How would you take revenge against your greatest enemy? Or perhaps “enemy” is too strong a word, and it’s someone who’s just so annoying that you’d like to see them…disappear.

In one of Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous stories, “The Cask of Amontillado,” the author inhabits the mind of a monstrous man bent on vengeance. I’ve read this story many, many times, and I notice something new with each reading. You can listen to my narration of the story, or read a text version.

At the time of writing this story, Poe had a feud with fellow author Thomas Dunn English. English created a caricature of Poe as a drunkard in one of his novels, and in revenge, Poe modeled Fortunato after his enemy…and then buried him alive. As the saying goes, “Don’t piss off a writer. They’ll put you in their book, and then they will kill you.”

“The Cask of Amontillado” can teach writers how to craft suspenseful short stories that feature an element of horror. Here were my five key takeaways.

1. Narrative Focus

Narrative focus is especially important in short stories, given you have to present a cohesive narrative in a small number of words. This often means focusing on one point of conflict and limiting the number of characters. In “The Cask of Amontillado,” there are only two characters, and the plot is fairly straightforward: a man leads his frenemy underground and kills him.

This piece is on the shorter side, even by short story standards, wrapping up under 2,400 words, proving how much can be accomplished in a few pages.

#creativity #books #fiction #horror #writing #deep-learning