In the story, there was once the author, Margaret Atwood, displays a short story starting off with “there was once a poor girl… who lived with her wicked stepmother,” this establishes the characters of the short story. The author then says “in a house in the forest” which is later changed to “a house in the suburbs” this lets the reader know where the short story is taking place or in other words the setting of the story. In this short story the author continues to change what comes after “there was once” this gets the reader to see that what comes after “there was once” is the subject of the writing and that in other words means that what comes after there was once is the theme of the short story. Even though There Was Once has the qualities of a usual short story it is not a typical short story because unlike other short stories it does not finish the story of the girl who lived with her wicked stepmother but instead the story is an argument between two people within the text about the way the short story should be presented. This shows the reader that the conflict of the story is about the way a story is presented between to people within the text talking about the story. When learning about the argument between the two, the reader figures out that the story is not about the “poor girl” and the characters are not the poor girl and the stepmother but the story is about an idea of a story. 

A novel or story in an English book usually has a specific genre that the author creates and when that genre is created it has certain conventions. These conventions make a genre what it is and what the novel from the book is going to contain. In There was once the genre is a short story. It gives you a setting when it says “in a house in the suburbs”, then it gives you characters in two different forms first mentioning the poor girl and the step mother but the reader starts to catch on that the real characters are the two-people debating about the way the short story should be presented. The argument between the two about what comes after there was once shows the reader the theme of the short story. When looking at this short story a reader could say that it had all the conventions that a short story usually has. But when a reader starts to understand the short story more they notice that there was once is not a typical short story. There was once is a short argument about the way a short story should be started. But just because this short story is set up different does not mean that it is not right. The way this short story is set up allows the reader to get a different view on how a short story is written instead of reading what they have read their entire life. This shows that there are more ways to write a certain genre than by its generic conventions. 

