short traditional narrative of imaginary facts that is presented in multiple versions, which coincide in the structure but differ in the details, where the authors are unknown in most cases (although it may be known who collected it). It has four subdivisions: fairy tales, animal tales, fables and tales of customs. Myth and legend are also traditional narratives, but they are often considered autonomous genres, a key factor to differentiate them from the popular story is that they are not presented as fictions.

• Literary tale: it is the story conceived and transmitted by writing. The author in this case is usually known. The text, fixed in writing, is usually presented in a single version, without the game of variants characteristic of the popular tale of mainly oral tradition. An important corpus of tales of Ancient Egypt is preserved, which constitute the first known sample of the genre. One of the first manifestations of this type in Castilian language is the work Count Lucanor, which gathers 51 stories of different origins, written by the Infante don Juan Manuel in the 14th century. In the Muslim world the most famous classic collection is A thousand and a night. In the rebirth, was Giovanni Boccaccio the most influential author with his Decameron. In modern times it is considered classic authors of stories Edgar Allan Poe, Anton Chéjov, Leopoldo Alas and Jorge Luis Borges, among many others.

Structure

The story is made up of three parts:

• Introduction: It is the initial part of the story, where all the characters and their purposes are presented, but mainly the normality of the story is presented. What is presented in the introduction is what is broken or altered in the knot. The introduction lays the groundwork for the knot to make sense.
• Nude: It is the part where the conflict or the problem of history occurs; there they take shape and the most important facts happen. The knot arises from a break or alteration of what was raised in the introduction.
• Desenlace: It is the part where the climax is usually given, the solution to the problem and where the narrative ends. Even in open end texts there is a outcome, and there are even cases that within the story you can find the climax related to the end.

Features

The short story presents several characteristics that differentiate it from other narrative genres:

• Fiction: Although it can be inspired by real facts, a story must, to function as such, be cut from reality.
• Argumental: the story has a structure of intertwined facts (action-consequences) in an introduction-nudo-disconnected format (see article The argumental structure).
• Single line of argument: unlike what happens in the novel, in the story all events are chained into a single succession of facts.
• Central structure: all the elements mentioned in the storytelling are related and function as indications of the argument.
• Starring: Although there may be other characters, the story speaks of one in particular, to whom the main facts occur.
• Effect unit: shares this characteristic with poetry. It is written to be read from beginning to end, and if one cuts the reading, it is very likely that the narrative effect will be lost. The structure of the novel allows, on the other hand, to read it in parts, and on the other hand, the extension of it does not leave another option.
• Prose: the format of modern tales, from the appearance of writing, is usually prose.
• Brevety and simplicity: to meet the newly pointed features, the story must be brief and with simple characters and arguments.

Subgenres

Some of the more popular short story subgenres are:

• Fantastic story
• Fairytale
• Microrrelato
• Story of science fiction
• Police account
• Fairytale
• Count of terror

Evolution

The stories went through an evolution from oral to written literature. The folklorist Vladimir Propp, in his book Morphology of the Wonderful Tale dismantled the structure of the oral tale into constant structural units or narrative functions, with their variants, systems, sources and themes, etc. In addition, this author ventures a possible chronology of this type of narration, whose first stage would be made up of mythical-religious inspiration, while a second stage would constitute the true development of the story.

Most writers and literary critics recognize three historical phases in the short story genre: the oral phase, the first written phase, and the second written phase.

Oral phase

The first phase to emerge was the oral, which cannot be specified when it began. It is presumable that the story developed in a time when writing did not even exist, so possibly the stories were then narrated orally around campfires, in the times of primitive peoples, generally in the afternoons and at night, at outdoors or in caves, to create social cohesion through the narration of the origins of the common people and their functions. Presumably for this reason, the suspension, the magical, the marvelous and the fantastic were what characterized these first mythical creations, which tried to explain the world in a primitive way, still far from reason.

Written phase

The first written phase probably began when the Egyptians produced the so-called Book of Magic or Pyramid Texts (around 3050 BC) and the called Book of the Dead (circa 1550 BC). From there we go to the Bible —where, for example, the story of Cain and Abel (circa 2000 BC) is collected— which has a classic story structure.

Obviously in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, there are many other stories with a story structure, such as the episode of Joseph and his brothers, as well as the stories of Samson, Ruth, Susanna, Judith, Salome. To those mentioned obviously the Christian parables can also be added: The Good Samaritan; The prodigal son; The barren fig tree; The sower; among other.

Geoffrey Chaucer, author of the stories of Canterbury.

In the sixth century B.C. C. came the works Iliad and Odyssey, by Homer, as well as Hindu literature with Panchatantra (II B.C.). But in general, Luciano de Samosata (125-192) is considered the first great author in the history of short stories, since among others he wrote The Cynic and The Donkey . From the same period is Lucius Apuleius (125-180), who for his part wrote The Golden Ass . Another important name from that early period (I century) was Gaius Petronius, author of Satiricon, book that continues to be reissued to this day and that includes a special class of stories, the Milesian stories. Subsequently, and in Persia, the collection of stories The Thousand and One Nights arose and spread (10th century of the so-called Christian era).

Image of the Sleeping Beauty of Charles Perrault

The second written phase began around the 14th century, when the first aesthetic concerns arose. Thus, Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375), inspired by the novellino genre, composed his Decameron in those years, which became a classic, promoting the bases of the short story as we know it today, in a that it can be affirmed without ambiguities that he was the creator of the short European novel, apart from the influence received by later writers such as Charles Perrault and Jean de La Fontaine of the popular or traditional tale as a literary work. Boccaccio gave an external structure to the stories, the so-called cornice: a series of narrators who meet in one place to tell each other stories to distract themselves, forced by some external misfortune that they try to avoid. For his part, Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) wrote the Exemplary Novels trying out new formulas and trying to break away from the Italianate model of the novellieri disciples of Boccaccio (Mateo Bandello, Franco Sacchetti, Giraldi Cintio, the Valencian Juan de Timoneda, among others of lesser importance), and Francisco Gómez de Quevedo y Villegas (1580-1645) brought us Los sueños, where, inspired by the dialogues of Luciano de Samosata and the literary genre of the dream, satirized the society of his time.

The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?-1400), for their part, were published around 1700, and as for the aforementioned Perrault (1628-1703), he wrote and published Bluebeard, Puss in Boots, Cinderella, Donkeyskin, Thumbelina, among others. As for Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695), it must be said that he was a great storyteller of fables; remember for example The grasshopper and the ant, The hare and the tortoise, The fox and the grapes, The fox and the stork etc.

In the 18th century the teacher was Voltaire (1694-1778), who wrote important works such as Zadig and Candide.

Image of Snow White

Arriving in the 19th century, the short story took off with the support of the written press, then gaining even more strength and modernizing itself. It should be noted that Washington Irving (1783-1859) was the first important American short story writer, standing out for his works Tales from the Alhambra (1832), The Headless Horseman (1820), Rip van Winkle (1820), etc. The Grimm brothers (Jacob 1785-1863, and Wilhelm 1786-1859) for their part, published Snow White, Rapunzel, Puss in Boots, Sleeping Beauty, Thumbnail, Little Red Riding Hood, etc. Note that the Grimm brothers wrote many stories that had already been told by Perrault, but even so, they were so important for this literary genre, that André Jolles said about it:

Or conto so adotou vereiramente o sentido de forma literária determined, no momento em que os irmãos Grimm deram a uma coletânea de narrativas o título de «Contos para crianças e famílias»

The tale truly gained its meaning in a literary way, at the moment when the Grimm brothers rotted their collection called Tales for children and families.

The 19th century was prodigal with true masters of literature: Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864), Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), Henry Guy de Maupassant (1850-1893), Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880), Liev Nikolaevich Tolstoy (1828-1910), Mary Shelley (1797-1851), Anton Chekhov (1860-1904), Machado de Assis (1839-1908), Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850), Henri Beyle "Stendhal" (1783-1842), José Maria Eça de Queirós (1845-1900) and Leopoldo Alas "Clarín" (1852-1901).

We cannot fail to mention Ernst Theodor Amadeus Wilhelm Hoffmann (one of the fathers of the fantastic tale, who would later influence authors such as Edgar Allan Poe, Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, Manuel Antônio Álvares de Azevedo and others),

nor should we forget writers such as Donatien Alphonse François de Sade (Marquis de Sade), Adelbert von Chamisso, Gérard de Nerval, Nikolai Gógol, Charles Dickens, Iván Turguénev, Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kipling, among others.

Famous short story writers in the Portuguese language

Lendas e Narrativas, 1851, is a book of short stories by Alexandre Herculano, a Portuguese romantic author. Eça de Queirós, actually more novelist than short story writer, is well known in Portugal for his stories that were published in 1902, two years after his death. In the XX century, Miguel Torga published Bichos, 1940, and Novos Contos da Montanha, 1944. José Cardoso Pires also stands out with works such as Jogos de Azar, 1963, and A República dos Corvos, 1988.

Machado de Assis, Aluísio Azevedo, and Artur Azevedo stand out in the Brazilian short story scene, opening spaces for short story writers such as Monteiro Lobato, Clarice Lispector, Ruth Rocha, Lima Barreto, Otto Lara Resende to establish themselves a few years later, Lygia Fagundes Telles, José J. Veiga, Dalton Trevisan, and Rubem Fonseca.

In Mozambique, the short story is a thriving genre, as evidenced by the work of Mia Couto, and by Nelson Saúte's anthology titled As Mãos dos Pretos.

It should be noted that the figure of the short story writer in Portuguese is actually somewhat diminished at present, given the value that the novel has over short prose and poetry. One of the few strongholds in which the short story survives well, and more than that, it can even be said that it prevails, is in science fiction, a sector driven by the important contributions of modern storytellers.

Criticism

Even though there are so many stories to tell, the short story continues to be the target of prejudice, to the point that, for example, some publishers in the Portuguese language have a policy of not publishing anything in the genre, and this certainly It is not a whimsical decision but a market issue. The truth is that the story does not sell.

The reason is possibly the excessive offer that is available through newspapers and magazines, and even through the Internet. Perhaps the false idea that the short story would be an easier, secondary, or less important literature.

I always consider that the tale is the most modern literary genre and the most vitality it possesses, for the simple reason that people never stopped telling what happens, nor interested in what they are told well.

Mempo Giardinelli

Ya René Avilés Fabila, in the work Assim se escreve um conto, says that

Comecei encrevendo contos, but I saw myself forçado to move from rumo by orders of editors queriam romances. More, every time I see myself livre dessas pressões editoriais, volto ao conto... because, em literatura, o que me deixa really satisfeito é escrever um conto.

I started writing stories, but I was forced to change course at the request of the editors who wanted novels. But every time I get rid of these editorial pressures, go back to the story... because in literature, what makes me very happy is to write a story.

René Avilés Fabila

Henry Guy de Maupassant, who wrote nearly three hundred short stories, said that writing short stories was more difficult than writing novels. Joaquim Machado de Assis, quoted by Nádia Battella Gotlib, in Story Theory, also affirmed that it was not easy to write short stories: "It is a difficult genre, despite its apparent ease", and he thought something similar William Faulkner:

when seriously explored, to história curta é a mais difficult e a mais disciplined form decrever prosa... Num romance, may or writer be sloppy mais and deixar slags and superfluities, which seriousm descartáveis. Mas num conto... quase todas as palavras devem estar em seus places exatos.

when seriously explored, the story is more difficult and disciplined than the prose... In a novel, the writer can be more careless and leave slag and the superfluous, which would be disposable. But in a story... almost all words must be in their exact location.

quoted by Raymundo Magalhães Júnior A arte do conto: sua historia, seus gêneros, sua tecnica, seus mestres, Edicoes Bloch [1972], 303 pages.

The gaucho writer Moacyr Scliar, better known as a novelist than as a short story writer, also reveals his preference for short stories:

Eu valued mais or conto as a lyteradic form. Em thermos de criação, o conto demands muito mais do que o romance... Eu lembro de vários romances em que pulei pedaços, trechos muito chatos. Já o conto não tem meio thermos, ou é bom ou é ruim. It's a fantastic challenge. As limitções do conto estão associadas ao fato de ser um gênero curto, que as pessoas ligam a uma ideia de facile; é por isso que todo escritor começa contista

I value the story more as a literary genre. In terms of creation, the story requires much more than the novel... I remember several novels I jumped into pieces, very boring sections. While the story has no middle term, it's good or bad. It's a fantastic challenge. The limitations of the story are associated with being a short genre, that people link to an idea of ease; that's why every writer begins a storyteller

Folha de São Paulo4 February 1996, p. 5 and 11.

For his part, Italo Calvino (1923-1985) says:

I think that, not by chance, our time (the 1980s), is the time of the story, of the short novel (cf. Why read you clássicos).

Italo Calvino

And in an article about Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986), Calvino says:

Reading Borges is often tempted to formulate a short writing poetics, praising his advantages against writing long.

Jorge Luis Borges

Perhaps the last great innovation of a literary genre that we have witnessed in recent years has been given to us by a great master of short writing: Jorge Luis Borges, who invented himself as a narrator, a Columbus's egg that allowed him to overcome the blockade that for nearly 40 years prevented him from moving from essay prose to narrative prose (cf. Italo Calvino, Seis propostas para o próximo milênio).

In the course of a life devoted primarily to books, I have read very few novels and, in most cases, just the sense of duty gave me strength to open my way to the last page. At the same time, I was always a reader and writer of stories... The impression that great novels such as Don Quixote and Huckleberry Finn They are virtuallymorphous, it helped me to strengthen my taste for the story, whose indispensable elements are the economy, as well as a beginning, a conflict, and a clearly determined outcome. As a writer, I thought for years that the tale was above my powers, and it was only after a long and indirect series of shy narrative experiences, that I was taking my hand to write stories properly said.

cf. Jorge Luis Borges, Ficciones: An autobiographical essay.

Influence

It is evident the identification of the story with the lack of time of the inhabitants of the large urban centers, where since the Industrial Revolution the long journeys in the displacements prevailed, as well as the complexities of the traffic and the long days labor imposed by industrialization and globalization. Finally, it was thanks to the written press that the short story genre became popular in Brazil in the XIX century: important newspapers and also other periodicals, there they always had spaces for this genre.

This is how Antônio Hohlfeldt in Conto brasileiro contemporâneo highlighted: it can be verified that, in the evolution of the story, there is a relationship between the technological revolution and the technique of storytelling. And for his part in the introduction to Maravilhas do conto universal, Edgard Cavalheiro said:

A autonomia do conto, seu êxito social, o experimentalismo exercido sobre ele, deram ao gênero grande enhancement na Literature, destaque esse favorecido pela facile de circulação em diferentes órgãos da imprensa periodic. I believe that or events do conto nos último tempos (anos 1960 e 1970) deve ser atribuído, em parte, à expansão da imprensa.

Edgard Cavalheiro

In addition to creating a large consumer market and the need for mass literacy, industrialization also created the need to use more synthetic and concrete information. And in the 20th century, that style of reporting was undoubtedly driven by journalism and by the book. And towards the last third of the 20th century and beginning of the XXI, the privileged avenues added were cinema, radio, and television. Thus, in its beginning, the story achieved an impact through the written press (XIX century and a good part of the XX), although today this space is shrinking due to some changes in habits. Will the story be adapted to new technologies?: television, Internet, etc. Undoubtedly it is because of what has been said that at the beginning, both in Brazil and in the United States and in other countries, most of the short story writers were also journalists.

Be that as it may, the path of the written press has undoubtedly been positive for the short story, although it is also blamed for accentuating the negative preconception in relation to the genre. One has the impression that one does not pay for a story published in a magazine, which indirectly reduces the value of this type of literature. In addition, after a certain time, a magazine is often thrown away, and with it the story(s) contained therein; on the other hand, a novel in book format is usually kept in a library, or in some other place in the house. In short, a popular magazine or a newspaper supplement is not a good support for the dissemination of stories, since it is involved with not very adequate marketing in relation to serious and valuable literature.

In short, in the industrialized era of American capitalism, the short story becomes standardized art (with excessive rules in terms of length and structure), impersonal or by a little-known author, of fast, cheap production, and low or medium quality. These concerns and these reflections, in turn, accentuate the differences between the commercial tale of periodicals, and the literary tale of compilations. On this side, it is quite possible that certain preconceptions against stories have arisen..." (Nádia Battella Gotlib, op. cit.).

This issue was noticed in many places, and also in Brazil, especially during the 1970s. The initially positive influences exerted by the written press (magazines, weeklies, supplements), coupled with a certain diffusion through commercial radio stations and television stations with a lot of publicity, prompted the genre to lose part of its identity: initially having been almost everything, the short story as a genre became almost nothing .

In the 1920s the modernists emerge, and then the story becomes essentially urban/suburban. The writers sought the renewal of the forms, the break with the traditional language, the renewal of the means of expression, etc. Efforts were made to avoid fumbling with language, the narrative became more objective, the sentences became shorter, and the communication tended to be shorter.

In the same vein, Poe, who was also the first theorist of the genre, said:

We need a short, concentrated, penetrating, concise, and contrary to extensive, verbous, detailed literature... It's a sign of time... The indication of a time when man is forced to choose the short, the condensed, the summed up, instead of the voluminous

quote by Edgard Cavalheiro in the introdução de Maravilhas do conto universal.

Extension

By some definitions, the story should not be longer than 7,500 words. Currently, it is understood as usual or normal that it can vary between a minimum of 1,000 and a maximum of 20,000 words, although it is fair to recognize that any limitation regarding the minimum or maximum number of words in a work always has something arbitrary, and that on the other hand, these limits are often ignored by both writers and readers.

The novel Vidas Secas by Graciliano Ramos, as well as A festa by Ivan Ângelo and some novels by Bernardo Guimarães (1825-1884) or Autran Dourado (1926-2012), can well be read as a series of short stories. This is also the case of Posthumous Memoirs of Blas Cubas and Quincas Borba, both works by Machado de Assis.

For its part, it is also worth highlighting the work The Trial by Franz Kafka, written in fact consisting of several short stories. In itself, this kind of literature is called detachable novel, given precisely the characteristic that comes from being expressed.

Assis Brasil goes even further by stating that Grande Sertão: veredas, by Guimarães Rosa, is a long story, and therefore deserves to be classified as a short narrative. The aforementioned work, as we know, has more than 500 pages, although of course, there it is also possible to recognize characteristics of the story.

All these observations tend to show how difficult it is to define exactly what a short story is, so one solution might be to leave this classification task to the author or the publisher. However, the main characteristics of this literary genre have been well established, and those who know literature are very clear about what a short story is.

In the XX century, the great short story writers include O. Henry, Anatole France, Virginia Woolf, Katherine Mansfield, Kafka, James Joyce, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Máximo Gorki, Mário de Andrade, Monteiro Lobato, Aníbal Machado, Alcântara Machado, Guimarães Rosa, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Nelson Rodrigues, Dalton Trevisan, Rubem Fonseca, Osman Lins, Clarice Lispector, Jorge Luis Borges, and Lima Barreto.

Other important names in the short story in Brazil are: Julieta Godoy Ladeira, Otto Lara Resende, Manoel Lobato, Sérgio Sant'Anna, Moreira Campos, Ricardo Ramos, Edilberto Coutinho, Breno Accioly, Murilo Rubião, Moacyr Scliar, Péricles Prade, Guido Wilmar Sassi, Samuel Rawet, Domingos Pellegrini Jr, José J. Veiga, Luiz Vilela, Sergio Faraco, Victor Giudice, Lygia Fagundes Telles, Miguel Sanches Neto. In Portugal, among others, Alejandro Herculano and Eça de Queirós stand out.

For a writer writing a story, what really matters most is how (form) tells the story, and not so much what (content) bill. Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986) said that we always tell the same fable. Without going so far, Julio Cortázar (1914-1984) said that there are neither good themes nor bad themes, but rather a good or inadequate treatment for a certain theme (cf. Aspects of the story, Some aspects of the story, and Valise de cronópio). Of course, one must be careful with excesses of formalism, so as not to fall into stuffy characters or excessively rigid schemes: a certain writer spent a good part of his life working on ways to achieve a perfect literary style, in order to impress the audience. whole world; and when he finally got to reach it, he found he had nothing to say.

The contemporary trend at the beginning of the XXI century is to hierarchize the micro-story, a kind of haiku of a narrative nature, whose extension is defined, in most cases, by a certain maximum recommended for the exchange of text messages (SMS) on cell phones, or by the extension of a tweet. In addition to Twitter, other social networks have also been medium for the publication of short stories, outside the traditional platform of books and periodicals.

Perhaps the most famous short story is one by Augusto Monterroso, a Guatemalan author, and whose title is The Dinosaur. In Brazil, this subgenre is cultivated by authors such as Dalton Trevisan, Millôr Fernandes, Daniel Galera, Samir Mesquita, and Rauer (the name under which the writer from Minas Gerais, Rauer Ribeiro Rodrigues, signs his Twitter posts)..

Basic characteristics of a story

When writing a story, the following aspects must be taken into account:

• Form: expression or language using concrete and structured elements (words, phrases, paragraphs).
• Contents: refers to the characters, their actions, and to the story (on this matter it is recommended to consult the work O conto brasileiro contemporâneo by Alfredo Bosi.

There are stories such as those by Joaquim Machado de Assis, by Katherine Mansfield, by José J. Veiga, by Antón Chéjov, by Clarice Lispector, which could even be said to cannot be told because they cannot be told. there is nothing happening, and then at most, the only thing that could be expressed are descriptions of situations and character profiles. The essence of a story is in the air, in the atmosphere that is created and transmitted to the reader, in the way and style of narrating, in the tension and suspense, in the emotion and commotion that is achieved. In the book What is literature? (Qu’est-ce que la littérature? -1948-) by Jean-Paul Sartre, it is clearly expressed that

no one is a writer because of the fact that he has decided to say certain things and do it, but for having decided to say them in a certain way; it is the style, certainly, which determines the value of the prose.

Basic needs

The story needs tension, rhythm, the unexpected and the surprising within expected parameters (that is, within a certain reasonable course of events), and also needs unity, continuity, compaction, conflict, and division into parts (beginning-approach, middle-knot, and end-conclusion) more or less clear and defined. The past and the future in the story have a minor significance, and the flashback (time regression) is not prevented, although it should be used only if absolutely necessary, and in the shortest and most marginal way possible.

Enigmatic ending

The enigmatic ending in the tale prevailed until Henry Guy de Maupassant (end of the 19th century) and by the way until that time it was very important, since it provided a generally surprising ending, closing the work with golden brooch, as they used to say then. Today this type of ending is much less important; some writers and some critics even think that this feature is perfectly superfluous or dispensable, read still anachronistic. Likewise, it cannot be denied that the ending in the short story is always more loaded with tension than in the novel or in the short story, and that a good ending in a short story is fundamental: I would say that what operates did not count from or start is a notion of finim; Tudo chama, tudo convokes a "final" (Antonio Skármeta, Assim se escreve um conto, cf.).

In the short story genre, as Anton Chekhov stated, it is better not to say enough than to say too much; and in order not to say too much, it is better to suggest, as if there had to be a certain silence or a certain curtain in the course of the story, in order to sustain the intrigue, in order to maintain the tension. And as an example, we can take the story A missa do galo, by Joaquim Machado de Assis; in this text, and especially in the dialogues, what is said is not as important as what is left to say.

Ricardo Piglia, commenting on some stories by Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961), states that the most important thing is never told:

Or conto is built to artificially appear something that is hidden. Reproduz a quest sempre renewed of uma expência unique that allows us to see, sob a superficie opaca da vida, uma verdade secret (O laboratório do escritor, cf.).

The aforementioned Piglia said that a story had to be told as if another was being told, that is, as if the writer were narrating a visible story, but disguising and hiding a secret story barely hinted at or hidden. suspected:

Narrar é como jogar pôquer: all segredo consists in pretending that you mind when you are dizendo a truthe (Prisão perpétua, cf.).

It is as if the storyteller or the narrator hit the reader's hand or made signs to make him understand that he would take him to a place, to a crossroads, although the character and the action at the end of the story, They push to another place. Perhaps because of what has just been said, David Herbert Lawrence said that the reader should trust the story but not the storyteller, since the storyteller is usually a terrorist who pretends to be a diplomat (as Alfredo Bosi said about Machado de Assis, op.cit.).

According to Cristina Perí-Rossi, the contemporary writer of short stories does not narrate solely for the pleasure of linking events and situations in a more or less casual and original way, but to reveal what is truly behind them (quotation from Mempo Giardinelli, op.cit). From this point of view, surprise occurs when, at the end of the story, the secret or hidden story comes to the surface.

In the story, the plot is linear and objective, since the story, given its brevity, is not so far from the end from the beginning, so the reader must clearly and quickly see and become aware of the events. If in the novel the space/time is jumping, in the short story it is certainly linear, and expressed in the narrative form par excellence.

In the short story, the ideal narrative probably begins with a stable situation, which will soon be disturbed by some force or imbalance, resulting in a situation of instability. Subsequently, another force comes into action, inverse, which restores the balance, although the stability achieved in the outcome is never identical to the initial one, although it could have a certain similarity with it (Gom Jabbar in Hardcore, based on Tzvetan Todorov).

In other words: In general, the story is presented with an order or a conflict before a disorder and the solution of that conflict (favorable or not) or facing the possibility of returning to order (return to the beginning), although now with gains and losses, since that other order differs from the first. The story is a problem and a solution, says Enrique Aderson Imbert.

Dialogues

Dialogues are extremely important in the novel and to a certain extent also in the short story, since with this resource discords, conflicts, gender particularities, etc. are well transmitted. Dialogues are a very good resource for reporting, even in stories where the narrative ingredient is undoubtedly always important (Henry James, 1843-1916).

For some writers, dialogue is an absolutely indispensable tool. Caio Porfírio Carneiro, for example, reaches the point of writing stories only made up of dialogues, and without, at any moment, a narrator emerging. Considered the greatest Brazilian author in the art of writing dialogues and a true teacher, the writer Luiz Vilela is even the one who wrote a short novel, Entre amigos (1984), where he also only expresses himself with dialogues and without the presence of a narrator. Another example of the same type is the 172 pages of Trapiá, a classic from the 1960s, also written by Caio Porfírio Carneiro, and where there are barely six pages without dialogue.

Let's look at the different types of dialog:

1. Direct: Direct speech. The characters talk to each other. In addition to being the best known type of dialogue, it is also the one that predominates in the story.
2. Indirect: Indirect speech. It is when the writer summarizes the character's speech in narrative form. I mean, it's when the character tells how the dialogue happened, almost reproducing it. Both the direct dialogue as indirect dialogue can be observed in the story A Missa do GaloThe writer Machado de Assis.
3. Indirect free: Free indirect speech. It is a fusion between author and character (first and third person of the narrative); the narrator narrates in the usual way, but at a point of the narrative there arises indirect dialogues of the character, as complementing what the narrator expresses.

It is interesting to analyze the case of Dry Lives, where in certain passages it is not known exactly who is speaking: is it the narrator (third person) or the consciousness of Fabiano (first person)? This type of speech allows the character's thoughts to be exported or expressed, without the narrator losing his power and the condition of his mediator.

1. Inner monologue (or flow of consciousness): It is what happens inside of the character's psychic world, speaking with himself; see for example some passages of Perto do coração junglegem, by Clarice Lispector. It should be noted that the book A canção dos loureiros (1887), by Édouard Dujardin, is a modern precursor of this type of discourse of the character. For its part, the well-known Lazarillo de Tormes, of unknown author, is also considered a precursor of this kind of discourse. In UlyssesJames Joyce (inspired by Édouard Dujardin) radicalized the interior monologue.

Narrative Focus

1. First person: The main character tells his story; this narrator is usually limited to knowing about himself, that is, referring to his own experiences. This is a typical narrative of the epistolar novel (sixteenth centuryXVIII).
2. Third person: The development of the text is made in third person, and in this case it may be:
   1. observer narrator: The narrator is limited to expressing what is happening, describing everything from the outside, that is, without getting involved, without placing himself in the head of the main character or of any character, and in this way, this way is not used to convey emotions, ideas, opinions. The observer is impartial and objective within what can be expected, limiting himself to describing what happens and not speculating for himself.
   2. omniscient narrator: By telling the story and since its inception, the narrator knows everything about all the characters, their destinies, their ideas and thoughts, their feelings, their respective good or bad luck.

Related expressions

• Count of never ending: very heavy and extremely diffuse relationship. Cose similar to Penelope's fabric, which at night weaned what had weaved in the morning. This Greek animosa, whom he believed to be widowed by the long absence of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, seeing each day more in a hurry by the repeated pretensions of his lovers, promised to contract new bonds after the end of a purple fabric that had begun. Using the ingenious medium we have seen, he silenced his suitors and finally saw his stratagem crowned with the return of Odysseus.
• Furnace count: tale or vulgar hablilla that makes conversation between the common people. News of which the vulgo is seized and which is disfigured and added to disfigure it and make it apocryphal.
• Old story; the news or species that is considered false or fabulous, taken the allusion of the consejas that old women usually refer in the homes to entertain children, to ensure that they do not sleep, etc.
• Long story: familiar locution that refers to any matter of which there is much to talk or say.
• In all my stories (antiquated): In any case, in any way, whatever.
• Finishes are stories: family phrase equivalent to point, Don't talk about it anymore., chapter of something elseetc. Locutions aimed at cutting some dispute, species or unpleasant conversation.
• As I say of my story, as I said, or I was saying of my story.: family expression of the festive or joccusal style with which a relationship is usually started or the thread interrupted from it. They match the usual: Well, sir... "as I said... and other similar locutions used by domestic storytellers.
• Slash some story: cut the thread of the discourse, interrupting it with another narrative, episode or impertinent question. Energetic fracture through which the vulgo protests against inopportune or heavy digressions. It also alludes to the narrator who does not know what counts on all his hairs and signs, that is, in a thorough way and to the satisfaction of his listeners.
• Stop stories: it has a significance similar to the previous one, because it tends to mean that the rodeos are omitted already in a story, already in the conversation, or that they go in derechur to the most interesting or substantial of one thing. It also means not mixing in gossip, not intervening in other matters, dispensing, finally, of how much peace can be altered at the very least.
• Not wanting stories with the neighborhood: do not go in with anyone, do not provoke anyone, or search for clay, especially with any neighbor; live quietly in their house without seeking noise or promoting dissensions of any kind.
• That's the story. or There's the story.: that is, or there is the difficulty, the quidthe soul, the strong, the busilis of the business: in that it consists, and the substance of what is concerned is reasumed.
• To be fair: be something useful or helpful in any respect. Arrive in time to achieve something, profit or witness some business.
• Come or don't come to tell anything: be or not timely, on purpose, suitable for the case; come or not to the question a poured species. Become an object or not an object to another or others concerned.
• Putting in stories: commit to any, expose him to a risk or danger, to a dislike or equivalent thing, giving rise or pretext to speak of him in a way that defies him or defames him.
• Get out, get out of stories: to attend only to the essential and most important of one thing; to flee from every commitment, to separate from people and from things capable of compromising one, after having lived between gossip and gossip.
• He knows his story.: a locution with which another is understood, that some work with reflection or motives that he does not want or cannot manifest him.
• It's a lot of story! modism that expresses mockery, chacota, etc., or admiration or strangeness and which is equivalent to saying It's a big deal!, It has to do!, It looks amazing!etc. It is used by pondering the strangeness or feeling that causes something and then it is said in the sense of: It's admirable!.
• It'll bring a story: to quote in due course, to make the conversation come in a skillful way the species or species that should be touched, to put into play the way that the talk relapses on a particular matter; to straighten, to direct, to direct or direct the discourse towards the purpose or object that is desired. Remove the faults of any, cast them into the face, etc.
• Friend of stories: the one who is fond of gossip and entanglements; the one who takes from one side to another to indispose, cause dislike, enmity, etc. He who is pendenciero and seeks continuous occasions of dispute or penance.