Short stories consist of many aspects. A very common aspect is imagination. To write a story, the author needs to have an imagination. In many instances, the characters in the stories have imaginations. Imagination is defined as the formation of a mental image of something that is neither perceived as real nor present to the senses. Imagination is very diverse and can be used in many different ways. Imagination can be a thing to cause good or evil, but we all have it and are all capable of using it. Imagination is required to write a story.
In the story, The Green Tree, by Zakariyya Tamir, the two main characters, Talal and Randa, meet under a tree while Randa is crying. Talal is able to use his wits to get Randa to play with him. They both imagine many situations and act them out. In this instance imagination is used to cheer Randa up. The ending finds the children turning into a rock, a metaphor for the loss of innocence. This is the ultimate imaginative tool. In the story, The Black Cat, by Edgar Allen Poe, the main character is crazy. The main character is an alcoholic who is obsessing over a cat that he wants to kill. The main character kills his wife because she gets in the way of killing the cat. The man has everything planned out; the author must have had an incredible imagination to think of hiding the dead wife in the wall.
Virtuoso, by Herbert Goldstone, is a perfect example of imagination. The character, the Maestro, decides to teach a robot named Rolo to play the piano. Rolo plays the piano beautifully, but it is only due to the technology and his memory. Rolo does not show feeling because he is a robot. Maestro imagines that Rolo will perform in front of people and show them what he has accomplished. The only problem is Rolo does not want to, and he erases his memory of the piano. The author wrote the story at a time when robots weren't common? an imaginative plot. In the story The Bet, by Anton Checkhov, two men attend a party, a banker and a lawyer.