Short stories

        There are three different kinds of stories; maybe more, but I'm tired of thinking about this blog (I've already spent about an hour on it, atleast). A story which it is necessary to tell all the details of is a short story. Not one detail is wasted, not one can be left out if it is to get the desired response from the audience. A story that can be easily summarized, and has other, less important details, is a simplistic story. A story which can be summarized, but not very well summarized in a short summary, is the kind of story you would find in a novel.

       I think that most classic Disney stories are simplistic stories. You could quickly say, "It's a story about 15 puppies who get stolen by a crazy lady, and the parents of the puppies go rescue them." That's a pretty just summary of 101 Dalmatians. Just because I call it a simplistic story doesn't mean I think it's lame or worthless; in fact I think it's a great story, and very entertaining. It's just rather simple.
       Pixar shorts are short stories. You can't summarize those things and make it sound interesting at all. What are you going to say, "It's about a baby and a toy"? Boring. (Except for "Gerry's Game". "An old guy playing chess with himself and really getting caught up in it" could sound interesting...maybe.) But then you watch it, and it's totally awesome.
       So, each of these types of stories take a different type of storytelling. When I started this blog, I was going to say that I have a lot of trouble writing short stories, but then I remembered I've written a couple of short stories that I think are decently good. Maybe. Anyways, anybody who can write a great short story has my admiration. I mean, you have five minutes to tell a story that will entertain people. You can't put a great action scene in there, or tons of dialogue; you don't have the time. But somehow some people make great, entertaining, challenging, and/or funny stories in that time limit.
       There was a guy back in the early 1900's? who wrote under the pen name O. Henry, and he wrote a lot of awesome short stories. If you've ever seen or heard a version of "The Gift of the Magi", he was the one who wrote the original story that the other versions are based on.
       Okay, apparently I've rambled and have no main point in this blog, but hopefully it'll be of some use to somebody.
       P.S. While I was looking for a picture to go with this blog, I found a site called classicshorts.com where you can read a lot of short stories from different authors. It looks really awesome. Who knows, you might read some of these and use them in your animations some day....