This the way I feel about many of John O'Hara's short stories where some look like they were introductions of how the story could have been developed by today's standards anyway.
I am referring to a collection of shorts that goes back to before the last war and was put in paperback in the mid-fifties. One story touches on the relationship between a producer and an actress that he helped financially. She leaves after telling him he can always call her for the few bucks he gave her, in order to get it back. One does get a sense of the fact that the producer comes on as a complainer at the beginning and one sees a hint of the fact that he looking for an excuse to hook up with the actress. One gets a hint of her awareness over the issue and critics would say that this is what O'Hara was heralded for; the fact that he would not open up on what lay behind the scenes between people in his stories.
I do not see though how that would content the reading public today who would be looking for more meat on the bones of the story like what were the underlying circumstances between the producer and the actress. All we know was that had a business relationship and one can suppose that he fantasizes about her but there are too many questions left unanswered that would not make this a good short story by today's standards.
I would compare this to shorts by the science fiction writers like A.C. Clarke, Asimov and others who were also quite capable of developing a complete tale without leaving the reader too much in the dark, without being too sketchy. There is a very big difference regarding the quality of those stories.
