2013Etudes de stylistique anglaiseOpen access

Is Style in Short Fiction Different from Style in Long Fiction?

Michael Toolan

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Abstract

Is style in short fiction different from style in long fiction? More specifically: are short stories different stylistically from novels (even if we talk only of some types of short stories, vs some types of novels; and differing in degree rather than in kind)? In the context of a symposium on Style in Fiction, this essay makes some points about style in short fiction, and a particular respect in which it may differ from style in novels. I begin with some observations about some domains where it is hard to see a short story/novel stylistic contrast; I then make some points about what are widely accepted as features characteristic of stories; thereafter I focus on the occurrence in some stories (but not, I hypothesize, in novels) of what I call High Emotional Involvement Passages, which are distinct in form and function from ambient story text.

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Is style in short fiction different from style in long fiction? More specifically: are short stories different stylistically from novels (even if we talk only of some types of short stories, vs some types of novels; and differing in degree rather than in kind)? In the context of a symposium on Style in Fiction, this essay makes some points about style in short fiction, and a particular respect in which it may differ from style in novels. I begin with some observations about some domains where it is hard to see a short story/novel stylistic contrast; I then make some points about what are widely accepted as features characteristic of stories; thereafter I focus on the occurrence in some stories (but not, I hypothesize, in novels) of what I call High Emotional Involvement Passages, which are distinct in form and function from ambient story text.

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Available abstract

Is style in short fiction different from style in long fiction? More specifically: are short stories different stylistically from novels (even if we talk only of some types of short stories, vs some types of novels; and differing in degree rather than in kind)? In the context of a symposium on Style in Fiction, this essay makes some points about style in short fiction, and a particular respect in which it may differ from style in novels. I begin with some observations about some domains where it is hard to see a short story/novel stylistic contrast; I then make some points about what are widely accepted as features characteristic of stories; thereafter I focus on the occurrence in some stories (but not, I hypothesize, in novels) of what I call High Emotional Involvement Passages, which are distinct in form and function from ambient story text.

Key concepts: Style (visual arts), Literature, Context (archaeology), Focus (optics), Art, History, Physics, Archaeology

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