Short Stories Old and New

Excerpt

Every short story has three parts, which may be called Setting or
Background, Plot or Plan, and Characters or Character.  If you are going
to write a short story, as I hope you are, you will find it necessary to
think through these three parts so as to relate them interestingly and
naturally one to the other; and if you want to assimilate the best that
is in the following stories, you will do well to approach them by the
same three routes.