As promised I will not start the first story until September, but I thought I would get the thread opened up. And I thought a good way to introduce this thread was an introduction to some of Poe's theories about writing the short story.
Edgar Allen Poe's theory of the short story revolves around the idea that the work must, above all else, possess a "unity of effect or impression." The story must therefore tend toward a central and all important effect which serves as a unifying quality for the story as a whole. The author's tone, and choice of events must thus be carefully selected and crafted in such a way as to bring about this desired effect. This "effect," he asserts, must be both "novel"and "vivid." Another way of looking at this theory suggests that the author must compose the story with the conclusion, or denouement, constantly in mind. That is, each choice made in the construction of the narrative must contribute to the dominant and pre conceived effect so as to lend the story a sense of consequence. Poe argues that the incidents which compromise the story must be invented and fashioned with one impression in mind. It is this ultimate design that is the essential quality of the short story.Poe defined short stories as unified works of fiction that could be read in a single sitting. For him, this uninterrupted experience of the fictional world was key to the reader's experience of a short story (as opposed to that of a novel or an epic poem).A skillful literary artist has constructed a tale. If wise, he has not fashioned his thoughts to accommodate his incidents; but having conceived, with deliberate care, a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out, he than invents such incidents-he then combines such events as may best aid him in establishing this preconceived effect. If his very initial sentence tend not to the outbringing of this effect, then he has failed in his first step. In the whole composition there should be no word written of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is not to the one pre-established design. ~ Edgar Allan Poe, review of Hawthorne's Twice Told Tales. Graham's Magazine, 1842