Was simplicity the reason why "First Person Shooter" was so enjoyable?

Initially, when I thought of a short story, I thought of a children’s book or a story that was no longer than five pages long. I thought of them as being relatively simple stories, with a very focused plot and not so much character development, which is what makes them me at least, enjoyable to read. I soon figured out, that was not the case. Instead, short stories could be quite complex, and extremely dense, and simplicity was not a key component at all, which surprised me, to say the least.





Out of all the short stories we read in class, I only really liked First Person Shooter. The main reason for that is because of how simple of a story it was. It was easy to understand, the plot and setting were clear, and the characters while their backstories weren’t necessarily fully developed, they were developed enough. I was more aware of what was actually happening in the story and genuinely appreciated the fact that I didn’t have to repeatedly read it over to understand what was happening. The message in the story was clear, the main character was able to relate to the pretty zombie lady in ways that he didn’t realize before and the state of her well being gave him the push he needed to ask Janine out.





Compared to the other short stories we read in class, First Person Shooter was the shortest. All the others had very elaborate futuristic settings, with a very long, drawn-out plot, but yet it was First Person Shooter that I interested me the most, despite its simplicity. So it begs the question-- what makes a good short story? Of course, this question is subjective, but for me, it would have to be having a plot that isn’t too long because short stories I believe are made to be quick reads. They don’t have you waiting too long to figure out is the main point of the passage, and while it is short, it should have an apparent theme or message. It shouldn’t be too complicated of a story because again it’s short.





I think for me another reason why I didn’t particularly like the other short stories that we read in class was that most of those stories could have easily been expanded into a novel. They all ended on a weird cliffhanger, which made the story feel incomplete. In First Person Shooter, the ending was good because there wasn’t much that you could expand on after that scene. The main character wanted to ask Janine out, and he did-- perfect ending. In the other stories, the endings felt inadequate. Like in Bloodchild, for instance. It ends with T’Gatoi taking care of Gan, which is possibly the worst ending because we know he’s in danger. The author could very much continued to talk about Gan’s experience with T’Gatoi and his birth process and would he be able to escape from her. There’s just so much more that you could do to the story that the endings just felt like random stopping points. But again, that’s just my opinion.