short story

as in tale
a work with imaginary characters and events that is shorter and usually less complex than a novel her very first short story was accepted for publication in a local journal

Synonyms & Similar Words

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Example Sentences

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
Recent Examples of short story All forms of writing — short stories, novels, poetry, memoirs — are covered. Linda McIntosh, San Diego Union-Tribune, 7 Feb. 2025 McEwan has published 17 books and two short story collections. Carly Tagen-Dye, People.com, 7 Feb. 2025 The film was penned by Ben Shattuck, adapted from his own award-winning short story. Elsa Keslassy, Variety, 14 Feb. 2025 Reignite creativity by making something useless—a haiku poem about your morning coffee, a sculpture of yourself, a short story intended for no audience. Dale Whelehan, TIME, 14 Feb. 2025 See All Example Sentences for short story
Recent Examples of Synonyms for short story
Noun
  • Some of the men who were deported from Guantánamo to Venezuela have told a familiar tale of being beaten by guards, strip-searched, and put into solitary confinement, and of suicide attempts as well as hunger strikes to protest the inhumane conditions.
    Edwidge Danticat, The New Yorker, 9 Mar. 2025
  • Were the tales of alien abduction that became popular in the 1980s a kind of mass hallucination?
    Owen Gleiberman, Variety, 9 Mar. 2025
Noun
  • Forbes Daily: Join over 1 million Forbes Daily subscribers and get our best stories, exclusive reporting and essential analysis of the day’s news in your inbox every weekday.
    Chris Malone Mendez, Forbes, 8 Mar. 2025
  • Both episodes owe a big spiritual debt to Lost, which also liked to toggle back and forth between the main island story, its characters’ former lives, and all its weird mythology.
    Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone, 7 Mar. 2025
Noun
  • Additional books in the immensely popular series include A Court of Mist and Fury, A Court of Wings and Ruin, the novella A Court of Frost and Starlight and A Court of Silver Flames.
    Keisha Hatchett, TVLine, 14 Feb. 2025
  • The factual novella lacks the self-soothing aspects of the self-eulogizing fantasy, while telling the same tale, with Hemingway acting, by his frantic verbal participation, as its co-author, contributing to what is at once a parody and, in another way, the superior realization of his own book.
    Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, 10 Feb. 2025
Noun
  • The puzzle at the center of The Accountant 2 matters insofar as the film needs a narrative propellant.
    Lovia Gyarkye, The Hollywood Reporter, 9 Mar. 2025
  • Philibert, who edits his own films, added that the most important thing was to construct a narrative.
    Leo Barraclough, Variety, 9 Mar. 2025

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“Short story.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/short%20story. Accessed 13 Mar. 2025.

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