short story essay pdf

Short Narrative Essay

Everyone finds it interesting to tell stories about their lives or about someone else’s. Through those stories, we can get lessons which we can apply in our daily lives. This is what a narrative essay is all about. Let’s go back to your experiences when you were still in grade school. Your teacher would often ask you to write about your favorite experiences especially during Christmas season and summer vacation.

Some people would mistakenly identify a narrative essay as equally the same as a descriptive essay . They are totally different from each other, yet both of them are forms of academic writing . Look into this article to learn more about narrative essays.

What is Short Narrative Essay?

A short narrative essay is a brief piece of writing that tells a story, usually focusing on a particular experience, event, or moment. It follows a narrative structure, involving characters, a setting, a plot, and a conclusion, aiming to engage the reader through vivid descriptions and storytelling techniques within a concise format.

Best Short Narrative Essay Examples?

Title: The Summer Adventure

The scorching sun bore down on the dusty road as we embarked on our summer adventure. Packed into the old, battered car, my family and I set off for the great outdoors. The air hummed with anticipation, echoing our excitement for the unknown.

As we traversed winding roads, the landscape unfolded like a painting. Rolling hills adorned with emerald-green trees greeted us, promising the allure of exploration. The scent of pine wafted through the open windows, mingling with laughter and the crackling excitement of adventure.

Our destination? A secluded lakeside campsite embraced by nature’s serenity. The promise of tranquil waters and starlit nights ignited our spirits. Upon arrival, we pitched our weathered tent, a ritual signaling the beginning of our escape from routine.

Days melted into each other, filled with hikes through dense forests, dips in cool, crystal-clear waters, and evenings spent around crackling campfires. We discovered hidden trails, stumbled upon secret meadows, and marveled at nature’s splendid orchestra of sounds and colors.

But amidst the beauty lay unexpected challenges. Unforgiving storms threatened our haven, testing our resilience. Yet, huddled together, we found solace in each other’s company, discovering strength in unity.

As the final sun dipped behind the horizon, casting its golden glow upon the rippling waters, a bittersweet sensation enveloped us. The adventure had drawn to a close, leaving behind cherished memories etched in our hearts.

Reluctantly, we packed our belongings, bidding farewell to the tranquil haven that had nurtured us. With weary but contented hearts, we embarked on the journey back, carrying not just souvenirs but a treasure trove of shared experiences and the promise of future escapades.

The car rolled away from the lakeside, but the echoes of laughter, the scent of pine, and the warmth of togetherness lingered, reminding us of the magical summer adventure that had woven us closer together.

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What is a Narrative Essay?

A narrative essay is a type of academic writing that allows you to narrate about your experiences. This follows a certain outline just like what we have observed in argumentative essays , informative essays and more. The outline consists of the introduction, body paragraph and conclusion.

This is a type of essay that tells a story either from the point of view of the author or from the personal experience of the author. It should also be able to incorporate characteristics such as the ability to make and support a claim, develop specific viewpoint, put conflicts and dialogue in the story, and to use correct information.  You may also see personal narrative essay examples & samples

The purpose of a narrative essay is to be able to tell stories may it be real or fictional. To enable us to write a perfect narrative essay, the author should include the necessary components used for telling good stories, a good climax, setting, plot and ending.

How To Write a Narrative Essay?

Compared to all types of academic essay , the narrative essay is the simplest one. It is simply written like the author is just writing a very simple short story. A typical essay has only a minimum of four to five paragraphs contain in the three basic parts: introduction, body paragraph and conclusion. A narrative essay has five elements namely the characters, plot, conflict, setting and theme.

Plot – this tells what happened in the story or simply the sequence of events. There are five types of plot: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution. The exposition is the an information that tells about background of the story. It can be about the character, the setting, events, etc. Rising action  is where the suspense of a story begins. It helps build toward the climax of a story. Climax  is the most intense part of the story.  Falling action  happens after the climax when it is already almost the end of the story.  Resolution is the part where the problem has already been resolved.

Characters – it is the person or other being that is a part of the narrative performs an action or speak a dialogue .

Conflict – this is the struggle or the problem that is faced by the characters of the story. This can be an external conflict and an internal conflict. An external conflict is a type of problem that is experienced in the external world. An internal conflict is the type of conflict that refers to the characters’ emotions and argument within itself.

Setting – this is knowing where and when the story takes place. This can be a powerful element because it makes the readers feel like they are the characters in the story.

Theme – this is what the author is trying to convey. Examples of a theme are romance, death, revenge, friendship, etc. It is the universal concept that allows you to understand the whole idea of the story.

How to write a short narrative essay?

• Select a Theme or Experience: Choose a specific event, moment, or experience that you want to narrate.
• Outline the Story: Plan the narrative by outlining the key elements – characters, setting, plot, and a clear beginning, middle, and end.
• Engaging Introduction: Start with a hook to captivate readers’ attention, introducing the setting or characters involved.
• Develop the Plot: Write body paragraphs that progress the story logically, describing events, actions, and emotions, using vivid details and sensory language to immerse readers.
• Character Development: Focus on character traits, emotions, and reactions to make the story relatable and engaging.
• Climax and Resolution: Build tension towards a climax, followed by a resolution or lesson learned from the experience.
• Concise Conclusion: Conclude the essay by summarizing the experience or reflecting on its significance, leaving a lasting impression on the reader.
• Revise and Edit: Review the essay for coherence, clarity, grammar, and punctuation, ensuring it flows smoothly.

What are the 3 parts of a narrative essay?

• Introduction: Sets the stage by introducing the story’s characters, setting, and providing a glimpse of the main event or experience. It often includes a hook to capture the reader’s attention.
• Body: Unfolds the narrative, presenting the sequence of events, actions, emotions, and details that drive the story forward. It develops the plot, characters, and setting.
• Conclusion: Summarizes the narrative, reflecting on the significance of the experience or event, and often delivers a lesson learned or leaves a lasting impression on the reader.

How do you start a narrative essay with examples?

• ” ‘Are we there yet?’ echoed in my ears as our family car trudged along the endless highway, marking the beginning of our unforgettable summer road trip.”
• “The sun dipped low on the horizon, casting a warm, golden hue over the serene lake. It was there, amidst the tranquil waters, that my adventure began.”
• “The deafening roar of applause faded as I stepped onto the stage, my heart racing with anticipation. Little did I know, that moment would change everything.”
• “Looking back, it all started with a single decision. That decision, made in a moment of uncertainty, led to a series of events that transformed my life.”
• “The scent of freshly baked cookies wafted through the air, mingling with the joyous laughter of children. It was a typical afternoon, until an unexpected visitor knocked on our door.”

How do you start a narrative introduction?

You may start by making the characters have their conversation or by describing the setting of the story. You may also give background information to the readers if you want.

What makes a good narrative?

A good narrative makes the readers entertained and engage in a way that they will feel like they are becoming a part of the narrative itself. They should also be organized and should possess a good sequence of events.

How many paragraphs are there in personal narratives?

Usually, there are about five paragraphs.

How many paragraphs are in a short narrative essay?

A short narrative essay typically comprises an introductory paragraph introducing the story, three to four body paragraphs unfolding the narrative, and a concluding paragraph summarizing the experience.

How long is a short narrative essay?

A short narrative essay typically ranges from 500 to 1500 words, aiming to convey a concise and focused story or experience within a limited word count.

Narrative essays are designed to express and tell experiences making it an interesting story to share. It has the three basic parts and contains at least five elements. If you plan to create a good narrative essay, be sure to follow and assess if your narrative has all the characteristics needed to make it sound nice and pleasing.

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• How to write a narrative essay | Example & tips

How to Write a Narrative Essay | Example & Tips

Published on July 24, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.

A narrative essay tells a story. In most cases, this is a story about a personal experience you had. This type of essay , along with the descriptive essay , allows you to get personal and creative, unlike most academic writing .

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Table of contents

What is a narrative essay for, choosing a topic, interactive example of a narrative essay, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about narrative essays.

When assigned a narrative essay, you might find yourself wondering: Why does my teacher want to hear this story? Topics for narrative essays can range from the important to the trivial. Usually the point is not so much the story itself, but the way you tell it.

A narrative essay is a way of testing your ability to tell a story in a clear and interesting way. You’re expected to think about where your story begins and ends, and how to convey it with eye-catching language and a satisfying pace.

These skills are quite different from those needed for formal academic writing. For instance, in a narrative essay the use of the first person (“I”) is encouraged, as is the use of figurative language, dialogue, and suspense.

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See an example

Narrative essay assignments vary widely in the amount of direction you’re given about your topic. You may be assigned quite a specific topic or choice of topics to work with.

• Write a story about your first day of school.
• Write a story about your favorite holiday destination.

You may also be given prompts that leave you a much wider choice of topic.

• Write about an experience where you learned something about yourself.
• Write about an achievement you are proud of. What did you accomplish, and how?

In these cases, you might have to think harder to decide what story you want to tell. The best kind of story for a narrative essay is one you can use to talk about a particular theme or lesson, or that takes a surprising turn somewhere along the way.

For example, a trip where everything went according to plan makes for a less interesting story than one where something unexpected happened that you then had to respond to. Choose an experience that might surprise the reader or teach them something.

Narrative essays in college applications

When applying for college , you might be asked to write a narrative essay that expresses something about your personal qualities.

For example, this application prompt from Common App requires you to respond with a narrative essay.

In this context, choose a story that is not only interesting but also expresses the qualities the prompt is looking for—here, resilience and the ability to learn from failure—and frame the story in a way that emphasizes these qualities.

An example of a short narrative essay, responding to the prompt “Write about an experience where you learned something about yourself,” is shown below.

Hover over different parts of the text to see how the structure works.

Since elementary school, I have always favored subjects like science and math over the humanities. My instinct was always to think of these subjects as more solid and serious than classes like English. If there was no right answer, I thought, why bother? But recently I had an experience that taught me my academic interests are more flexible than I had thought: I took my first philosophy class.

Before I entered the classroom, I was skeptical. I waited outside with the other students and wondered what exactly philosophy would involve—I really had no idea. I imagined something pretty abstract: long, stilted conversations pondering the meaning of life. But what I got was something quite different.

A young man in jeans, Mr. Jones—“but you can call me Rob”—was far from the white-haired, buttoned-up old man I had half-expected. And rather than pulling us into pedantic arguments about obscure philosophical points, Rob engaged us on our level. To talk free will, we looked at our own choices. To talk ethics, we looked at dilemmas we had faced ourselves. By the end of class, I’d discovered that questions with no right answer can turn out to be the most interesting ones.

The experience has taught me to look at things a little more “philosophically”—and not just because it was a philosophy class! I learned that if I let go of my preconceptions, I can actually get a lot out of subjects I was previously dismissive of. The class taught me—in more ways than one—to look at things with an open mind.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

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If you’re not given much guidance on what your narrative essay should be about, consider the context and scope of the assignment. What kind of story is relevant, interesting, and possible to tell within the word count?

The best kind of story for a narrative essay is one you can use to reflect on a particular theme or lesson, or that takes a surprising turn somewhere along the way.

Don’t worry too much if your topic seems unoriginal. The point of a narrative essay is how you tell the story and the point you make with it, not the subject of the story itself.

Narrative essays are usually assigned as writing exercises at high school or in university composition classes. They may also form part of a university application.

When you are prompted to tell a story about your own life or experiences, a narrative essay is usually the right response.

The key difference is that a narrative essay is designed to tell a complete story, while a descriptive essay is meant to convey an intense description of a particular place, object, or concept.

Narrative and descriptive essays both allow you to write more personally and creatively than other kinds of essays , and similar writing skills can apply to both.

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Caulfield, J. (2023, July 23). How to Write a Narrative Essay | Example & Tips. Scribbr. Retrieved April 16, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/academic-essay/narrative-essay/

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30 Free Essays & Stories by David Foster Wallace on the Web

in e-books , Literature | February 22nd, 2012 10 Comments

Image by Steve Rhodes, via Wiki­me­dia Com­mons

We start­ed the week expect­ing to pub­lish one David Fos­ter Wal­lace post . Then, because of the 50th birth­day cel­e­bra­tion, it turned into two . And now three. We spent some time track­ing down free DFW sto­ries and essays avail­able on the web, and they’re all now list­ed in our col­lec­tion,  800 Free eBooks for iPad, Kin­dle & Oth­er Devices . But we did­n’t want them to escape your atten­tion. So here they are — 23 pieces pub­lished by David Fos­ter Wal­lace between 1989 and 2011, most­ly in major U.S. pub­li­ca­tions like The New York­er , Harper’s , The Atlantic , and The Paris Review . Enjoy, and don’t miss our oth­er col­lec­tions of free writ­ings by Philip K. Dick and Neil Gaiman .

• “9/11: The View From the Mid­west” (Rolling Stone, Octo­ber 25, 2001)
• “All That” (New York­er, Decem­ber 14, 2009)
• “An Inter­val” (New York­er, Jan­u­ary 30, 1995)
• “Asset” (New York­er, Jan­u­ary 30, 1995)
• “Back­bone” An Excerpt from The Pale King (New York­er, March 7, 2011)
• “Big Red Son” from Con­sid­er the Lob­ster & Oth­er Essays
• “Brief Inter­views with Hideous Men” (The Paris Review, Fall 1997)
• “Con­sid­er the Lob­ster” (Gourmet, August 2004)
• “David Lynch Keeps His Head” (Pre­miere, 1996)
• “Every­thing is Green” (Harpers, Sep­tem­ber 1989)
• “E Unibus Plu­ram: Tele­vi­sion and U.S. Fic­tion” (The Review of Con­tem­po­rary Fic­tion, June 22, 1993)
• “Fed­er­er as Reli­gious Expe­ri­ence” (New York Times, August 20, 2006)
• “Good Peo­ple” (New York­er, Feb­ru­ary 5, 2007)
• “Host” (The Atlantic, April 2005)
• “Incar­na­tions of Burned Chil­dren” (Esquire, April 21, 2009)
• “Laugh­ing with Kaf­ka” (Harper’s, Jan­u­ary 1998)
• “Lit­tle Expres­sion­less Ani­mals” (The Paris Review, Spring 1988)
• “On Life and Work” (Keny­on Col­lege Com­mence­ment address, 2005)
• “Order and Flux in Northamp­ton”   (Con­junc­tions, 1991)
• “Rab­bit Res­ur­rect­ed” (Harper’s, August 1992)
• “ Sev­er­al Birds” (New York­er, June 17, 1994)
• “Ship­ping Out: On the (near­ly lethal) com­forts of a lux­u­ry cruise” (Harper’s, Jan­u­ary 1996)
• “Ten­nis, trigonom­e­try, tor­na­does A Mid­west­ern boy­hood”   (Harper’s, Decem­ber 1991)
• “Tense Present: Democ­ra­cy, Eng­lish, and the wars over usage” (Harper’s, April 2001)
• “The Awak­en­ing of My Inter­est in Annu­lar Sys­tems” (Harper’s, Sep­tem­ber 1993)
• “The Com­pli­ance Branch” (Harper’s, Feb­ru­ary 2008)
• “The Depressed Per­son” (Harper’s, Jan­u­ary 1998)
• “The String The­o­ry” (Esquire, July 1996)
• “The Weasel, Twelve Mon­keys And The Shrub” (Rolling Stone, April 2000)
• “Tick­et to the Fair” (Harper’s, July 1994)
• “Wig­gle Room” (New York­er, March 9, 2009)

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Free Philip K. Dick: Down­load 13 Great Sci­ence Fic­tion Sto­ries

Neil Gaiman’s Free Short Sto­ries

Read 17 Short Sto­ries From Nobel Prize-Win­ning Writer Alice Munro Free Online

10 Free Sto­ries by George Saun­ders, Author of Tenth of Decem­ber , “The Best Book You’ll Read This Year”

by OC | Permalink | Comments (10) |

Related posts:

Comments (10), 10 comments so far.

I got anoth­er free DFW essay for you: Big Red Son http://www.hachettebookgroup.com/books_9780316156110_ChapterExcerpt(1) .htm

Thanks very much. I added it to the list.

Appre­ci­ate it, Dan

Thanks very much for this infor­ma­tion regard­ing essays and sto­ries

Hi Dan. It’s a bit late for this, but I just remem­bered anoth­er link you might want to add. You can hear DFW giv­ing the full unabridged Keny­on com­mence­ment speech (which you link to in your list) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5THXa_H_N8 (it’s in 2 parts). Or down­load the full audio from http://www.mediafire.com/?file41t3kfml6q6 Thanks for all your hard work!

This is excel­lent, thanks so much. Will these links be up per­ma­nent­ly? I want to avoid the trou­ble of down­load­ing the stuff I don’t have time to get to now.

Just thought I’d men­tion that ‘Lit­tle Expres­sion­less Ani­mals” cuts off about 2/3rds of the way through, requir­ing you to pur­chase the issue ($40) for the chance to read the rest.

Kind of a bum­mer.

Don’t for­get “Tra­cy Austin Serves Up a Bub­bly Life Sto­ry” (review of Tra­cy Austin’s Beyond Cen­ter Court: My Sto­ry): http://www.mendeley.com/research/tracy-austin-serves-up-bubbly-life-story-review-tracy-austins-beyond-center-court-story

Also, just to let you know, the link to “Big Red Son” is bro­ken.

There’s also a ton of oth­er here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Foster_Wallace_bibliography

You can add “Good Old Neon” to your list if you like:

http://kalamazoo.coop/sites/default/files/Good%20Old%20Neon.pdf

There’s a bunch of arti­cles with bro­ken links, notably those from Harper’s Mag­a­zine. Has any­body saved them and would be so kind to share them?

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12.14: Sample Student Literary Analysis Essays

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• Page ID 40514

• Heather Ringo & Athena Kashyap
• City College of San Francisco via ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative

The following examples are essays where student writers focused on close-reading a literary work.

While reading these examples, ask yourself the following questions:

• What is the essay's thesis statement, and how do you know it is the thesis statement?
• What is the main idea or topic sentence of each body paragraph, and how does it relate back to the thesis statement?
• Where and how does each essay use evidence (quotes or paraphrase from the literature)?
• What are some of the literary devices or structures the essays analyze or discuss?
• How does each author structure their conclusion, and how does their conclusion differ from their introduction?

Example 1: Poetry

Victoria Morillo

Instructor Heather Ringo

3 August 2022

How Nguyen’s Structure Solidifies the Impact of Sexual Violence in “The Study”

Stripped of innocence, your body taken from you. No matter how much you try to block out the instance in which these two things occurred, memories surface and come back to haunt you. How does a person, a young boy , cope with an event that forever changes his life? Hieu Minh Nguyen deconstructs this very way in which an act of sexual violence affects a survivor. In his poem, “The Study,” the poem's speaker recounts the year in which his molestation took place, describing how his memory filters in and out. Throughout the poem, Nguyen writes in free verse, permitting a structural liberation to become the foundation for his message to shine through. While he moves the readers with this poignant narrative, Nguyen effectively conveys the resulting internal struggles of feeling alone and unseen.

The speaker recalls his experience with such painful memory through the use of specific punctuation choices. Just by looking at the poem, we see that the first period doesn’t appear until line 14. It finally comes after the speaker reveals to his readers the possible, central purpose for writing this poem: the speaker's molestation. In the first half, the poem makes use of commas, em dashes, and colons, which lends itself to the idea of the speaker stringing along all of these details to make sense of this time in his life. If reading the poem following the conventions of punctuation, a sense of urgency is present here, as well. This is exemplified by the lack of periods to finalize a thought; and instead, Nguyen uses other punctuation marks to connect them. Serving as another connector of thoughts, the two em dashes give emphasis to the role memory plays when the speaker discusses how “no one [had] a face” during that time (Nguyen 9-11). He speaks in this urgent manner until the 14th line, and when he finally gets it off his chest, the pace of the poem changes, as does the more frequent use of the period. This stream-of-consciousness-like section when juxtaposed with the latter half of the poem, causes readers to slow down and pay attention to the details. It also splits the poem in two: a section that talks of the fogginess of memory then transitions into one that remembers it all.

In tandem with the fluctuating nature of memory, the utilization of line breaks and word choice help reflect the damage the molestation has had. Within the first couple of lines of the poem, the poem demands the readers’ attention when the line breaks from “floating” to “dead” as the speaker describes his memory of Little Billy (Nguyen 1-4). This line break averts the readers’ expectation of the direction of the narrative and immediately shifts the tone of the poem. The break also speaks to the effect his trauma has ingrained in him and how “[f]or the longest time,” his only memory of that year revolves around an image of a boy’s death. In a way, the speaker sees himself in Little Billy; or perhaps, he’s representative of the tragic death of his boyhood, how the speaker felt so “dead” after enduring such a traumatic experience, even referring to himself as a “ghost” that he tries to evict from his conscience (Nguyen 24). The feeling that a part of him has died is solidified at the very end of the poem when the speaker describes himself as a nine-year-old boy who’s been “fossilized,” forever changed by this act (Nguyen 29). By choosing words associated with permanence and death, the speaker tries to recreate the atmosphere (for which he felt trapped in) in order for readers to understand the loneliness that came as a result of his trauma. With the assistance of line breaks, more attention is drawn to the speaker's words, intensifying their importance, and demanding to be felt by the readers.

Most importantly, the speaker expresses eloquently, and so heartbreakingly, about the effect sexual violence has on a person. Perhaps what seems to be the most frustrating are the people who fail to believe survivors of these types of crimes. This is evident when he describes “how angry” the tenants were when they filled the pool with cement (Nguyen 4). They seem to represent how people in the speaker's life were dismissive of his assault and who viewed his tragedy as a nuisance of some sorts. This sentiment is bookended when he says, “They say, give us details , so I give them my body. / They say, give us proof , so I give them my body,” (Nguyen 25-26). The repetition of these two lines reinforces the feeling many feel in these scenarios, as they’re often left to deal with trying to make people believe them, or to even see them.

It’s important to recognize how the structure of this poem gives the speaker space to express the pain he’s had to carry for so long. As a characteristic of free verse, the poem doesn’t follow any structured rhyme scheme or meter; which in turn, allows him to not have any constraints in telling his story the way he wants to. The speaker has the freedom to display his experience in a way that evades predictability and engenders authenticity of a story very personal to him. As readers, we abandon anticipating the next rhyme, and instead focus our attention to the other ways, like his punctuation or word choice, in which he effectively tells his story. The speaker recognizes that some part of him no longer belongs to himself, but by writing “The Study,” he shows other survivors that they’re not alone and encourages hope that eventually, they will be freed from the shackles of sexual violence.

Works Cited

Nguyen, Hieu Minh. “The Study” Poets.Org. Academy of American Poets, Coffee House Press, 2018, https://poets.org/poem/study-0 .

Example 2: Fiction

Todd Goodwin

Professor Stan Matyshak

Advanced Expository Writing

Sept. 17, 20—

Poe’s “Usher”: A Mirror of the Fall of the House of Humanity

Right from the outset of the grim story, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” Edgar Allan Poe enmeshes us in a dark, gloomy, hopeless world, alienating his characters and the reader from any sort of physical or psychological norm where such values as hope and happiness could possibly exist. He fatalistically tells the story of how a man (the narrator) comes from the outside world of hope, religion, and everyday society and tries to bring some kind of redeeming happiness to his boyhood friend, Roderick Usher, who not only has physically and psychologically wasted away but is entrapped in a dilapidated house of ever-looming terror with an emaciated and deranged twin sister. Roderick Usher embodies the wasting away of what once was vibrant and alive, and his house of “insufferable gloom” (273), which contains his morbid sister, seems to mirror or reflect this fear of death and annihilation that he most horribly endures. A close reading of the story reveals that Poe uses mirror images, or reflections, to contribute to the fatalistic theme of “Usher”: each reflection serves to intensify an already prevalent tone of hopelessness, darkness, and fatalism.

It could be argued that the house of Roderick Usher is a “house of mirrors,” whose unpleasant and grim reflections create a dark and hopeless setting. For example, the narrator first approaches “the melancholy house of Usher on a dark and soundless day,” and finds a building which causes him a “sense of insufferable gloom,” which “pervades his spirit and causes an iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart, an undiscerned dreariness of thought” (273). The narrator then optimistically states: “I reflected that a mere different arrangement of the scene, of the details of the picture, would be sufficient to modify, or perhaps annihilate its capacity for sorrowful impression” (274). But the narrator then sees the reflection of the house in the tarn and experiences a “shudder even more thrilling than before” (274). Thus the reader begins to realize that the narrator cannot change or stop the impending doom that will befall the house of Usher, and maybe humanity. The story cleverly plays with the word reflection : the narrator sees a physical reflection that leads him to a mental reflection about Usher’s surroundings.

The narrator’s disillusionment by such grim reflection continues in the story. For example, he describes Roderick Usher’s face as distinct with signs of old strength but lost vigor: the remains of what used to be. He describes the house as a once happy and vibrant place, which, like Roderick, lost its vitality. Also, the narrator describes Usher’s hair as growing wild on his rather obtrusive head, which directly mirrors the eerie moss and straw covering the outside of the house. The narrator continually longs to see these bleak reflections as a dream, for he states: “Shaking off from my spirit what must have been a dream, I scanned more narrowly the real aspect of the building” (276). He does not want to face the reality that Usher and his home are doomed to fall, regardless of what he does.

Although there are almost countless examples of these mirror images, two others stand out as important. First, Roderick and his sister, Madeline, are twins. The narrator aptly states just as he and Roderick are entombing Madeline that there is “a striking similitude between brother and sister” (288). Indeed, they are mirror images of each other. Madeline is fading away psychologically and physically, and Roderick is not too far behind! The reflection of “doom” that these two share helps intensify and symbolize the hopelessness of the entire situation; thus, they further develop the fatalistic theme. Second, in the climactic scene where Madeline has been mistakenly entombed alive, there is a pairing of images and sounds as the narrator tries to calm Roderick by reading him a romance story. Events in the story simultaneously unfold with events of the sister escaping her tomb. In the story, the hero breaks out of the coffin. Then, in the story, the dragon’s shriek as he is slain parallels Madeline’s shriek. Finally, the story tells of the clangor of a shield, matched by the sister’s clanging along a metal passageway. As the suspense reaches its climax, Roderick shrieks his last words to his “friend,” the narrator: “Madman! I tell you that she now stands without the door” (296).

Roderick, who slowly falls into insanity, ironically calls the narrator the “Madman.” We are left to reflect on what Poe means by this ironic twist. Poe’s bleak and dark imagery, and his use of mirror reflections, seem only to intensify the hopelessness of “Usher.” We can plausibly conclude that, indeed, the narrator is the “Madman,” for he comes from everyday society, which is a place where hope and faith exist. Poe would probably argue that such a place is opposite to the world of Usher because a world where death is inevitable could not possibly hold such positive values. Therefore, just as Roderick mirrors his sister, the reflection in the tarn mirrors the dilapidation of the house, and the story mirrors the final actions before the death of Usher. “The Fall of the House of Usher” reflects Poe’s view that humanity is hopelessly doomed.

Poe, Edgar Allan. “The Fall of the House of Usher.” 1839. Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library . 1995. Web. 1 July 2012. < http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/PoeFall.html >.

Example 3: Poetry

Amy Chisnell

Professor Laura Neary

Writing and Literature

April 17, 20—

Don’t Listen to the Egg!: A Close Reading of Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky”

“You seem very clever at explaining words, Sir,” said Alice. “Would you kindly tell me the meaning of the poem called ‘Jabberwocky’?”

“Let’s hear it,” said Humpty Dumpty. “I can explain all the poems that ever were invented—and a good many that haven’t been invented just yet.” (Carroll 164)

In Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass , Humpty Dumpty confidently translates (to a not so confident Alice) the complicated language of the poem “Jabberwocky.” The words of the poem, though nonsense, aptly tell the story of the slaying of the Jabberwock. Upon finding “Jabberwocky” on a table in the looking-glass room, Alice is confused by the strange words. She is quite certain that “ somebody killed something ,” but she does not understand much more than that. When later she encounters Humpty Dumpty, she seizes the opportunity at having the knowledgeable egg interpret—or translate—the poem. Since Humpty Dumpty professes to be able to “make a word work” for him, he is quick to agree. Thus he acts like a New Critic who interprets the poem by performing a close reading of it. Through Humpty’s interpretation of the first stanza, however, we see the poem’s deeper comment concerning the practice of interpreting poetry and literature in general—that strict analytical translation destroys the beauty of a poem. In fact, Humpty Dumpty commits the “heresy of paraphrase,” for he fails to understand that meaning cannot be separated from the form or structure of the literary work.

Of the 71 words found in “Jabberwocky,” 43 have no known meaning. They are simply nonsense. Yet through this nonsensical language, the poem manages not only to tell a story but also gives the reader a sense of setting and characterization. One feels, rather than concretely knows, that the setting is dark, wooded, and frightening. The characters, such as the Jubjub bird, the Bandersnatch, and the doomed Jabberwock, also appear in the reader’s head, even though they will not be found in the local zoo. Even though most of the words are not real, the reader is able to understand what goes on because he or she is given free license to imagine what the words denote and connote. Simply, the poem’s nonsense words are the meaning.

Therefore, when Humpty interprets “Jabberwocky” for Alice, he is not doing her any favors, for he actually misreads the poem. Although the poem in its original is constructed from nonsense words, by the time Humpty is done interpreting it, it truly does not make any sense. The first stanza of the original poem is as follows:

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogroves,

An the mome raths outgrabe. (Carroll 164)

If we replace, however, the nonsense words of “Jabberwocky” with Humpty’s translated words, the effect would be something like this:

’Twas four o’clock in the afternoon, and the lithe and slimy badger-lizard-corkscrew creatures

Did go round and round and make holes in the grass-plot round the sun-dial:

All flimsy and miserable were the shabby-looking birds

with mop feathers,

And the lost green pigs bellowed-sneezed-whistled.

By translating the poem in such a way, Humpty removes the charm or essence—and the beauty, grace, and rhythm—from the poem. The poetry is sacrificed for meaning. Humpty Dumpty commits the heresy of paraphrase. As Cleanth Brooks argues, “The structure of a poem resembles that of a ballet or musical composition. It is a pattern of resolutions and balances and harmonizations” (203). When the poem is left as nonsense, the reader can easily imagine what a “slithy tove” might be, but when Humpty tells us what it is, he takes that imaginative license away from the reader. The beauty (if that is the proper word) of “Jabberwocky” is in not knowing what the words mean, and yet understanding. By translating the poem, Humpty takes that privilege from the reader. In addition, Humpty fails to recognize that meaning cannot be separated from the structure itself: the nonsense poem reflects this literally—it means “nothing” and achieves this meaning by using “nonsense” words.

Furthermore, the nonsense words Carroll chooses to use in “Jabberwocky” have a magical effect upon the reader; the shadowy sound of the words create the atmosphere, which may be described as a trance-like mood. When Alice first reads the poem, she says it seems to fill her head “with ideas.” The strange-sounding words in the original poem do give one ideas. Why is this? Even though the reader has never heard these words before, he or she is instantly aware of the murky, mysterious mood they set. In other words, diction operates not on the denotative level (the dictionary meaning) but on the connotative level (the emotion(s) they evoke). Thus “Jabberwocky” creates a shadowy mood, and the nonsense words are instrumental in creating this mood. Carroll could not have simply used any nonsense words.

For example, let us change the “dark,” “ominous” words of the first stanza to “lighter,” more “comic” words:

’Twas mearly, and the churly pells

Did bimble and ringle in the tink;

All timpy were the brimbledimps,

And the bip plips outlink.

Shifting the sounds of the words from dark to light merely takes a shift in thought. To create a specific mood using nonsense words, one must create new words from old words that convey the desired mood. In “Jabberwocky,” Carroll mixes “slimy,” a grim idea, “lithe,” a pliable image, to get a new adjective: “slithy” (a portmanteau word). In this translation, brighter words were used to get a lighter effect. “Mearly” is a combination of “morning” and “early,” and “ringle” is a blend of “ring” and "dingle.” The point is that “Jabberwocky’s” nonsense words are created specifically to convey this shadowy or mysterious mood and are integral to the “meaning.”

Consequently, Humpty’s rendering of the poem leaves the reader with a completely different feeling than does the original poem, which provided us with a sense of ethereal mystery, of a dark and foreign land with exotic creatures and fantastic settings. The mysteriousness is destroyed by Humpty’s literal paraphrase of the creatures and the setting; by doing so, he has taken the beauty away from the poem in his attempt to understand it. He has committed the heresy of paraphrase: “If we allow ourselves to be misled by it [this heresy], we distort the relation of the poem to its ‘truth’… we split the poem between its ‘form’ and its ‘content’” (Brooks 201). Humpty Dumpty’s ultimate demise might be seen to symbolize the heretical split between form and content: as a literary creation, Humpty Dumpty is an egg, a well-wrought urn of nonsense. His fall from the wall cracks him and separates the contents from the container, and not even all the King’s men can put the scrambled egg back together again!

Through the odd characters of a little girl and a foolish egg, “Jabberwocky” suggests a bit of sage advice about reading poetry, advice that the New Critics built their theories on. The importance lies not solely within strict analytical translation or interpretation, but in the overall effect of the imagery and word choice that evokes a meaning inseparable from those literary devices. As Archibald MacLeish so aptly writes: “A poem should not mean / But be.” Sometimes it takes a little nonsense to show us the sense in something.

Brooks, Cleanth. The Well-Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry . 1942. San Diego: Harcourt Brace, 1956. Print.

Carroll, Lewis. Through the Looking-Glass. Alice in Wonderland . 2nd ed. Ed. Donald J. Gray. New York: Norton, 1992. Print.

MacLeish, Archibald. “Ars Poetica.” The Oxford Book of American Poetry . Ed. David Lehman. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006. 385–86. Print.

Attribution

• Sample Essay 1 received permission from Victoria Morillo to publish, licensed Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International ( CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 )
• Sample Essays 2 and 3 adapted from Cordell, Ryan and John Pennington. "2.5: Student Sample Papers" from Creating Literary Analysis. 2012. Licensed Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported ( CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 )

Reluctant Reader Books

63 Short Stories for Middle School: Free PDF Downloads

Below you’ll find the best short stories for middle school: our 16 favorites, One Page Stories, Funny Stories, Mysteries, Horror, Science Fiction, Literary, Classics, and Adventure.

Want stories for high school ? Go here .

Lamb to the Slaughter

The landlady, the most dangerous game, the pedestrian.

• The Monkey’s Paw

The Hitchhiker

Sorry, wrong number, third from the sun, time enough at last, the black cat, the cask of amontillado, the lottery, the 9 billion names of god, harrison bergeron, the disciple, the scholarship jacket, hearts & hands, story of an hour, the dinner party, a tent in agony, one of these days, names/nombres, the story of the bad little boy, seventh grade, affair at 7 rue de m, ransom of red chief, adventure of the speckled band, three tools of death, night drive, on the sidewalk bleeding, click clack the rattlebag, the elevator.

• Dracula’s Guest
• The Wife’s Story

The Terrible Old Man

The necklace, the lady or the tiger, after 20 years, the rocking horse winner, an occurrence at owl creek bridge, the gift of the magi, the boar hunt, the treasure in the forest, three skeleton key, a sound of thunder, hey you down there, the eyes have it, mars is heaven, there will come soft rains, the friday that changed everything, a christmas memory, the circuit, treasure of lemon brown, everyday use, one friday morning, rules of the game, 41 short stories for high school: free pdf, the funniest book ever set in a cadaver lab, best short stories for middle school: free pdf.

Below we’ve selected our favorite 16 short stories for middle school. These 16 stories can be found in our free PDF download (click thumbnail to preview). Accompanying lesson plans can also be found at TpT with over 182 pages of thought-provoking and engaging material.

What’s in our lesson plans? See here .

By Roald Dahl In a fit of rage, a wife murders her husband. Now what is she to do? How will she get rid of the evidence?

By Roald Dahl A young man in search of lodging for the night finds more than he bargained for at a mysterious bed & breakfast run by a strange old woman.

By Richard Connell A madman hunts human beings for sport on his private island. But with his latest “guest” he may have finally met his match.

By Ray Bradbury A man goes out for a walk in a dark, lonely city of the future only to discover that sometimes even walking is an act of rebellion.

By Ray Bradbury The classic tale of the dangers of technology replacing reality and a critique of lackadaisical parenting.

The Monkey’s Paw

By WW Jacobs The greatest tale ever told about being careful what you wish for, with one of the finest endings ever penned.

By Lucille Fletcher A radio play written by a master of the form about a man driving the lonely American highways, and the hitchhiker who appears time & again.

By Lucille Fletcher A woman asks an operator to connect her call but ends up dialed into a party line where two men are discussing a murder.

By Richard Matheson A family looks to escape their home planet to avoid impending nuclear war. Can they make it out without getting caught?

By Lynn Venable All he wanted was a little time to read. Then the bombs fell, and he finally had all the time he could ever want.

By Edgar Allan Poe A man descends slowly into alcoholism, madness and murder in Poe’s twisted tale of a man haunted by the ghost of the cat he has killed.

By Edgar Allan Poe The all-time classic tale of the perfect revenge. Fortunato thinks he’s getting a rare taste of wine, but Montresor has other plans.

By Shirley Jackson Perhaps the greatest twist ending in 20th Century fiction. A wicked tale of a small town lottery and the danger of tradition.

By Arthur C Clarke A group of monks atop a mountain need a computer to help them write down all nine billion names of God.

By Kurt Vonnegut In the future, excellence in any way. is forbidden and strictly controlled. Until one young man decides to rebel.

One Page Short Stories for Middle School

Some days all you have time for is a one page short story. Or maybe a two pager. The stories below are some of the shortest tales you can find for free online, written by a variety of masters: O. Henry, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Martha Salinas, Philip K. Dick and more.

By Anton Chekhov “Who is the more humane executioner, one who kills you in a few seconds or one who draws the life out of you incessantly, for years?”

By Oscar Wilde Everyone knows the story of Narcissus who wasted away staring at his reflection. But what about the pool’s point of view?

By Marth Salinas Martha spent years earning that jacket. But some teachers want to give it to a school board member’s daughter.

By O Henry “Among the newcomers were two young men, one of handsome presence…the other a ruffled, glum-faced person…The two were handcuffed together.”

By Kate Chopin “Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband’s death.”

By Mona Gardner A lovely and lively dinner party. A daring wager put to all in attendance. A cunning guest who knows more than she’s letting on.

By Stephen Crane An encounter with the local wildlife goes horribly wrong when an old black bear walks into a tent looking for some food.

By Gabriel Garcia Marquez A dentist must remove the tooth of the local Mayor, who happens to be a sworn enemy. He takes the job.

By Julia Alvarez “At the hotel my mother was Missus Alburest, and I was little girl, as in, ‘Hey, little girl, stop riding the elevator up and down. It’s not a toy.’”

Funny Short Stories For Middle School

Few writers have the knack for crafting funny short stories for middle school. Laughter on the page is a tough trick, but some authors pull it off time and again.

By Mark Twain Once there was a bad little boy named Jim — though, if you notice, you’ll find that bad little boys are nearly always called James…

By Gary Soto A seventh grade boy finds himself trying to impress his crush and relying on the suspect advice of his friends.

By John Steinbeck A young boy who loves to chew gum discovers one day that his wad of bubble gum enjoys chewing him! An amusing tale of the supernatural.

By O Henry “We chose for our victim the only child of an influential citizen named Ebenezer Dorset. He was a boy of ten, with red hair.”

Mystery Short Stories for Middle School

Who doesn’t love a good mystery short story for middle school? Whether a story of classic detection like Sherlock Holmes or a wonderful twist on murder most foul, mystery stories are a delight.

By Arthur Conan Doyle A classic mystery of a locked room murder, Doyle considered this to be the finest short story he ever wrote.

By GK Chesterton A troubled girl’s father is found dead, and Father Brown must unravel his mysterious murder by one of three deadly weapons.

By Will F Jenkins Madge just wanted to pick up her husband, but an unexpected passenger leads to dark and terrible truth about the human soul.

By Shirley Jackson Why did Charles hit the teacher? Was it just because the teacher made him write with red crayons?

By Evan Hunter “He lay on the sidewalk, bleeding, and he thought only:  That was a fierce rumble. They got me good that time , but he did not know he was dying.”

Scary Short Stories For Middle School

We love scary short stories for middle school. Better yet though: middle school kids love scary stories themselves. Of all the tales we’ve used in the classroom, few have as much impact as the dark and spooky journeys found here.

By Neil Gaiman “We walked along the upper corridor in the shadows, walking from patch of moonlight to patch of moonlight. It really was a big house.”

By Ray Bradbury A young man returns to his hometown after getting married only to discover the ghost of a girl he once loved as a boy.

By William Sleator Twelve year old Martin is afraid of the elevator in his new apartment building. He tries to avoid it. He should have tried harder.

Dracula’s Guest

By Bram Stoker Removed by Stoker from the novel, this tale serves as an excellent introduction to the greatest of all vampires: Count Dracula.

The Wife’s Story

By Ursula K LeGuin “He was a good husband, a good father. I don’t understand it. I don’t believe in it. I don’t believe that it happened. I saw it happen but it isn’t true.”

By HP Lovecraft Not all old men are as weak and helpless as they seem. This is a truth three misguided thieves discover all too late.

Classic Short Stories For Middle School

Classic short stories for middle school stand the test of time. They continue to resonate with readers of every new generation. The classic short stories here are among some of the best ever written.

By Guy de Maupassant One of the finest short stories by one of the great practitioners of the form, with a gut kick of a twist ending.

By Frank Stockton Behind one door a beautiful lady. Behind the other a voracious and hungry tiger. Make your choice very carefully.

By O. Henry Two men agreed to meet again in one spot 20 years later. But when two strangers collide in that spot in the night, they discover the irony of fate.

By DH Lawrence A little boy believes that he can correctly guess the derby winners each time by riding his rocking horse.

By Ambrose Bierce A man is to be hung at Owl Creek Bridge. But the rope snaps and he escapes. Or does he? One of the great twist endings of all time.

By O. Henry The classic tale of a man and wife who sacrifice their greatest treasures for each other on Christmas Eve.

Adventure Short Stories for Middle School

Adventure short stories for middle school take readers far and away. Deep into the jungle. Onto deserted (or not so deserted) islands. Into lonely lighthouses. All these adventure stories are exciting, engaging and full of surprises.

By Jose Vasconcelos A hunting party deep in the jungle believes they’ve come across the ultimate score. But the tables quickly turn.

By HG Wells Two ruthless treasure hunters have murdered a man for his treasure map. But what they find in the forest i smore than they imagined.

By George Toudouze My most terrifying experience? Well, one does have a few in thirty-five years of service in the Lights, although it’s mostly monotonous…

By Liam O’Flaherty “On a rooftop near O’Connell Bridge, a Republican sniper lay watching. Beside him lay his rifle and…a pair of field glasses.”

By Ray Bradbury In the future, hunters use time travel to venture back into the past to hunt the most dangerous game of all time.

Science Fiction Short Stories for Middle School

Science fiction short stories for middle school push the boundaries of the imagination. They ask what if in ways that few other types of stories can. These science fiction short stories stand out as some of the most powerful of the form.

By Harold Rolseth A wickedly humorous story about a couple digging a well who discover an unknown race deep underground.

By Philip K Dick It was quite by accident I discovered this incredible invasion of Earth by lifeforms from another planet…

By Ray Bradbury They land on Mars only to discover themselves in a town that looks exactly like one they left on Earth, and it’s filled with people they know.

By Ray Bradbury What happens in the future when nuclear war has wiped out all of humanity and all that’s left is our technology winding down?

Literary Short Stories for Middle School

Literary short stories for middle school explore life and all of its mysteries. The stories below capture life at a variety of extremes and reveal powerful insights into life, death, greed, fear and more.

By Anne Hart A school teacher considers changing the rules, pitting the boys against the girls in a tale of power and jealousy.

By McKnight Malmar A woman arrives home alone on the eve of a great storm. Waiting for her husband, she believes she’s found a body in the cellar.

By Truman Capote The classic short story recounting Capote’s childhood memories of him and his best friend as they try to gather money to purchase what they need to bake fruitcakes for Christmas.

By Francisco Jimenez The peak of the strawberry season was over and the last few days the workers, most of them braceros, were not picking as many boxes.

By Walter Dean Myers “There weren’t any more scraping noises, but he was sure he had heard something in the darkness—something breathing!”

By Alice Walker “In real life I am a large, big-boned woman with rough, man-working hands…I can kill and clean a hog as mercilessly as a man.”

By Langston Hughes “Casually, one day, Miss Dietrich asked Nancy Lee what color frame she thought would be best on her picture. That had been the first inkling.”

By Amy Tan “I was six when my mother taught me the art of invisible strength. It was a strategy for winning arguments, respect from others…”

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Welcome to the magical world of short stories! If you’re looking for a quick read, you’ve come to the right place.

Here you’ll find an extensive library of short stories available for free download. Whatever your genre preference, we have something for you. Our mission is to provide you with easy access to high-quality, completely free short stories.

We know that in this digital age, speed is essential. That’s why we offer a wide selection of books that you can read in an afternoon or even on your coffee break.

Are you a fan of science fiction, mystery, fantasy, or romance? Our short stories cover all these genres and many more. No matter your literary appetite, we have a short book that you’ll love.

Discover our fascinating selection of short stories now. You’re sure to find something that will hook you and keep you browsing our site.

Happy reading!

1) Short Bedtime Stories

Sleep is a human need that must be satisfied in order to enjoy proper health. And there is nothing better than falling asleep by delighting your senses with various entertaining and interesting stories.

Reading relaxes you because it has the power to make you forget about commitments, worries, work and the daily hustle and bustle. That is why by reading stories that you like, you will be preparing your whole body for a restful sleep.

Select the short bedtime stories that best suit your preferences, and enjoy great free stories every night.

FREE BOOKS [PDF]

2) Short Books

Short books are easy to read, assimilate and enjoy. In a few pages, authors can convey a whole set of interesting messages that make a difference in your perspective or in your life in general.

The essence of a good book is found in its story, and not in the number of words or pages it contains.

On the other hand, short books are also easy to transport in their physical format. As for its digital format, you can store hundreds on a wireless device or on your desktop computer.

3) Short Love Stories

If you are one of those who prefer stories that deal with relationships, you can opt for short love stories. In these texts, you will have the opportunity to learn about love from different angles.

The authors expose love in various facets of life and share their own interpretations or perspectives about this universal feeling. The characters will be in charge of developing the plots and making you experience different emotions.

Enjoy these free short stories, and transport yourself to different scenarios full of love and romance, from the hand of their authors.

4) Short Mystery Books

For you to enjoy captivating stories, we have prepared for you a complete selection of free short mystery books in PDF format.

As part of the mystery genre books that we bring you today, you can enjoy titles such as “The Vampire”, “The Black Cat”, “The Fall of the House of Usher”, and “The 39 Steps”, to name a few.

There are several works that you can read in our digital library, so you can immerse yourself in the world of investigations, crimes, detectives, and suspense.

5) Short Stories for Adults

Short stories for adults represent a fascinating alternative when selecting a reading. In these texts, you can find open, raw, direct, and action-packed content aimed at a mature audience.

A story of this type and short length can be an excellent option to disconnect from everything around you. To make a personal or private space, and let yourself be carried away by the reading of a different narrative without taboos.

We have made a varied selection of free short stories for adults, with the idea that you can choose all those that catch your attention.

6) Short Books in Spanish

Short books in Spanish are like literary pills that allow you to savor storytelling in its most condensed and effective form.

From gripping dramas to science fiction worlds, these short books in Spanish are an invitation to literary adventure.

Each book is a literary gem that will transport you to diverse worlds and emotions in just a few pages. And the best part is, they are completely free in PDF format.

7) Short Books in French

Welcome to our collection of short books in French . Here you will find a selection of exciting and captivating stories in the French language, perfect for those who wish to practice and improve their language skills.

Our books are carefully grouped into thematic categories, each offering a unique experience, from thrilling adventures to heartwarming dramas and moments of laughter and fun.

Immerse yourself in these fascinating stories and enjoy the pleasure of reading while enhancing your French skills. Explore our collection and let yourself be carried away by the magic of these books!

8) Short Books in Portuguese

Short Portuguese books are small literary gems that transport us to fascinating worlds in just a few pages. Although their length may be limited, their impact is limitless.

In these condensed works, authors display their skill in conveying emotions, telling profound stories, or presenting powerful ideas within a confined space.

We will explore the world of short Portuguese books, highlighting their ability for concentrated storytelling and their knack for leaving a lasting impression on the reader.

9) Short Novels

What is known as a novella is a story of less than the length of a novel. Also known as novelette or nouvelle, it employs the narrative resources of a standard novel.

During its beginnings, the term novella began to be used as it was in Italy, giving it the meaning of a shorter story than the current novel.

But with the passage of time, the word novella began to be used to catalog all stories that were longer than a short story. This generated the need to differentiate the novel from the short novel.

10) Horror Short Stories

Stories capable of causing fear, shocks and chills are also present in short texts. Horror short stories are one of the most widely read groups, mainly due to the interest they arouse in the general reading public.

With narratives that generate fear, the authors of these books manage to activate the minds and perceptions of the readers, taking them to an unparalleled level of emotion and exaltation.

If you like this type of emotion, you should not miss this collection of free horror short stories . All are ideal to raise your adrenaline levels.

11) Short Stories for Children

Reading bedtime stories to the little ones is one of the oldest family traditions in the world, and everything indicates that this will not change in the future. One of the main reasons is that short stories represent an excellent opportunity to strengthen the relationship between parents and children.

In addition, short stories keep children focused. Due to the child’s cognitive immaturity, long stories are often less easy to remember and, as a result, they quickly lose concentration. It has been scientifically proven that children’s short stories promote their psychological development.

Thanks to these stories, children can also improve their vocabulary and language, stimulate creativity and receive positive values from an early age. If we take into account that 80% of the brain develops during the first five years of life, children can find in stories a great ally for the future.

And well, this was our selection of free short books in PDF format. We hope you liked it and find your next book!

If you found this list useful, don’t forget to share it on your main social networks. Remember that “Sharing is Building”.

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NPR defends its journalism after senior editor says it has lost the public's trust

David Folkenflik

NPR is defending its journalism and integrity after a senior editor wrote an essay accusing it of losing the public's trust. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

NPR is defending its journalism and integrity after a senior editor wrote an essay accusing it of losing the public's trust.

NPR's top news executive defended its journalism and its commitment to reflecting a diverse array of views on Tuesday after a senior NPR editor wrote a broad critique of how the network has covered some of the most important stories of the age.

"An open-minded spirit no longer exists within NPR, and now, predictably, we don't have an audience that reflects America," writes Uri Berliner.

A strategic emphasis on diversity and inclusion on the basis of race, ethnicity and sexual orientation, promoted by NPR's former CEO, John Lansing, has fed "the absence of viewpoint diversity," Berliner writes.

NPR's chief news executive, Edith Chapin, wrote in a memo to staff Tuesday afternoon that she and the news leadership team strongly reject Berliner's assessment.

"We're proud to stand behind the exceptional work that our desks and shows do to cover a wide range of challenging stories," she wrote. "We believe that inclusion — among our staff, with our sourcing, and in our overall coverage — is critical to telling the nuanced stories of this country and our world."

NPR names tech executive Katherine Maher to lead in turbulent era

She added, "None of our work is above scrutiny or critique. We must have vigorous discussions in the newsroom about how we serve the public as a whole."

A spokesperson for NPR said Chapin, who also serves as the network's chief content officer, would have no further comment.

Praised by NPR's critics

Berliner is a senior editor on NPR's Business Desk. (Disclosure: I, too, am part of the Business Desk, and Berliner has edited many of my past stories. He did not see any version of this article or participate in its preparation before it was posted publicly.)

Berliner's essay , titled "I've Been at NPR for 25 years. Here's How We Lost America's Trust," was published by The Free Press, a website that has welcomed journalists who have concluded that mainstream news outlets have become reflexively liberal.

Berliner writes that as a Subaru-driving, Sarah Lawrence College graduate who "was raised by a lesbian peace activist mother ," he fits the mold of a loyal NPR fan.

Yet Berliner says NPR's news coverage has fallen short on some of the most controversial stories of recent years, from the question of whether former President Donald Trump colluded with Russia in the 2016 election, to the origins of the virus that causes COVID-19, to the significance and provenance of emails leaked from a laptop owned by Hunter Biden weeks before the 2020 election. In addition, he blasted NPR's coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

On each of these stories, Berliner asserts, NPR has suffered from groupthink due to too little diversity of viewpoints in the newsroom.

The essay ricocheted Tuesday around conservative media , with some labeling Berliner a whistleblower . Others picked it up on social media, including Elon Musk, who has lambasted NPR for leaving his social media site, X. (Musk emailed another NPR reporter a link to Berliner's article with a gibe that the reporter was a "quisling" — a World War II reference to someone who collaborates with the enemy.)

When asked for further comment late Tuesday, Berliner declined, saying the essay spoke for itself.

The arguments he raises — and counters — have percolated across U.S. newsrooms in recent years. The #MeToo sexual harassment scandals of 2016 and 2017 forced newsrooms to listen to and heed more junior colleagues. The social justice movement prompted by the killing of George Floyd in 2020 inspired a reckoning in many places. Newsroom leaders often appeared to stand on shaky ground.

Leaders at many newsrooms, including top editors at The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times , lost their jobs. Legendary Washington Post Executive Editor Martin Baron wrote in his memoir that he feared his bonds with the staff were "frayed beyond repair," especially over the degree of self-expression his journalists expected to exert on social media, before he decided to step down in early 2021.

Since then, Baron and others — including leaders of some of these newsrooms — have suggested that the pendulum has swung too far.

Author Interviews

Legendary editor marty baron describes his 'collision of power' with trump and bezos.

New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger warned last year against journalists embracing a stance of what he calls "one-side-ism": "where journalists are demonstrating that they're on the side of the righteous."

"I really think that that can create blind spots and echo chambers," he said.

Internal arguments at The Times over the strength of its reporting on accusations that Hamas engaged in sexual assaults as part of a strategy for its Oct. 7 attack on Israel erupted publicly . The paper conducted an investigation to determine the source of a leak over a planned episode of the paper's podcast The Daily on the subject, which months later has not been released. The newsroom guild accused the paper of "targeted interrogation" of journalists of Middle Eastern descent.

Heated pushback in NPR's newsroom

Given Berliner's account of private conversations, several NPR journalists question whether they can now trust him with unguarded assessments about stories in real time. Others express frustration that he had not sought out comment in advance of publication. Berliner acknowledged to me that for this story, he did not seek NPR's approval to publish the piece, nor did he give the network advance notice.

Some of Berliner's NPR colleagues are responding heatedly. Fernando Alfonso, a senior supervising editor for digital news, wrote that he wholeheartedly rejected Berliner's critique of the coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict, for which NPR's journalists, like their peers, periodically put themselves at risk.

Alfonso also took issue with Berliner's concern over the focus on diversity at NPR.

"As a person of color who has often worked in newsrooms with little to no people who look like me, the efforts NPR has made to diversify its workforce and its sources are unique and appropriate given the news industry's long-standing lack of diversity," Alfonso says. "These efforts should be celebrated and not denigrated as Uri has done."

After this story was first published, Berliner contested Alfonso's characterization, saying his criticism of NPR is about the lack of diversity of viewpoints, not its diversity itself.

"I never criticized NPR's priority of achieving a more diverse workforce in terms of race, ethnicity and sexual orientation. I have not 'denigrated' NPR's newsroom diversity goals," Berliner said. "That's wrong."

Questions of diversity

Under former CEO John Lansing, NPR made increasing diversity, both of its staff and its audience, its "North Star" mission. Berliner says in the essay that NPR failed to consider broader diversity of viewpoint, noting, "In D.C., where NPR is headquartered and many of us live, I found 87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans."

Berliner cited audience estimates that suggested a concurrent falloff in listening by Republicans. (The number of people listening to NPR broadcasts and terrestrial radio broadly has declined since the start of the pandemic.)

Former NPR vice president for news and ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin tweeted , "I know Uri. He's not wrong."

Others questioned Berliner's logic. "This probably gets causality somewhat backward," tweeted Semafor Washington editor Jordan Weissmann . "I'd guess that a lot of NPR listeners who voted for [Mitt] Romney have changed how they identify politically."

Similarly, Nieman Lab founder Joshua Benton suggested the rise of Trump alienated many NPR-appreciating Republicans from the GOP.

In recent years, NPR has greatly enhanced the percentage of people of color in its workforce and its executive ranks. Four out of 10 staffers are people of color; nearly half of NPR's leadership team identifies as Black, Asian or Latino.

"The philosophy is: Do you want to serve all of America and make sure it sounds like all of America, or not?" Lansing, who stepped down last month, says in response to Berliner's piece. "I'd welcome the argument against that."

"On radio, we were really lagging in our representation of an audience that makes us look like what America looks like today," Lansing says. The U.S. looks and sounds a lot different than it did in 1971, when NPR's first show was broadcast, Lansing says.

A network spokesperson says new NPR CEO Katherine Maher supports Chapin and her response to Berliner's critique.

The spokesperson says that Maher "believes that it's a healthy thing for a public service newsroom to engage in rigorous consideration of the needs of our audiences, including where we serve our mission well and where we can serve it better."

Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by Deputy Business Editor Emily Kopp and Managing Editor Gerry Holmes. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no NPR corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.

Ozempic Hurts the Fight Against Eating Disorders

I t’s impossible to escape the soaring popularity of Ozempic and similar drugs these days—daily headlines, celebrity “success” stories, and apparent ease in procuring prescriptions (even Costco sells them now) abound. But the cumulative effect of all of this has many experts in the eating disorder field worried about how this might affect their patients. This makes sense—even for those without eating disorders, these drugs can feel both triggering and enticing. After all, research tells us about 90% of women are dissatisfied with their bodies. This sounds like a quick fix.

Then, I started hearing reports—first anecdotal, then published —that some doctors were prescribing weight loss drugs like Ozempic to their patients with eating disorders. As in, to help treat them.

As a journalist who has extensively researched the harms of eating disorders and the barriers to recovery—and as a woman who had suffered from eating disorders on and off for much of my own life—I thought I must have misunderstood. Yes, we as a society are in the midst of Ozempic Fever—and by “fever,” I’m referring to excitement, rather than a possible side effect of the drug (which it is). Researchers are continuing to find new potential applications for these drugs, initially developed to treat type 2 diabetes. In March, the FDA approved a new indication for the weight-loss drug Wegovy (which has the same active ingredient as Ozempic), allowing it to be used as a treatment to reduce the risk for heart attack and stroke. Ozempic, a diabetes drug, used off-label for weight loss, is also being studied to treat anxiety and depression , polycystic ovary syndrome, substance abuse, Alzheimer’s , and now—eating disorders.

Read More: Ozempic Exposed the Cracks in the Body Positivity Movement

It’s early days and research hasn’t yet caught up with the enthusiasm.  But our cultural misunderstanding of eating disorders, even by well-meaning practitioners, could exacerbate the illnesses for those who suffer from them—and have dire consequences.

The new class of weight loss drugs mimics the body’s GLP-1 hormone , stimulating insulin production, and lowering blood sugar levels, helpful to those with type 2 diabetes. The drugs also curb appetite and slow the speed that food moves into the small intestine—you feel full more quickly and eat less. Many patients without eating disorders who take these drugs, have reported a reduction of “food noise” in their minds—referring to obsessive thoughts and preoccupation with food. (Though, as philosopher Kate Manne wisely posited in a recent New York Times piece , isn’t “food noise,” simply, hunger?)

For folks suffering from binge eating disorder (BED) or bulimia nervosa (BN), a drug that decreases appetite may seem to make sense. Both illnesses are characterized by eating large amounts of food, eating until uncomfortably full, and feeling distress around that (bulimia is distinguished by purging after a binge).

Binge eating often emerges as part of a cycle of restriction—dieting, fasting, or eliminating entire food groups—like carbs, for example. “Many people struggling with BED view the binge episodes as the problem and the restriction as something to strive for,” said Alexis Conason, a psychologist specializing in the treatment of binge eating disorder. “When people with BED take a GLP-1 medication that dampens their appetite, many are excited that they can be ‘better’ at restriction and consume very little throughout the day.” Subsequently, Conason adds, there is a dangerous potential for BED to then morph into anorexia, starving oneself with possibly life-threatening complications.

Eating disorders are complex illnesses that aren’t yet fully understood, even by experts in the field. Underneath the behaviors around food is often an intricate web of trauma, anxiety, and even genetic predisposition, all set against the backdrop of a culture that prizes thinness . Low weight is frequently (incorrectly) conflated with good health, and people in larger bodies are often subjected to bullying, negative stereotypes, and discrimination in the workplace .

Read More: Ozempic Gets the Oprah Treatment in a New TV Special

Emerging research strongly supports that for many, eating disorders are brain-based illnesses and in most cases, there exists a co-morbidity like anxiety, mood disorders, or substance abuse.

“GLP-1’s can’t help someone deal with their stress, anxiety, [and] trauma-history,” said psychologist Cynthia Bulik, one of the world’s leading eating disorder researchers, and Founding Director of the University of North Carolina Center of Excellence of Eating Disorders. “All of that background distress—fundamental distress that might be driving the BED in the first place—is temporarily bypassed by removing the desire to eat.”

Nearly 30 million Americans will have an eating disorder in their lifetime, but only about 6% of those are medically diagnosed as “underweight,” according to the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders. This means that a person may exhibit all of the diagnostic hallmarks of anorexia, for example, extreme restriction and even malnourishment, but still present as average weight or even overweight. They may even be told by a physician to lose weight, despite the fact that they are already going to dangerous extremes to chase that “goal.”

“We tend to think that everyone in a larger body with an eating disorder must have BED and everyone in a smaller body must have anorexia, but this couldn’t be further from the truth,” said Conason. “So many people with BED seek help in weight loss settings instead of seeking eating disorder treatment; many view the problem as their weight and think they need more help sticking to their diet” when in reality, an end to the restriction would more likely regulate their eating.

It’s much easier to get weight loss treatment than help for an eating disorder. There is no standard of care for eating disorders in this country and treatment is unregulated. While there are some promising, evidenced-based treatments (cognitive behavioral therapy for adults, and family-based treatment for children and teens), they don’t work for everyone. If a person is fortunate to be diagnosed and receive adequate treatment, relapses are common and full recovery can be elusive.

Further, these drugs are often intended to be taken for a person’s entire life. “When they go off the drug, or can’t access it due to supply problems, the urge to binge comes right back and they have not developed any psychological (or) behavioral skills to manage the urge,” Bulik told me. Just like with a diet, any lost weight will likely be regained when a person stops taking the drugs. Weight fluctuations, themselves ,may increase a person’s risk of chronic illnesses like type 2 diabetes, according to multiple studies.

“The focus on weight and erasing the desire to eat could indeed do harm,” cautioned Bulik. “The potential for abuse is high and will become higher with new preparations that don’t require an injection … Remember, these drugs are ‘for life.’ Stop them, and everything comes rushing back.”

The long-term side effects of GLP-1’s are not yet known. But the harms of eating disorders are: eating disorders have one of the highest mortality rates of any mental illness (second only to opioid overdose). People with eating disorders are more likely to attempt suicide, and during COVID-19, emergency room visits and inpatient admissions for eating disorders at pediatric hospitals skyrocketed, particularly for young women. According to the CDC, emergency room visits for 12-17 year old girls who suffer from eating disorders doubled during the pandemic. Those numbers, as shown by recent studies , have not returned to pre-pandemic levels.

An even greater concern is that the gaps in comprehensive care for eating disorders invite experimental, potentially harmful treatments and leave patients vulnerable. GLP-1’s may seem like a short-term “fix,” but they won’t graze the deeper issues nor will they diminish the eating disorder crisis in this country. And it is a crisis—every year, eating disorders cost the U.S. more than $65 billion .

I know too well that if a doctor advises their patient with an eating disorder “here’s something to make you eat less” most patients would happily oblige. That’s part of the pathology of the illness. It’s the eating disorder talking. Ideally, it wouldn’t be your doctor’s voice, too.

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https://www.nist.gov/mep/successstories/2024/cae-healthcare-transforms-factory-future-embracing-industry-40

Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP)

Cae healthcare transforms into a factory-of-the-future embracing industry 4.0, with the help of: floridamakes, the challenge.

CAE Healthcare's journey to becoming a factory-of-the-future, supported by FloridaMakes, has been nothing short of revolutionary. The transition to an Industry 4.0 manufacturing model has significantly improved our processes, efficiency, and market position. We've not only retained $10 million in sales but also realized substantial savings in inventory, labor, and materials. The strategic investments in equipment and workforce practices, managed by the FloridaMakes Team, have been pivotal to our success. This transformation has also allowed us to create new jobs and retain key staff members, underscoring our commitment to our employees and the future of healthcare simulation. — Matt Testa , Plant Manager

MEP's Role

To realize this ambitious goal, CAE Healthcare reached out to the Sarasota-Manatee Manufacturers Association, part of the FloridaMakes Network and the MEP National Network™, for project management assistance. The FloridaMakes team conducted a thorough assessment of CAE Healthcare's needs, emphasizing employee involvement, customer feedback, and supplier expectations. The team utilized a proven method for analyzing automation as a solution and orchestrated the project through meticulous planning, including integration, resource allocation, training, and change management. This holistic approach ensured that the transition to automated manufacturing was strategically aligned with the company's goals and the expectations of all stakeholders.