No one I know of has ever been able to definitively say what a short story is or should be, what distinguishes it from an anecdote or an account-Mishima’s “Patriotism” is an account but with a power that dismisses definitions - or a piece of description. I like stories that keep you reading until the line that makes it a story, as in, say, Carver’s “Night School” when [the narrator’s wife] says, “That’s only writing…. Being betrayed by somebody in your own family, there’s a real nightmare for you.” Suddenly all of it, solid, with a click like steel, falls into place.
James Salter
