INTRODUCTION
By Thomas L. Masson
Managing Editor of Life
It was at a luncheon party that the idea of Life’s Short Story Contest was first suggested by Mr. Lincoln Steffens. He propounded this interesting query:
“How short can a short story be and still be a short story?”
It was thereupon determined to discover, if possible, a practical answer to this interesting question. The columns of Life were thrown open to contributors for many months, prizes aggregating $1,750 were offered and eighty-one short stories were published. This book contains these stories, including the four prize winners.
The contest cost in round numbers a little less than $12,000. Over thirty thousand manuscripts were received. They came from all over the world—from sufferers on hospital cots, from literary toilers in the Philippines, from Europe, Asia, and Africa, and from every State in the Union. One manuscript was sent from a trench at the French battle front, where the story had been written between hand grenades. Every kind of story was represented, the war story and the love story being the leaders. Every kind of writing was represented, from the short compound of trite banalities to the terse, dramatic, carefully wrought out climax. Back of many of these efforts the spectral forms of Guy de Maupassant and O. Henry hovered in sardonic triumph. Tragedy predominated. The light touch was few and far between. But it was still there, as the stories published show.
Here let me pay a just tribute to the readers who, with almost superhuman courage, struggled through these thirty thousand manuscripts. In the beginning they were a noble band of highly intelligent and cultivated men and women, with strong constitutions, ready and willing to face literature in any form. I understand that many of them survived the contest. This speaks well for the virility of our American stock. Theirs was a noble and enduring toil, and theirs will be a noble and enduring fame. Without them this book now might contain twenty-nine thousand nine hundred and eleven poor stories instead of eighty-one good ones. To those among them who still live, a long life and, let us hope, an ultimate recovery!
Naturally, in the method of securing the stories, there had to be some way of getting the contributors to make them as short as possible. Mr. Steffens’ ingenious suggestion admirably attained this end. First, a limit of fifteen hundred words was placed upon all stories submitted, no story longer than this being admitted to the contest. For each story accepted the contributor was paid, not for what he wrote, but for what he did not write. That is to say, he was paid at the rate of ten cents a word for the difference between what he wrote and fifteen hundred words. If his story, for example, happened to be 1,500 words in length, he got nothing. If it was 1,490 words he got one dollar. If there had been a story only ten words long, the author would have received $149. To be accurate, the longest story actually accepted for the contest was 1,495 words, for which the author received fifty cents, and the shortest was 76 words, for which the author received $142.40. The interested reader will be able to discover the identity of these two stories by examining the stories in the book. At the original luncheon party a large part of the warm discussion that took place turned on how short a story could be made and still come within the definition of a short story. It was really a question as to when is a story not a story, but only an anecdote. When a story is a story, is it a combination of plot, character, and setting or is it determined by only one of these three elements? Must it end when you have ended it or must it suggest something beyond the reading? I shall not attempt to answer these questions. The definition of the short story should be relegated to the realm of “What is Humor?” “Who is the mother of the chickens?” and “How Old is Ann?” If you really wish to vary the monotony of your intellectual life and get it away from “Who Wrote Shakespeare?” or “Who killed Jack Robinson?” start a discussion as to what a short story is. It has long been my private opinion that the best short story in the world is the story of Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, but I have no doubt that, should I venture this assertion in the company of others, there would be one to ask: “What has that to do with the price of oil now?”
But in order that the reader may have some idea of the method adopted in judging the stories which were finally selected, it may be well to give what I may term a composite definition of what a short story is, gathered from the various opinions offered when the contest was originally under discussion by the judges. This definition is not intended to be complete or final. It is not the cohesive opinion of one individual, but only a number of rather off-hand opinions which are of undoubted psychological interest as bearing upon the final decisions.
A short story must contain at least two characters, for otherwise there would be no contrast or struggle. A situation must be depicted in which there are two opposing forces.