Abstract The Gentle Craft : Short Story, Structural Analysis and Novel A short story is a kind of prose fiction which has grown up besides the genre of novel and has its own important and recognized place in the world of literature. It may be defined as a prose narrative “requiring from half an hour to one hour for its perusal.” In other words, brevity is the key-note of a short story. It is a story which is possible to be read at one sitting. But it must not be supposed that the short story is a novel on a reduced scale. It has a definite technique of its own, and has its own specific requirements of matter and treatment. This article which is based on a research, discusses the structure of short story and novel. To do this better, the paper is divided into five sections. In the first part, it presents the exact definition of short story and novel. In the second part, a brief historical survey of short story is presented. This part covers the history of short story in The Medieval Era, Renaissance and the Elizabethan Age, Eighteenth, Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries, in addition to the causes for popularity of the modern short story. In its third part, the paper covers the essential characteristics of short story. This part presents those futures that build a short story and make it different from novels. In part four, the article presents some limitations of short story and its clear differences with the genre of novel. The last part of the article has concluded the study. Keywords: Short story, novel, structural analysis, history of short story, characteristics.

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