I wrote stories for over a decade before I began to think that I might have enough material for a collection, and when I sat down with those stories with the vague idea that the ones I chose for a book should share a theme, I was startled to find that although I’d been reading story collections for many years, I didn’t know what made for a successful one.

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The following is adapted from the introduction to 100 Years of the Best American Short Stories. A story is a noise in the night. You may be lying there quietly resting in the international house of…