A Short Story is a Photograph

For the short story unit, each student in my class was assigned to select a short story ad present it to each other. The short story I chose was written by Lawrence Block and title A Bad Night for Burglars. The character that stood out as memorable was Mr.Trebizond. Mr.Trebizond was the character in the short story that was being burglarized. He stood out to me for multiple reasons. Firstly, Mr. Trebizond announces to the burglar that he may kill him with his shot gun for the thrill of it. He also states that he would like to experience what it feels like to take away life again. As a reader, I questioned Mr. Trebizond character, is he sane? Has he committed acts of murder previously in his life? If so under what circumstances has Mr.Trebizond committed murder? As a reader the writer did provide me with answers to all my questions, however he did give a faint implication that Mr.Trebizond may have been in the army.

Throughout this short story unit I discovered that writing a short story is considerably challenging. In a lot of situations I know how I would like my short story to begin, but I have difficulties determine what events take place throughout the story and how to end my story. I also experienced several difficulties describing certain events and characters because we were provided with a limit we could not exceed.

I’ve read an abundance of short stories in my life and I discovered that I greatly enjoy short stories that end rather dramatically. I enjoy, cliffhangers, a what-the heck just happened? I read short stories ranging from a variety of plot structures. However I enjoy short stories that have characters that is mysterious. Characters as such keep readers interested because you want to discover more about them and what there capable of. The setting is not of great importance to me as long as the reader describes it well enough for me to envision it in my head.

I struggled a lot writing my short story. However when I finished I was slightly impressed with myself because the beginning of my story and the end if my story made sense. I believe I could improve on my story if I was able to provide readers with the past events that lead to the beginning of my short story. I also believe I could improve my short story by revealing the character of the protagonist more. I still have that issue where I tend to tell my readers rather than show. I need to make effort to resolve that issue.