You can't be a writer if you don't read . . . well, you can be a writer if you don't read, but you won't be a very good one. We want you to be good writers, so here is a reading assignment that will help.
Below is a list of famous short stories that any serious writer of fiction should have read (or at least should have meant to have read before he got distracted by the fascinating way dust dances in the sunlight pouring through the clumsily made window in the cardboard box he calls home.)
Please pick one you have never read before, read it and write a response in which you explain what kind of people probably liked this story and why and whether or not you agree with their opinion. Offer specific insight and evidence of your assertions.
Reading these stories will give you a better sense of which elements and techniques you will want to master if you ever wish to write a "classic" story that teacher's will torture their students with in the future. It will also improve your understanding of how writers reach particular audiences so that you may imitate their success and make lots of money for your estate after you're gone.
Finally, we hope reading these stories will spark ideas for your own writing and provide a model for how to execute your ideas in a way that will make them truly timeless.
Below is a list of famous short stories that any serious writer of fiction should have read (or at least should have meant to have read before he got distracted by the fascinating way dust dances in the sunlight pouring through the clumsily made window in the cardboard box he calls home.)
Please pick one you have never read before, read it and write a response in which you explain what kind of people probably liked this story and why and whether or not you agree with their opinion. Offer specific insight and evidence of your assertions.
Reading these stories will give you a better sense of which elements and techniques you will want to master if you ever wish to write a "classic" story that teacher's will torture their students with in the future. It will also improve your understanding of how writers reach particular audiences so that you may imitate their success and make lots of money for your estate after you're gone.
Finally, we hope reading these stories will spark ideas for your own writing and provide a model for how to execute your ideas in a way that will make them truly timeless.
"A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
"Cathedral" by Raymond Carver
"After I Was Thrown in the River and Before I Drowned" by Dave Eggers
"Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel Hawthorne
"The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allen Poe
"All the King's Horses" by Kurt Vonnegut
"The Fly" by Katherine Mansfield
"A Diamond As Big As The Ritz" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
"Nightfall" by Isaac Asimov
"A Jury of Her Peers" by Susan Glaspell
"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson
"The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry
"The Monkey's Paw" by W.W. Jacobs
"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce
"The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant
"To Build a Fire" by Jack London
"The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell
"A Sound of Thunder" by Ray Bradbury
"The Rocking-Horse Winner" by D.H. Lawrence
"Disappearing Act" by Alfred Bester
"If At First You Don't Succeed, To Hell With It!" by Charles E. Fritch
"The Open Window" by Saki
"Ice Cream" by Robert Johnson
"Lose Now, Pay Later" by Carol Farley
"Thank You, Ma'am" by Langston Hughes
"Big Joe's Funeral" by Walter Dean Myers
"Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid
"Thomas Edison's Shaggy Dog" by Kurt Vonnegut
"The War Prayer" by Mark Twain
"Silver Water" by Amy Bloom
"Just Another Love Affair" by Charles Darcy
"Meat in Space" by Terry Bisson
"The Red Convertible" by Louise Erdrich
"The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" by Ursula Le Guin
"What Lies Within Earshot" by Claudia Schatz
"The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka
"In the Penal Colony" by Franz Kafka
"There Was Once" by Margaret Atwood
"The Looking Glass" by Anton Chekov
"The Chaser" by John Collier
"The Veldt" by Ray Bradbury
"The Pedestrian" by Ray Bradbury
"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" by James Thurber
"The Falling Girl" by Dino Buzzati
"Symbols and Signs" by Vladimir Nabokov
"Snow" by Ann Beattie
"My Lucy Friend Who Smells Like Corn" by Sandra Cisneros
"My Name" by Sandra Cisneros
"Train" by Alice Munro
"The Fun They Had" by Isaac Asimov
"Flowers" by Alice Walker
"Barney" by Will Stanton
"The Great Automatic Grammatizator" by Roald Dahl
"In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried" by Amy Hempel
"Cathedral" by Raymond Carver
"After I Was Thrown in the River and Before I Drowned" by Dave Eggers
"Young Goodman Brown" by Nathaniel Hawthorne
"The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allen Poe
"All the King's Horses" by Kurt Vonnegut
"The Fly" by Katherine Mansfield
"A Diamond As Big As The Ritz" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
"Nightfall" by Isaac Asimov
"A Jury of Her Peers" by Susan Glaspell
"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson
"The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry
"The Monkey's Paw" by W.W. Jacobs
"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce
"The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant
"To Build a Fire" by Jack London
"The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell
"A Sound of Thunder" by Ray Bradbury
"The Rocking-Horse Winner" by D.H. Lawrence
"Disappearing Act" by Alfred Bester
"If At First You Don't Succeed, To Hell With It!" by Charles E. Fritch
"The Open Window" by Saki
"Ice Cream" by Robert Johnson
"Lose Now, Pay Later" by Carol Farley
"Thank You, Ma'am" by Langston Hughes
"Big Joe's Funeral" by Walter Dean Myers
"Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid
"Thomas Edison's Shaggy Dog" by Kurt Vonnegut
"The War Prayer" by Mark Twain
"Silver Water" by Amy Bloom
"Just Another Love Affair" by Charles Darcy
"Meat in Space" by Terry Bisson
"The Red Convertible" by Louise Erdrich
"The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" by Ursula Le Guin
"What Lies Within Earshot" by Claudia Schatz
"The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka
"In the Penal Colony" by Franz Kafka
"There Was Once" by Margaret Atwood
"The Looking Glass" by Anton Chekov
"The Chaser" by John Collier
"The Veldt" by Ray Bradbury
"The Pedestrian" by Ray Bradbury
"The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" by James Thurber
"The Falling Girl" by Dino Buzzati
"Symbols and Signs" by Vladimir Nabokov
"Snow" by Ann Beattie
"My Lucy Friend Who Smells Like Corn" by Sandra Cisneros
"My Name" by Sandra Cisneros
"Train" by Alice Munro
"The Fun They Had" by Isaac Asimov
"Flowers" by Alice Walker
"Barney" by Will Stanton
"The Great Automatic Grammatizator" by Roald Dahl
"In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried" by Amy Hempel