Deliberately puzzling or confusing a short story reader may keep him reading for a while, but at too great an expense. Even just an "aura" of mystery in a short story is usually just a lot of baloney. Who are these people? What are they up to? Provoking such questions from a reader can be a writer's way of deferring exposition until he feels the reader is ready for the explanation of it all. But more likely it's just fogging things up. A lot of beginning writers' fiction is like a lot of beginners' poetry: deliberately unintelligible as to make the shallow seem deep.
Rust Hills, Writing in General and The Short Story in Particular, 1987
Rust Hills, Writing in General and The Short Story in Particular, 1987
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