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Conte Cruel
The conte cruel is, as ''The A to Z of Fantasy Literature'' by Brian Stableford states, a "short-story genre that takes its name from an 1883 collection by Villiers de l'Isle-Adam", although previous examples had been provided by such writers as Edgar Allan Poe. Some critics use the label to refer only to non-supernatural horror stories, especially those that have nasty climactic twists, but it is applicable to any story whose conclusion exploits the cruel aspects of the 'irony of fate.' The collection from which the short-story genre of the conte cruel takes its name is ''Contes cruels'' (1883, tr. Sardonic Tales, 1927) by Villiers de l'Isle-Adam. Also taking its name from this collection is ''Contes cruels'' ("''Cruel Tales''"), a two-volume set of about 150 tales and short stories by the 19th-century French writer Octave Mirbeau, collected and edited by Pierre Michel and Jean-François Nivet and published in two volumes in 1990 by Librairie Séguier. Some noted writers in the co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brian Stableford
Brian Michael Stableford (born 25 July 1948) is a British academic, critic and science fiction writer who has published more than 70 novels. His earlier books were published under the name Brian M. Stableford, but more recent ones have dropped the middle initial and appeared under the name Brian Stableford. He has also used the pseudonym Brian Craig for a couple of very early works, and again for a few more recent works. The pseudonym derives from the first names of himself and of a school friend from the 1960s, Craig A. Mackintosh, with whom he jointly published some very early work. Biography Born in Shipley, Yorkshire, Stableford graduated with a degree in biology from the University of York in 1969 before going on to do postgraduate research in biology and later in sociology. In 1979 he received a PhD with a doctoral thesis on ''The Sociology of Science Fiction''. Until 1988, he worked as a lecturer in sociology at the University of Reading. Since then he has been a ful ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Sladek
John Thomas Sladek (December 15, 1937 – March 10, 2000) was an American science fiction author, known for his satirical and surreal novels. Life and work Born in Waverly, Iowa, in 1937, Sladek was in England in the 1960s for the New Wave movement and published his first story in the magazine'' New Worlds''. His first science fiction novel, published in London by Gollancz as '' The Reproductive System'' and in the United States as '' Mechasm'', dealt with a project to build machines that build copies of themselves, a process that gets out of hand and threatens to destroy humanity. In '' The Müller-Fokker Effect'', an attempt to preserve human personality on tape likewise goes awry, giving the author a chance to satirize big business, big religion, superpatriotism, and men's magazines, among other things. ''Roderick'' and ''Roderick at Random'' offer the traditional satirical approach of looking at the world through the eyes of an innocent, in this case a robot. Sladek r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fiction Forms
Fiction is any creative work, chiefly any narrative work, portraying individuals, events, or places that are imaginary, or in ways that are imaginary. Fictional portrayals are thus inconsistent with history, fact, or plausibility. In a traditional narrow sense, "fiction" refers to written narratives in prose often referring specifically to novels, novellas, and short stories. More broadly, however, fiction encompasses imaginary narratives expressed in any medium, including not just writings but also live theatrical performances, films, television programs, radio dramas, comics, role-playing games, and video games. Definition Typically, the fictionality of a work is publicly marketed and so the audience expects the work to deviate in some ways from the real world rather than presenting, for instance, only factually accurate portrayals or characters who are actual people. Because fiction is generally understood to not fully adhere to the real world, the themes and conte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vignette (literature)
A vignette (, also ) is a French loanword expressing a short and descriptive piece of writing that captures a brief period in time. Vignettes are more focused on vivid imagery and meaning rather than plot. Vignettes can be stand-alone, but they are more commonly part of a larger narrative, such as vignettes found in novels or collections of short stories. Examples of vignettes include Ernest Hemingway’s ''In Our Time'', Margaret Atwood’s ''The Female Body'', Sandra Cisneros’ ''The House on Mango Street'', and Alice Walker’s ''The Flowers.'' Vignettes have been particularly influential in the development of the contemporary notions of a scene as shown in postmodern theater, film and television, where less emphasis is placed on adhering to the conventions of traditional structure and story development. Etymology The word ''vignette'' means "little vine" in French, and was derived from Old French ''vigne'', meaning “vineyard”. In English, the word was first docume ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tall Tale
A tall tale is a story with unbelievable elements, related as if it were true and factual. Some tall tales are exaggerations of actual events, for example fish stories ("the fish that got away") such as, "That fish was so big, why I tell ya', it nearly sank the boat when I pulled it in!" Other tall tales are completely fictional tales set in a familiar setting, such as the European countryside, the American frontier, the Canadian Northwest, the Australian frontier, or the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Events are often told in a way that makes the narrator seem to have been a part of the story; the tone is generally good-natured. Legends are differentiated from tall tales primarily by age; many legends exaggerate the exploits of their heroes, but in tall tales the exaggeration looms large, to the extent of dominating the story. United States The tall tale is a fundamental element of American folk literature. The tall tale's origins are seen in the bragging contests that ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sketch Story
A sketch story, literary sketch or simply sketch, is a piece of writing that is generally shorter than a short story, and contains very little, if any, plot. The genre was invented after the 16th century in England, as a result of increasing public interest in realistic depictions of "exotic" locales. The term was most popularly used in the late nineteenth century. As a literary work, it is also often referred to simply as ''the sketch''.'' The Penguin Henry Lawson Short Stories'' (first published 1986); with an introduction by John Barnes, Camberwell, Victoria: Penguin Books Australia, pp. 1-16 Style A sketch is mainly descriptive, either of places (travel sketch) or of people (character sketch). Writers of sketches like Washington Irving clearly used the artist as a model. A sketch story is a hybrid form. It may contain little or no plot, instead describing impressions of people or places, and is often informal in tone. In the nineteenth century, sketch stories were frequently p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minisaga
A minisaga, mini saga or mini-saga is a short story based on a long story. It should contain exactly 50 words, plus a title of up to 15 characters. However, the title requirement is not always enforced and sometimes eliminated altogether. Minisagas are alternately known as microstories, ultra-shorts stories, or fifty-word stories. The form was invented by writer Brian Aldiss and the newspaper ''The Daily Telegraph'', which has held several minisaga competitions, as has BBC Radio 4. Uses Minisagas are used in business, as an educational tool, a creative outlet, and a source of entertainment. They are not poems, but rather "bite-sized lessons for life and business". They are often used to stimulate creativity, stretch one's thinking, determine the essential elements of a story, or enhance discipline in writing. They often attempt to be funny or surprising. Below is an example by author Daniel H. Pink: When I was shot, fear seized me at first. No surprise that. But once I real ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Literary Journal
A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry, and essays, along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letters. Literary magazines are often called literary journals, or little magazines, terms intended to contrast them with larger, commercial magazines. History ''Nouvelles de la république des lettres'' is regarded as the first literary magazine; it was established by Pierre Bayle in France in 1684. Literary magazines became common in the early part of the 19th century, mirroring an overall rise in the number of books, magazines, and scholarly Academic journal, journals being published at that time. In Great Britain, critics Francis Jeffrey, Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux, Henry Brougham and Sydney Smith founded the ''Edinburgh Review'' in 1802. Other British reviews of this period included the ''Westminster Review'' (1824), ''The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Irish Short Story
The Irish short story has a distinctive place in the modern Irish literary tradition. Many of Ireland's best writers, both in English and Irish, have been practitioners of the genre. Origins It is possible that the Irish short story evolved naturally from the ancient tradition of oral storytelling in Ireland. The written word has been cultivated in Ireland since the introduction of the Roman alphabet by the Christian missionaries in the fifth century. But oral storytelling continued independently up to the twentieth century and survived the general switch from the Irish to the English language. By the mid-nineteenth century Irish writers had begun to use the English language to record the lives, and to convey the thoughts of the ordinary people – mostly impoverished peasants – and to address themselves to an Irish readership. The most popular literary form to emerge from this development was the tale, and the most notable practitioner was William Carleton (1794–1869), aut ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flash Fiction
Flash fiction is a fictional work of extreme brevity that still offers character and plot development. Identified varieties, many of them defined by word count, include the six-word story; the 280-character story (also known as " twitterature"); the "dribble" (also known as the "minisaga," 50 words); the "drabble" (also known as "microfiction," 100 words); "sudden fiction" (750 words); "flash fiction" (1,000 words); and "microstory".Christopher Kasparek, "Two Micro-Stories by Bolesław Prus," ''The Polish Review'', 1995, no. 1, pp. 99-103. Some commentators have suggested that flash fiction possesses a unique literary quality in its ability to hint at or imply a larger story. History Flash fiction has roots going back to prehistory, recorded at origin of writing, including fables and parables, notably ''Aesop's Fables'' in the west, and Panchatantra and Jataka tales in India. Later examples include the tales of Nasreddin, and Zen koans such as ''The Gateless Gate''. In the Uni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Drabble
A drabble is a short work of fiction of precisely one hundred words in length."Winners named in WLU drabble competition" , '''', October 1, 2011. The purpose of the drabble is brevity, testing the author's ability to express interesting and meaningful ideas in a confined space. History The concept is said to have originated in UK science fiction fandom in the 1980s; the 100-word format was established by the |
Anthology
In book publishing, an anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler; it may be a collection of plays, poems, short stories, songs or excerpts by different authors. In genre fiction, the term ''anthology'' typically categorizes collections of shorter works, such as short stories and short novels, by different authors, each featuring unrelated casts of characters and settings, and usually collected into a single volume for publication. Alternatively, it can also be a collection of selected writings (short stories, poems etc.) by one author. Complete collections of works are often called "complete works" or "" (Latin equivalent). Etymology The word entered the English language in the 17th century, from the Greek word, ἀνθολογία (''anthologic'', literally "a collection of blossoms", from , ''ánthos'', flower), a reference to one of the earliest known anthologies, the ''Garland'' (, ''stéphanos''), the introduction to which compares each of its ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
