The short story
The short story -- Alice Munro an exception, (perhaps) -- is an illustration of one facet of human nature. Often a character undergoes some event and experiences something which offers him change. This is why it's said that short stories usually "say something", often a narrow or small something, but sometimes delivered with such precision that the effect is exquisite, even a life-moment for the reader, something akin to a religious experience or seeing a never-to-be-repeated scene in nature.

For a minute, let me remind you that, for me, the perfect short story is written with a poet's feel for language, with a poet's precision, and that the shape and sounds and rhythms of the words are more commonly part of the work's effect than is usually seen in the novel. In a poem, the bare words are virtually never the complete meaning. They interact, their sounds do things, and how they are placed on the page matters. The poem tries to create a nugget of truth, an insight into being human and the form is so tight, so sparse that we can argue over exact meanings long into the smoke-laden night.
Elements and Characteristics of Short Stories Short stories tend to be less complex than novels. Usually, a short story will focus on only one incident, has a single plot, a single setting, a limited number of characters, and covers a short period of time. In longer forms of fiction, stories tend to contain certain core elements of dramatic structure: exposition (the introduction of setting, situation and main characters); complication (the event of the story that introduces the conflict); rising action, crisis (the decisive moment for the protagonist and their commitment to a course of action); climax (the point of highest interest in terms of the conflict and the point of the story with the most action); resolution (the point of the story when the conflict is