AP Literature - The Short Short

To creatively follow up our reading of short stories, especially the remarkably compact "Say Yes" and "The Father," you will write what we will call the Short Short.  These are short stories that tell a complete story in 300 words.  In addition to being complete (think plot curve), your story must use a symbol and develop character(s) through some dialogue.  Finally, you will meaningfully manipulate your syntax by using at least one Grammar B technique (separate handout).

Submit your Short Short in typed MLA form on _____________________.

 
A Useful Technique

One important technique you can use to make this work for you is the idea of implying a lot with images and details.  Perhaps the best example of this is the famous six-word short story attributed to the "concise" author, Ernest Hemingway.  Here is the story:

"For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

Of course, you have 300 words to work with - and you should - but you can see how this simple image inspires an entire story.  You can do the same with images to create character histories, story context, etc.

 
Example: A retelling of Romeo and Juliet in a Modern Setting
(This is an "OK" example used only to show you basic structure & length.  The additional requirements for symbol, dialogue, and Grammar B were not in effect for this example.  Maybe yours will be the full example we use next year!)

You'll Ruin Your Lives, R & J

This is a story of ruined lives. Someone will die.  We will blame the parents.

Becky had never, in her sixteen years, actually met with more than the rumor of her father. In recent years her mother had drifted in and out of bars and rehab centers. Becky lived with her grandmother, who disliked Joe Jr., the boy she was in love with, on principle. "Watch out for that one," her grandmother grumbled from deep in the cushions of the only comfortable chair in the living room. "He'll ruin your life."

Joe Jr.'s parents feared she might get pregnant and force their son to ruin his life by marrying her.

During Joe's second year of college and Becky's last year of high school, Becky found that she was pregnant. She first talked to her grandmother who sighed and said she was like her mother. That very afternoon Becky's mother, who was on parole and needed a haircut, had warned the girl against running around after a college boy who would surely forget her. Joe's roommate told her he had been instructed by Joe's parents to tell her that Joe was not there, whether or not he was there, which he wasn't. She ought to know . . . and so on and so forth. Becky picked up her grandmother's car keys, and drove south fast straight into a tree. She died at the scene.

 


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