The limited scope of a short story means that only a handful of characters will be considered major and vital to the plot. This opens up the potential for a discussion of the story that delves more deeply into the essential aspects of these characters than would be allowed in discussing other literary forms. Discussion of major and important supporting characters in a short story can encompass such elements as physical descriptions, personality traits, relationship to other characters, importance of character history, effect of location and setting on character creation, the utilization of stereotypes as efficient shorthand for delineating minor characters and identification of characteristics that made a character memorable.
Short stories provide authors with the chance to make several statements as a result of their choice of point of view. A short story discussion could focus on the essential components involved in choosing the most appropriate perspective. Students can be begin the discussion with a review of the major points of view including omniscience, limited omniscience and first, second and third person. This review should then expand outward to examine how the choice of telling the story impacts aspects of narrative such as limitations of perspective, subjective storytelling versus objective storytelling, unreliability and language choice and limitations.
The short story tends to be a more effective means for teaching the value and importance of setting to a story than it is in a novel because of the limited time frame associated with most short fiction. An 8th grade discussion can focus on how vital setting can be to a short story's characterization, theme, mood and overall effect. A useful lesson to introduce to this discussion topic is to have students write a story using the same plot and storyline placed within settings as varied as a small southern town, a British sea port, a New York City neighborhood and a fantasy world on another planet. This discussion and lesson can teach middle school students the extent to which setting creates specific expectations in characterization and the mood of a piece by showing how characters living within vastly different milieus respond differently to similar events.
A short story affords the choice of telling the entire tale through narrative prose, dialogue or a combination of these two methods. A good discussion topic is to focus on the value of author choice in choosing when to move the story forward with prose and when to move it forward through dialogue. A lesson idea is to have students write the same short story using no or very limited dialogue and then again using primarily dialogue.