Read on Twitter
So many of us have experienced students complaining that all stories are "sad" or "depressing": I think beginning students often respond to what a story is about rather than its effect, in part because they are still learning to read short stories, something it's easy to forget.
It's the same reason that students respond first to the aboutness of their peers' stories, not the style: a student will write a not-great story about dragons, and another student will say, "I loved this! I like dragons too!" (Not picking on dragons here: it could be anything.)
Some portion of what makes for the total effect of a story isn't immediately accessible without training or (more importantly) practice. And most students don't have a lot of practice with the short story, before entering their writing classes. They're so new to the form!
I think the more practiced you get in reading inside a form, the less what the story's about takes precedence or overwhelms the rest. I firmly believe a sad subject does not necessarily mean a story that is only sad, if it's written well, and, crucially, if you read it well.
(Anyway! Also, this isn't a subtweet of Groff's thread: she just said she was signing off so I didn't want to keep bombarding her original post.)
