This master’s thesis explores how the readers envision the future through the short story genre. By reading the theoretical background on the topic, analyzing selected works, and researching the genres, I investigate how readers imagine the future to unfold, through the prism of the short story genre. In the theoretical part of my thesis, I define the short story genre, and then I explore the elements of the short story, as well as the methods for its analysis (with which I work in the second part of my thesis). Furthermore, I define the major genres and sub-genres of the modern short story and examine its historical development. The second part of my thesis deals with the analysis of the selected short story works which inspired me most. By examining these, I try to capture most sub-genres examined in the theoretical part. The empirical part of my thesis consists of a short survey on reading short stories and a brief interview with Blaž Urban Gracar, a writer of contemporary short stories. Lastly, I conclude with the final thoughts on what I discovered in the theoretical part, how they connect to the analysis of the chosen works, as well as the way the survey results correspond to the theoretical and analytical part of the thesis. With those findings I try to find parallels between everyday events from the real world influencing the readers to choose, either consciously or subconsciously, the works that are connected to their reality. Therefore, the readers co-create the modern short story genre. The ever-growing presence of modern short story genres and sub-genres, such as pandemic fiction, cyberpunk, solarpunk and the ultra-unreal, is only one way of telling how the modern reader envisions the future.
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