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Short short stories have been brought to attention only within the past few decades. They are sometimes called "flash/micro - fiction" because of how short of a read they are. Usually not longer than one thousand words, and sometimes much shorter. (Mays 32) Short short stories are made to be read in one sitting. Some elements in a short short story are conflict, character, point of view, and theme. Sometimes fables and parables can be a short short story too. Fables and parables can be described as a short story that teaches a lesson or conveys a moral.

For example, we just read a short short story – Girl by Jamaica Kincaid and it showed character, conflict, a point of view, and theme. The theme being female sexuality or gender stereotypes. In the story she was being talked down to in a second person point of view and being told what to do, how to act, and how not to. The short short story portrayed the theme very well in one page. Short short stories are very important in the way I see it because it puts more pressure on the story, making it more important every word or sentence authors choose to write compared to a novel where it’s an actual book and not much pressure on what you say. The pressure makes short short stories still relevant and able to succeed.

James Henry stated in a notebook entry
"Make the short story tremendously succinct – with a very short pulse or rhythm – and the closest selection of detail – in other words summarize intensely and deeply and keep down the lateral development. It should be a little gem of bright, quick, vivid form."

A few pretty well-known authors for short short stories are as follows Dr Seuss, Jamaica Kincaid, Edgar Allan Poe, and Ernest Hemingway

Sources:
Henry, James. “-Notebook Entry.” Feb. 1891

Mays, Kelly J. The Norton Introduction to Literature. New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 2017.

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Novels are described as prose fiction. They are generally around forty thousand words or more. the format of novels came to in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Novels started out as romances and adventure tales. As time went on novels adopt more techniques of history and travel narrative as well as memoir, letters, and biography. (Mays 31) Novels are written and read in more than one sitting it could take a week-or a month who knows! An essential part to a novel is plot - exposition, initial incident, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution, and denouement. A few other key elements for a novel are character development, setting, writing style, point of view, and length.

I would like to focus more on young adult fiction novels, I’ve always really liked this sub-genre since I was little. I find it very important for teenagers to read because it speaks to them and gives them a voice in society. In addition to that it has the same struggles kids face- all types of struggles. Transitioning from childhood to adulthood is terrifying and complicated if you do it alone, so in my opinion these books help. An example of a young adult novel is The Outsiders, in the book the main problem is there is two different social classes and they don’t mix- all they do is have conflict. After a character dies someone realizes that no one is accomplishing anything by constantly fighting. I feel like that’s a good lesson to be taught that fighting won’t accomplish anything.

G. K. Chesterton once said

““People wonder why the novel is the most popular form of literature; people wonder why it is read more than books of science or books of metaphysics. The reason is very simple; it is merely that the novel is more true than they are.”

Some well-known novel authors are James Patterson, J.K. Rowling, Mark Twain, and  F. Scott Fitzgerald

Sources:

Hinton, S. E. 1967. The Outsiders. New York: Viking Press

Mays, Kelly J. The Norton Introduction to Literature. New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 2017.

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Graphic novels are demonstrated as 'book-length comics.' “Most comics historians agree that the first real graphic novel was Will Eisner’s A Contract with God and Other Tenement Stories published in 1978. Decidedly adult in its images, themes, and language, Eisner’s book spoke to the generation that had first grown up with superhero comics in the 1940s and 1950s.” (Paragraph 2) Graphic novels can vary by either telling a single, continuous narrative from first page to last or they can be a collection of shorter stories or individual comic strips. Graphic novels tell a story through visual art, commonly with text, frequently told in a series of rectangular panels. I truly think that the most important element of a graphic novel is imagery, because graphic novels have illustrations, you see exactly what the author wants you to see. But several other key elements to a graphic novel are as follows: layout, panels, frame, illustrations, captions, and graphic weight. Sometimes people make the mistake of thinking comic books and graphic novels are the same thing which is not true and here is why- graphic novels tend to be longer, are more complex, and usually have their storyline finished in one or two books as opposed to comic books they tell a story over many different issues and often have more than two books.

Some widely known graphic novel authors are Marjane Satrapi, Gene Luen Yang, Alan Moore, and Neil Gaiman.

Sources:

Drexel University, ipl2. “Graphic Novels.” Thomas King on Native American Authors, 2009, www.ipl.org/div/graphicnovels/gnsHistBasics.html.