The Art of the Short Story

The art of the short story lies in how subtly the cards are opened along the narrative and how fully the end is integrated into the opening without letting that seem so.
The seemingly minor characters need to be fully there, not merely outlines but as real people who come in and go out of our lives. For the story should get connected with our own lives through some cross-section. The major characters, of course, need to be a part of us somewhere; in our beliefs, fears, attitudes or even in the way we live our lives.
The more directly, the author steps into the tale, the more the story can tend to go away from the reader. The author will ultimately be a part of the story because it is in his imagination the story has taken birth. But he must not push out the story idea in order to accommodate himself in it comfortably. The author must arouse his readerly self instead of his writerly self as he writes.
At some point of the story the narrative can give way to a faithful unfolding of human experience involved in the story. This gives authenticity to the story. The reader must experience what people do experience in the situation chosen for the story.