Short Story Metaphors

For some time now I've been collecting short story metaphors. I've heard 'the short story' described as everything from a seagull to a garden shed. The latest was in a piece by Alison Flood in the Guardian about an app for short stories, launched this week by Ether Books. I don't know if it was in the press release or if she thought it up herself, but here we go: 'The short story is the elderly aunt of the literary world: almost impossible to marry off to a publisher'. Some one has been reading too much Jane Austen.