How to Write Short Stories (With Samples)

How to Write Short Stories (With Samples), book by Ring Lardner, published in 1924, with a humorous, mock‐critical preface and ten stories to “illustrate in a half‐hearted way what I am trying to get at.” These tales of baseball players, boxers, songwriters, and other American types constitute a sardonically humorous use of the vernacular to expose native foibles and vices.

“The Facts” tells of an idyllic love affair, which proceeds smoothly until the hero, with his best friend, spends a drunken Christmas Eve in buying precisely the wrong gifts for his fiancée's entire family. Some Like Them Cold, an account of a casual meeting of a songwriter and a stenographer, and their tentatively affectionate letters, exposes them as selfish and mercenary. Alibi Ike is the story of a competent baseball player who continually makes trouble for himself by seeking unnecessary excuses for his every action. The Golden Honeymoon describes the dull, commonplace, and quarrelsome lives of a superficially amiable old couple. “Champion” presents the cruel, mean, and unprincipled side of a prizefighter's life, which “would never have passed the sporting editor” of a newspaper. A Caddy's Diary reveals the hypocrisy and lack of sportsmanship of his patrons. A Frame‐Up describes the deception of a champion boxer by his manager, who takes advantage of the youth's innocence to further his own ends.