Here's a take that will get me killed: I personally believe there's a certain homogenization of storytelling, where we say a story must have this and that...but we're talking about long form storytelling. This leads to people sometimes missing the focus of short fiction. Saying a short story doesn't have good characters is a little silly. Can it have them? Yes. Does it NEED them? No. It's about focus. Try to understand the intent behind a short work before judging it by a preconception.