What is the difference between a story and a short story? What is the difference between a story and a story? What is the difference between a story about a story?

The story and novella, along with the novel, belong to the main prose genres of fiction. They have both common genre features and certain distinctive features. Still, the boundaries between the genres of a story and a short story are often unclear, so difficulties often arise in defining the genre. And even experienced literary critics do not always cope with this task right away.

The history of the development of the story as a genre

This genre stems from ancient Russian chronicles and literature. The word “story” was used in the sense of “news about some event.” This word denoted works written in prose rather than poetic form. They talked about the events that took place at that time. These were chronicles, lives, chronicles, military stories. The titles of works of ancient Russian prose eloquently speak about this: “The Tale of Bygone Years”, “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”, “The Tale of Batu’s Invasion of Ryazan”.

Later, from the seventeenth century, responding to the needs of the time, stories appeared about the lives of ordinary people, lay people - secular stories.

It was the secular story that was the fundamental basis of the story genre, which was developed in the literature of the 19th-20th centuries and in modern prose. It describes the natural course of life, often the harsh reality of time, at the center of which is the fate of the main character.

In the nineteenth century, the story became a favorite genre of famous Russian writers. A. Pushkin (“Station Warden”) and N. Gogol (“The Overcoat”) turn to her. Later, the genre of the story was developed by writers of the realistic direction: F. Dostoevsky, N. Turgenev, A. Chekhov, L. Tolstoy, I. Bunin. Later, in Soviet times, the genre was developed in the works of R. Pogodin, A. Gaidar, V. Astafiev. It is interesting that the story is the property of Russian literature. In foreign literature, the genres of short stories and novels are developing, but the story as a genre is absent.

The history of the development of the short story as a genre

The origins of the short story genre stem from works of folklore - parables, fairy tales, and oral retellings. The story, as a short work about a separate event, an episode from the life of the hero, was formed much later than the story, going through certain stages and developing in parallel with other narrative genres.

In the process of formation, there is a lack of clarity in the distinction between the genres of the story and the short story. Thus, A. Pushkin and N. Gogol preferred the name “story” for those of their works that we could define as a story.

Since the fifties of the 19th century, greater accuracy has been seen in the designation of the genre of the story. In L. Tolstoy’s “Notes of a Marker” the author calls it a story, and “The Blizzard” is called a short story, which fully corresponds to the definition of the genre. In the literature of the 19th and 20th centuries, the story gives way to the story, which is most widespread.

Characteristics of the story as an epic genre

The story is a prose literary genre. It does not have a stable volume. Its volume is larger than that of a story, but significantly less than that of a novel. The narrative is centered around several important episodes in the life of the main character. The presence of secondary characters is mandatory.

The composition often uses all kinds of descriptions (interior, landscape), author's digressions, and portrait characteristics. A branched plot containing additional storylines is possible. The content of the story is based on historical material, interesting events of human life, and less often fiction and fantasy.

Characteristics of the story as an epic genre

The story is a small epic work. The narrative is dynamic, dedicated to an important and interesting event in the life of the author or a fictional character. The composition is tense. The story has a single plot line, there are no additional plot lines.

With a relatively small volume, the author's use of artistic means is limited. Therefore, a large role is given to expressive artistic detail. The narration of events is often presented as a first-person account. This could be either the main character or the author himself.

What do stories and stories have in common?

• Both genres are prose.
• Compared to the novel, they are small in volume.
• There is a main character around whom the action is concentrated.
• Both the story and the story can be everyday, fantastic, historical, adventurous.

The difference between a story and a story

• The size of a story is variable and can reach several hundred pages, and a short story - tens of pages.
• The story is characterized by a lack of intrigue. Its content reveals reliable periods of the hero’s life. And the story describes one or more incidents from the life of the main character.
• A clear, dynamic plot is characteristic of the story. A leisurely, smooth narrative is a feature of the story.
• Additional storylines intertwined with the main one are a feature of the story. The story has one plot line.
• The author of the story strives for historical and factual truthfulness. A story is a true fiction.
• The story is characterized by techniques that slow down the action: descriptions, portrait sketches, lyrical digressions. This is missing from the story and an artistic detail plays a role.
• Unlike a story, a story has one hero, there is no backstory that allows you to trace the development of character.
• There are no analogies of the story in other literatures; the story has such analogies.

The question of the genre differences between a story and a story does not have a clear answer. This is due to the fact that until the middle of the 19th century, all prose works that described historical events or individual episodes from the life of real or fictional characters were called stories. An example is “The Tale of Bygone Years”, “The Captain’s Daughter” by A.S. Pushkin, “Petersburg Tales” by N.V. Gogol.
In modern literature, genre story is determined by criteria reflecting the volume of the narrative, its factuality, an emphatically tense climax, the absence of additional plot lines and the expressiveness of artistic details. This means that the story is a relatively small prose work characterized by compositional rigor, in which a fictional event reveals the character of the hero or serves as a kind of focus that reveals the motives of his actions. The effect of authenticity is achieved due to the limited time, but emphatically important development of the action and the weight of each fragment of the narrative. There are not a large number of characters in the story: only one, the main character, is in the spotlight, the rest are given an episodic role.
Tale belongs to the middle epic genres, which depict not one, but several important episodes from the life of the hero, indicating his involvement in the life of society, the destinies of other people, and significant historical events. Unlike a story, a story can have a branched plot with the development of action in different time slices. The composition of the story often includes the author's digressions, landscape sketches, and portrait characteristics of the characters: their use in the text of the work helps to achieve depth of content and fully reflect the idea of ​​the work.
The content of the story can be based on factual material or an unusual story from people's lives, a scientific hypothesis, or fantastic fiction. Hence the variety of genres: historical and military stories, social and everyday stories, adventure stories, fantasy stories, and even fairy tales.
The genre of the story is not characterized by such diversity. In style, it can be close to a short story or an essay, depending on the dynamics of the narrative: descriptive or built on an acute conflict.

TheDifference.ru determined that the difference between a story and a story is as follows:

The story reflects one important episode or event from the life of the hero, while the story traces several events significant for the development of the action.
The storyline of the story, as a rule, has no compositional parallels. In a story, the plot may have a main and additional lines.
In a story, the narrative strives for concise form and dynamic plot development. The story uses techniques that slow down the action and switch the reader’s attention from the event side to the content side: for example, the author’s digressions and landscape sketches.
Unlike a story, which most often claims to be historical or factual, the content of the story is only a plausible fiction.

STORY is a narrative epic genre with a focus on small volume and unity of the artistic event.

The genre has two historically established varieties: the story (in a narrower sense) and the short story. Since the late 1940s, in Russian literature, the short story has been recognized as a special genre both in relation to the short story and in comparison with the “physiological essay”. The essay is dominated by direct description and research, it is always journalistic. The story, as a rule, is dedicated to a specific fate, talks about a separate event in a person’s life, and is grouped around a specific episode. This is its difference from the story, which is a more detailed form, which usually describes several episodes, a segment of the hero’s life. The extreme brevity of the narrative requires special attention to detail. Sometimes one or two skillfully found details replace a lengthy characterization of the hero.

A story, by its genre nature, must be absorbed immediately and entirely, as if “in one gulp”; as well as all the “private” figurative material of the story. This places special demands on the details in the story. They must be arranged so that instantly, “with the speed of reading,” they form into an image, giving the reader a living, picturesque idea...” The small volume of the story also determines its stylistic unity. The narration is usually told from one person. This could be the author, the narrator, or the hero. But in the story, much more often than in “large” genres, the pen is, as it were, passed to the hero, who himself tells his story. Often what we have in front of us is a tale: a story told by a fictitious person who has his own, distinct speech style.

The short story remains a productive genre today. All its varieties are successfully developing: everyday stories, psychological, philosophical, satirical, fantastic (science fiction and fantasy), close to a short story and practically plotless.

STORY. The word “story” comes from the verb “to tell.” The ancient meaning of the term - “news about some event” indicates that this genre includes oral stories, events seen or heard by the narrator. An important source of such “stories” are chronicles (The Tale of Bygone Years, etc.). In ancient Russian literature, a “story” was any narrative about any events (the Tale of Batu’s invasion of Ryazan, the Tale of the Battle of Kalka, the Tale of Peter and Fevronia, etc.).

Modern literary criticism defines the “story” as an epic prose genre that occupies an intermediate place between the novel, on the one hand, and the short story and short story, on the other. However, volume alone cannot indicate genre. Turgenev's novels The Noble Nest and The Eve are smaller than some stories, for example, Kuprin's Duel. Pushkin's Captain's Daughter is not large in volume, but everything that happens to the main characters is closely connected with the largest historical event of the 18th century. - Pugachev rebellion. Obviously, this is why Pushkin himself called The Captain's Daughter not a story, but a novel. (The author's definition of genre is very important). It’s not so much a matter of volume as it is the content of a work: coverage of events, time frame, plot, composition, system of images, etc. Thus, it is argued that a story usually depicts one event in the life of a hero, a novel a whole life, and a story a series of events. But this rule is not absolute; the boundaries between a novel and a story, as well as between a story and a short story, are fluid. Sometimes the same work is called either a story or a novel. Thus, Turgenev first called Rudin a story, and then a novel.

Due to its versatility, the genre of the story is difficult to define unambiguously. Its form can contain everything you want - a light sketch of morals, a caustic sarcastic mockery of man and society, a deep mystery of the soul, and a cruel play of passions. Brief and fast, light and deep at the same time, it flies from subject to subject, splits life into little things and tears out leaves from the great book of this life.”

In most European literature, the story is not distinguished as a separate genre. Russian literature is a different matter. In every literary era, stories were created that remained in the history of literature. At the beginning of the 20th century. such stories as the Life of Vasily Fiveysky and the Uezdnoe by E. Zamyatin are created, reminiscent of the ancient genre of the lives of saints, thereby confirming the thesis of M. Bakhtin: the genre is “memory of literature”.

In modern literature, the story, along with the short story, exists in all its varieties: from socio-psychological to fantasy and detective.

A story is a type of epic work of medium form, constructed in the form of a narrative about events in their natural sequence. The border between a story and a novel is not in volume, but in composition. The story presents the material chronically. In ancient Russian literature, a story is any story about any events (“The Tale of Bygone Years”, “The Tale of Misfortune”). Gradually the meaning of the term narrowed to the present. There is no single plot with a cause-and-effect relationship in the story. There are separate episodes that are connected to each other according to the principle of a chronicle.

A short story is a short epic prose form. This is a small work with a limited number of characters (1-2). The story usually narrows down the time and place of action. The story is characterized by one-problem and one-event. Among the stories, a distinction is made between works of the sketch (descriptive-narrative) and short story (conflict-narrative) types. A story with a sharply developing plot and an unexpected ending is called a short story. A novella is a plausible story about an unheard of and entertaining event. A novella, unlike a short story, does not contain a deep psychological development of the image; the hero is revealed in his moral essence. An essay is a type of short form that differs from a story in the absence of a single and acutely developing conflict. Conventionally, essays can be divided into fiction and documentary. In the first, fictitious persons and events are depicted, and in the second, genuine persons and facts of life are depicted with precise designations of places, dates, and names.

Small genres tend to be cyclical.

The question of the genre differences between a story and a story does not have a clear answer. This is due to the fact that until the middle of the 19th century, all prose works that described historical events or individual episodes from the life of real or fictional characters were called stories. An example is “The Tale of Bygone Years”, “The Captain’s Daughter” by A.S. Pushkin, “Petersburg Tales” by N.V. Gogol.

In modern literature, genre story is determined by criteria reflecting the volume of the narrative, its factuality, an emphatically tense climax, the absence of additional plot lines and the expressiveness of artistic details. This means that the story is a relatively small prose work characterized by compositional rigor, in which a fictional event reveals the character of the hero or serves as a kind of focus that reveals the motives of his actions. The effect of authenticity is achieved due to the limited time, but emphatically important development of the action and the weight of each fragment of the narrative. There are not a large number of characters in the story: only one, the main character, is in the spotlight, the rest are given an episodic role.

Tale belongs to the middle epic genres, which depict not one, but several important episodes from the life of the hero, indicating his involvement in the life of society, the destinies of other people, and significant historical events. Unlike a story, a story can have a branched plot with the development of action in different time slices. The composition of the story often includes the author's digressions, landscape sketches, and portrait characteristics of the characters: their use in the text of the work helps to achieve depth of content and fully reflect the idea of ​​the work.

The genre of the story is not characterized by such diversity. In style, it can be close to a short story or an essay, depending on the dynamics of the narrative: descriptive or built on an acute conflict.

“Petersburg Tales” N. V. Gogol

Conclusions website

1. The story reflects one important episode or event from the life of the hero, while the story traces several events significant for the development of the action.
2. The storyline of the story, as a rule, has no compositional parallels. In a story, the plot may have a main and additional lines.
3. In a story, the narrative strives for concise form and dynamic plot development. The story uses techniques that slow down the action and switch the reader’s attention from the event side to the content side: for example, the author’s digressions and landscape sketches.
4. Unlike a story, which most often claims to be historical or factual, the content of the story is only a plausible fiction.

In this article we will talk about how a novel differs from a story. First, let's define these genres and then compare them.

and story

A fairly large piece of fiction is called a novel. This genre is classified as epic. There may be several main characters, and their lives are directly related to historical events. In addition, the novel tells about the entire life of the characters or about some significant part of it.

A story is a literary work in prose, which usually tells about some important episode in the life of the hero. There are usually few active characters, and only one of them is the main one. Also, the length of the story is limited and should not exceed approximately 100 pages.

Comparison

And yet, what is the difference between a novel and a story? Let's start with the novel form. So, this genre involves the depiction of large-scale events, a multifaceted plot, a very large time frame that includes the entire chronology of the narrative. The novel has one main storyline and several side ones, which are closely intertwined into a compositional whole.

The ideological component is manifested in the behavior of the characters and the revelation of their motives. The novel takes place against a historical or everyday background, touching on a wide range of psychological, ethical and ideological problems.

The novel has several subtypes: psychological, social, adventure, detective, etc.

Now let's take a closer look at the story. In works of this genre, the development of events is limited to a specific place and time. The protagonist's personality and fate are revealed in 1-2 episodes, which are turning points for his life.

The story has one plot, but it may have several unexpected twists that give it versatility and depth. All actions are connected with the main character. In such works there are no clear links to history or socio-cultural events.

The problems of prose are much narrower than in the novel. It is usually associated with morality, ethics, personal development, and the manifestation of personal qualities in extreme and unusual conditions.

The story is divided into subgenres: detective, fantasy, historical, adventure, etc. It is rare to find a psychological story in literature, but satirical and fairy-tale stories are very popular.

What is the difference between a novel and a story: conclusions

Let's summarize:

• The novel reflects social and historical events, and in the story they serve only as a background for the narrative.
• The life of the characters in the novel is presented in a socio-psychological or historical context. And in a story, the image of the main character can only be revealed in certain circumstances.
• The novel has one main plot and several minor ones, which form a complex structure. The story in this regard is much simpler and is not complicated by additional plot lines.
• The action of the novel takes place in a large time period, and the story - in a very limited one.
• The novel's problems include a large number of issues, but the story touches on only a few of them.
• The heroes of the novel express ideological and social ideas, and in the story the inner world of the character and his personal qualities are important.

Novels and stories: examples

We list the works that are:

• "Belkin's Tales" (Pushkin);
• “Spring Waters” (Turgenev);
• “Poor Liza” (Karamzin).

Among the novels are the following:

• “The Noble Nest” (Turgenev);
• "The Idiot" (Dostoevsky);
• “Anna Karenina” (L. Tolstoy).

So, we found out how a novel differs from a story. In short, the difference comes down to the scale of the literary work.