Oblivion: Stories

An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts. In... genre fiction anthology is used to categorize collections of shorter works such as short stories and short novels, usually collected into a single volume for publication. The word derives from the Greek word ἀνθολογία for garland — or bouquet of flowers — which was the title of the earliest surviving anthology, assembled by Meleager of Gadara. Meleager's Garland became the seed that grew into the Greek Anthology. The term miscellany is also used, but was more common in the past. In medieval Europe the term florilegium, again meaning a collection of flowers, was used for an anthology of Latin proverbs and textual excerpts. The complete collections of works are often called Complete Works or Opera Omnia . The term is also applied to radio or TV programs, movies, comic books and other such media featuring a variety of different stories. Examples of radio anthologies are Suspense and Escape.
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A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer... works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because of the fragmentation of the medium into genres. Since the short story format includes a wide range of genres and styles, the actual length is determined by the individual author's preference and the submission guidelines relevant to the story's actual market. Guidelines vary greatly among publishers. Many short story writers define their work through a combination of creative, personal expression, and artistic integrity. They attempt to resist categorization by genre as well as definition by numbers, finding such approaches limiting and counter-intuitive to artistic form and reasoning. As a result, definitions of the short story based on length splinter even more when the writing process is taken into consideration.
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Literary fiction is a term principally used for certain fictional works that are claimed to hold literary merit. Despite the fact that all genres... have works that are well written, those works are generally not considered literary fiction. To be considered literary, a work usually must be "critically acclaimed" and "serious". In practice, works of literary fiction often are "complex, literate, multilayered novels that wrestle with universal dilemmas". Literary fiction is usually contrasted with paraliterary fiction . Literary fiction is usually not considered a genre, with associated conventions, but there are common characteristics that can help define it. Literary fiction, in general, focuses on the subjects of the narrative to create "introspective, in-depth character studies" of "interesting, complex and developed" characters. This contrasts with paraliterary fiction where "generally speaking, the kind of attention that we pay to the subject in literature has to be paid to the social and material complexities of the object". Literary fiction does not focus on plot as much as paraliterary fiction.
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