Short Stories

I googled "short story" and came across the following stuff:  


5 Important Elements of a Short Story

A short story is a short work of fiction. Fiction, as you know, is prose writing about imagined events and characters. Prose writing differs from poetry in that it does not depend on verses, meters or rhymes for its organization and presentation.


Elements Of Short Story (Slide Show)
hard to read text on slides...


SHORT STORY ELEMENTS 

SETTING	PLOT
CONFLICT	CHARACTER
POINT OF VIEW	THEME

Short Story Wikipedia
Short stories tend to be less complex than novels. Usually a short story focuses on one incident, has a single plot, a single setting, a small number of characters, and covers a short period of time. It can be boiled down to "Man goes up tree. Man gets rocks thrown at him. Man goes down tree."

Cliffs Notes Definition of Short Story

"Short stories also lend themselves more to experimentation — that is, using uncommon prose styles or literary devices to tell the story. Such uncommon styles or devices might get tedious, and downright annoying, in a novel, but they may work well in a short story."

Definition of the short story

What are some of the elements that make up a good story?

a) A short story is a piece of prose fiction which can be read at a single sitting.

b) It ought to combine matter-of-fact description with poetic atmosphere.

c) It ought to present a unified impression of temper, tone, colour, and effect.

d) It mostly shows a decisive moment of life (which can entail a fatal blow).

e) There is often little action, hardly any character development, but we get a snapshot of life.

f) Its plot is not very complex (in contrast to the novel), but it creates a unified impression and leaves us with a vivid sensation rather than a number of remembered facts.

g) There is a close connection between the short story and the poem as there is both a unique union of idea and structure.

The short story is a piece of art that tries to give us a specified impression of the world we live in. It aims to produce a single narrative effect with the greatest economy of means and utmost emphasis.