How To Create A Short Story Outline

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If you struggle to make your way through lengthy novels, then it may be time to try one of the 27 best short stories available. Short stories allow you to immerse yourself in new characters and situations every time you start a new section, and the best short story collections manage to feel just as rich and transportive as lengthy novels.

Perhaps you like stories set in reality. Maybe you enjoy stories that incorporate elements of science fiction, fantasy, and magical realism. Whether you like books that are funny, dark, moving, or enlightening, there's a story collection that will likely appeal to you. Here are 27 short story collections that will stick with you long after you finish them.

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'The Thing Around Your Neck' by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The 12 stories in this collection take place in Nigeria and the United States, all telling tales that depict the collision between African and American culture, as well as tradition and modernity. Through her stories, Adichie describes an Africa that is very different from the one presented in American media.

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'Days of Awe' by A.M. Homes

In her satirical story collection, Homes depicts an America in crisis, using characters who aren't the people they wish they were but who aren't sure how to become those people, either. Days of Awe proves that existential dread can actually be pretty hilarious.

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'Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick' by Zora Neale Hurston

Through a collection of powerful stories, Hurston describes what it was like to be the only Black student at Barnard College, based on her own experience. This collection (which was published posthumously) touches on gender, class, racism, and sexism, and all with incredible insight.

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'You Think It, I'll Say It' by Curtis Sittenfeld

Sittenfeld challenges class, relationships, and gender roles in this collection, telling the stories of 10 characters whose beliefs are upended in surprising ways. From questionable decisions to missed connections, You Think It, I'll Say It is almost painfully relatable.

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'Half Gods' by Akil Kumarasamy

In Kumarasamy's collection, 10 interlinked stories bring together characters who are exiled, lost, and searching, tying them all together through the complex legacies of war and returning home. Spanning over years and continents, Half Gods is sure to break your heart in the best kind of way.

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'So We Can Glow' by Leesa Cross-Smith

This short story collection revolves around the idea of female obsession, following female friendships, fantasies, and first loves. While varied in length and style, the 42 stories in the collection come together to celebrate the power of a woman's desires.

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'What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours' by Helen Oyeyemi

The stories inWhat Is Not Yours Is Not Yours are all tied together by keys, both literal and metaphorical. Through these keys, Oyeymeni introduces fantastical elements into her stories, challenging her readers to question the line between real and unreal.

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'Her Body and Other Parties' by Carmen Maria Machado

To assign Her Body and Other Parties a genre would be impossible. Machado's stories borrow elements from science fiction, horror, fantasy, and psychological realism, all to tell stories of women's bodies and the violence they endure.

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'How to Love a Jamaican' by Alexia Arthurs

In her story collection, Arthurs navigates the tension between Jamaican immigrants all across America and their families back home. Through 11 stories, How to Love a Jamaican tells the story of a nation and the people who call it home, no matter how far from home they travel.

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'Fight No More' by Lydia Millet

In Fight No More, Millet weaves a web of stories that revolve around Nina, a lonely real-estate broker estranged from her only living family member. With Nina at the center, the collection introduces other tales of fractured families and communities, and the result is both hilarious and surprisingly tender.

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'Everything Inside' by Edwidge Danticat

Set in places that range from Brooklyn to Miami to Port-au-Prince and beyond, Everything Inside explore the diverse experiences of women in Haiti and the Haitian diaspora. In just eight stories, Danticat manages to make her characters feel like the reader's close friends.

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'Get in Trouble' by Kelly Link

This darkly playful collection includes elements of fantasy, with all nine stories exploring the limitations and unexpected abilities of human beings. From human-sized dolls to evil twins to Ouija boards, you'll never know what to expect next.

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'The Refugees' by Vietthanh Nguyen

Set in both Vietnam and America, the stories in The Refugees revolve around characters leading lives between two worlds: their adopted homeland and their country of birth. Through his stories, Nguyen captures all the dreams and hardships of immigration.

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'Some Trick' by Helen DeWitt

Some Trickdelivers 13 twisted stories about love, statistics, and fate, all told with DeWitt's dry wit. If you want a collection that will keep you constantly guessing (and laughing), then this is the one for you.

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'Heads of the Colored People' by Nafissa Thompson-Spires

In her collection, Thompson-Spires explores the uncertainty associated with Black citizenship and the vulnerability of the Black body, all experienced through characters living in contemporary middle-class America. If you have a dark sense of humor, then Heads of the Colored People should be on your list.

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'Sour Heart' by Jenny Zhang

Zhang's collection is told through the adolescent daughters of Chinese immigrants, spanning across generations and continents in only seven stories. With tales that range from 1960s Shanghai to current-day Flushing, Queens, reading Sour Heart is a totally immerse experience.

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'How Long 'til Black Future Month?' by N. K. Jemisin

In Jemisin's story collection, she tells tales that span from the distance past to the far future, all revolving around the idea of imminent destruction and possible rebirth. Even if sci-fi isn't your thing, this collection is definitely worth a read.

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'What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky' by Lesley Nneka Arimah

What It Means When a Man Falls From the Sky offers 12 tales that take place in Nigeria and America, as well as both the present and the imagined future. Though spread throughout time and place, Arimah's stories all share elements of magical realism and a sense of impending doom.

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'The King Is Always Above the People' by Daniel Alarcón

With many of his stories set in "the capital" or the "old city" of an unnamed country, Alarcón's collection is tied together by the themes of immigration, betrayal, and redemption. Through the characters' personal dramas, The King Is Always Above the People explores what it means to forge a new path.

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'Whatever Happened to Interracial Love?' by Kathleen Collins

Collins's posthumous story collection offers intimate vignettes revolving around race, gender, family, sexuality, and the way that these things all shape our lives.Whatever Happened to Interracial Love?manages to complicate the ideas of both Blackness and whiteness while causing readers to question the idea of political correctness.

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'Love War Stories' by Ivelisse Rodriguez

Love War Stories is a collection of stories centered on Puerto Rican women, all of whom are united in their struggle to find love and escape from the vicious cycles of violence and betrayal. Though they want to be the ones to break the cycle, Rodriguez's stories explain how community and family can influence expectations.

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'All Aunt Hagar's Children' by Edward P. Jones

Told through 14 stories, All Aunt Hagar's Children is centered around a series of Black individuals living in Washington, D.C. during the 20th century. Jones ties together his stories and characters in a way that makes this one feel more like a novel than a collection, and it's pretty remarkable.

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'Training School for Negro Girls' by Camille Acker

In her collection, Acker explores what it means to be young, female, and Black in America. Her stories center on women who are caught between two contradictory instincts: wanting to resist stereotypes and feeling obligated to uphold the status quo.

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'Homesick for Another World' by Ottessa Moshfegh

Moshfegh's collection revolves around characters striving for human connection and self improvement, all while battling base impulses and crippling insecurities. Homesick for Another World takes readers on a journey that is both uncomfortable and riotous.

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'Friday Black' by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

Friday Black explores the injustices faced by Black people every day in America, telling stories that revolve around systemic racism and cultural unrest. While Adjei-Brenyah explores unspeakable horrors through his stories, the collection still suggests hope for a better tomorrow.

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'Florida' by Lauren Groff

As the title suggests, Groff's story collection provides stories that are all set in Florida, taking readers into a state that is both developed and filled with natural threats. Though the stories in Florida span over several towns, decades, and even centuries, the characters are all linked through their shared home.

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'We Are Taking Only What We Need' by Stephanie Powell Watts

In her story collection, Watts uses her 10 stories to encompass the collective Black working-class experience over the past 50 years in the American South.We Are Taking Only What We Need covers everything from institutional forces to generational differences, as well as the small, quiet moments that can shape a person's life.

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