On my investigation of short story structure, I came across Larry Brooks, the Story Fixer, and this article.
The article is great, and he advocates that short stories need all the same aspects that novels do, but those aspects don’t need to be written. He describes how the aspects must be there for the reader, but those aspects can be between the lines, or before of after the writing.
His blog looks to contain tons of great information, and I’ve subscribed to updates. I’m not usually a fan of the “conversational blogging tone” that he takes in this article, but the information is great. He is clearly very skilled and experienced. I’ll be looking forward to getting his updates in my email. 🙂