Flash Fiction
What is Flash
Fiction?
Flash fiction is a style of fictional literature or fiction of extreme brevity. There is no widely accepted definition of the length of the category. Some self-described markets for flash fiction impose caps as low as three hundred words, while others consider stories as long as a thousand words to be flash fiction.[1] Other names for flash fiction include sudden fiction, microfiction, micro-story, short short, postcard fiction and short short story, though distinctions are sometimes drawn between some of these terms; for example, sometimes one-thousand words is considered the cut-off between "flash fiction" and the slightly longer short story "sudden fiction".
As in any story,
your reader should feel “into” the story, not alienated by it. He should be
able to see the beginning, experience the conflict and feel satisfied with the
conclusion. Unlike a vignette, flash-fiction often
contains the classic story elements: protagonist,
conflict, obstacles or complications, and resolution. However, unlike a
traditional short story, the limited word
length often forces some of these elements to remain unwritten - that is,
hinted at or implied in the written storyline.
Though the form is by definition extremely short, it is not a medium that tolerates fragmented storytelling. The challenge of flash fiction is to tell a complete story in which every word is absolutely essential, to peel away the frills and lace until you're left with nothing but the hard, clean-scraped core of a story.
Do not make the mistake of assuming that such bare-bones writing is less than elegant or beautiful. Sometimes beauty, or even inspiration, can be found in the simplest of things.
What makes a complete story? Lila Guzman, author of "Ask the Author", once told me that a complete story is "A beginning, a middle and end." How difficult is that?
The easiest way to write flash fiction, in my experience, is to let it all hang out. Throw yourself into your writing and crank out a beautiful story, regardless of the length. Then, take a good, long look at it.
Grab a red marker and slash out every adjective and adverb you can find. Your word count will diminish greatly. Run back through the story and read it aloud. Does it still make sense? You'll be amazed at how much emotion and description can be conveyed by a story devoid of descriptive words.
Now grab that red pen again. Ask yourself these questions:
- Is there a definable plot? By this, go back to the comment made by Guzman. Can you identify the three simple parts of this story? Do you have a clear beginning? A strong centerpiece? A definitive ending? If you don't, you've got nothing more than a snippet of a larger story. Start editing.
- Does your story make its point and drive it home, hard? Most flash fiction stories, due to their abrupt beginnings and sudden endings, leave the reader breathless when finished. Though not all stories need to be forceful to fit into this small genre, it is a trend that has followed flash throughout the years. Still, if your story doesn't have that hard-hitting theme and end by smacking into a wall, don't worry; it's not a necessity.
- Is every word absolutely essential to the story? Or have you left unnecessary sentences here and there, or maybe a few unneeded descriptives? "The quick brown dog jumped over the lazy fox" is a vivid way of stating the facts, but think of it this way: You're writing this story from margin to margin. Those margins are solid walls -- there's no going past them. Give yourself five lines, or ten if you're less daring, and consider the first and last line your floor and ceiling. To tell your story, you've got to make the most of the space. "The dog jumped over the fox" leaves you with much more room to move forward, to expand.
Guidelines for Flash Fiction
(you will be graded first and foremost on how well the story is
written, even if it breaks the “rules” below; however, using the guidelines
below, will help you to write a good piece of flash fiction)
- You
only have room for one main character, so choose her well.
What’s more, in a flash piece, this character has only one compelling
need. Because flash fiction is about focus, all of her qualities focus
themselves on supporting her single compelling need.
- You
only have room for one scene, so choose it well.
Actually, it’s more like a half a scene, or even a quarter scene. There’s
not enough room to tell the character’s life story. One setting, one
moment, one change. What is the most important change that occurs in the
character’s story? That is her defining moment, and that is what the scene
must focus on.
- You
only have room for a single plot. This single story thread you
spin directly from the main conflict. No secondary conflicts. No subplots.
- You
only have room for a single, simple theme.
I love stories that actually say something. And a novel can say two
or three different things. It can explore interrelated themes with
multiple interpretations. But not a flash story. You get to make one
simple point on one theme, and everything else you need to leave for other
stories.
- Get
to the main conflict of the scene in the first sentence.
This is your hook. You don’t have time to lallygag around, so get right
into it. In as few words as possible, why do I care? Start with a bang and
then increase the intensity. Don’t worry about running out of things to
talk about or tiring out the reader; you’re more likely to encounter the
converse problems.
- Skip
as much of the backstory as you can. The
reader usually doesn’t need to know how the character got to this point.
And if he does absolutely need to know some part of the backstory,
keep it as simple as possible, and imply as much of it as you can through
its relation to the story. In a flash piece, you don’t need to explain
everything to the reader. Let him figure it out himself through logical
deduction.
- “Show”
anything related to the main conflict. That
is, “show”; don’t “tell” it. This is where you use up the bulk of your
words. Ping-pong the primary plot. (I.e., write it in MRU’s.) Focus the
story’s intensity here, and don’t let up. The story is too short to
require easy-going interludes. Except…
- “Tell”
the backstory; don’t “show” it. That is, any part of the
backstory that you couldn’t get rid of, and you couldn’t leave to the
imagination, because it actually builds the main conflict or explains a
key plot point… If you have to go off on a tangent, at least gloss over it
as quickly as possible.
- Save
the twist until the end. Or rather, as soon as you’ve
laid enough groundwork for the story’s climax, do the deed and get out of
there. Skip the epilogue; you don’t need one. (Or if you absolutely must
write an epilogue, try: “And they lived happily ever after.” But that’s an
extra 6 words you probably didn’t need.)
10. Eliminate
all but the essential words. Get out your editor’s pen, and
cross out any word that isn’t absolutely needed. If that means shorter,
choppier sentences, that’s just fine, because it increases the tempo.
Flash Fiction
Resources and Publishing Opportunities
There are many online
publications that worship flash fiction. There are also many print magazines
that accept the genre. Here are a few market listings that may help you in your
search:
Flash
Fiction Online
The
Green Tricycle
SmokeLong
Quarterly
The
Vestal Review
Other Resources:
Writing
Flash Fiction, by G.W. Thomas
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Sudden Fiction: American
Short-Short Stories. Edited by
Robert Shapard and James Thomas. Layton, Utah: Gibbes M. Smith, Inc., 1986.
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Sudden Fiction (Continued): 60
New Short-Short Stories. Edited by
Robert Shapard, James Thomas, 1996.
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Sudden Fiction International: 60
Short-Short Stories. Edited by
James Thomas and Robert Shapard. New York-London: W. W. Norton & Company,
1989.
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Fast Fiction: Creating Fiction in
Five Minutes. Roberta Allen.
Cincinnati: Story Press, 1997.
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Flash Fiction: 72 Very Short
Stories. Edited by James Thomas,
Denise Thomas, & Tom Hazuka. New York-London: W. W. Norton & Company,
1992.
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Flash Fiction Example:
"Reconstruction Work" is a flash
fiction short story by Bruce Holland Rogers. It first
appeared in the December 2007 issue of Flash Fiction Online and
won the inaugural Micro Award in 2008.[1][2]
The story is of a conversation between a funeral home employee and the
granddaughter of a deceased woman next to her casket. The story is 655 words
long.
Story
::Next to the casket, I leaned on my cane and
admired the work my brother practitioners had done on Elizabeth Fordham Roth.
She had died at 80, but she did not look a day over 60 and might have only been
sleeping. Physical reconstruction. Cosmetics. Those are the easier mortuary
arts. It is the work of an afternoon to sew eyelids shut with invisible
stitches, to close a slack jaw, to smooth out wrinkles and rouge pallid cheeks
back to seeming life. My branch of the discipline is far more subtle and is
never finished in a single afternoon.
The young woman I was waiting for
entered the chapel. I looked away from her but was aware of her approach as she
came up the aisle. She hesitated, as if to give this elderly man, this stranger,
whatever time he needed with her grandmother. I waited. And waited. I was not
going to give her solitude. At last, she came to stand beside the coffin. We
stood in silence together.
“She had quite the life,” I said
at last.
The granddaughter said nothing.
She set her mouth in a hard line.
“A good life,” I said. “And
comfortable.”
Still no reaction, though a muscle
jumped along her jaw.
“Are you family?” I said.
She nodded.
“I knew her when she was a girl,”
I said. “My family had money, too, in those days. But not like the Fordhams.
Riding stables. Servants. The lawns and gardens. There was a maze of hedges.
Heaven for a child.”
“Well,” she said. And that was
all.
I said, “And of course her father
doted on her.”
The granddaughter turned to look
at me. “Her father — ” she began. She squinted. “I don’t think we’ve met.”
“No,” I said, and bowed my head as
if I had just given her my name. “Nice to meet you.” Age purchases a right to
eccentricity, to vagueness. She didn’t ask directly for my name.
“Francis Fordham,” she said, “was
not such a good...” She looked at the coffin. “He did things to her.”
“He did things...” I let my words
trail off. Then I shook my head and sighed. “Not that old nonsense....”
“What do you mean, old nonsense?”
“I’m sorry. It’s none of my
business, really. But in the last few years, your grandmother’s memory
wasn’t... Oh, dear. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to speak ill of dear Lizzie. But
her father was a gentleman, in an era when the word still meant something. He
would never...” I waved my hand, dismissing the idea that Francis Fordham could
have ever done anything improper to his daughter.
“He did. She told me.”
“Ahhh,” I said, doing my best to
convey scepticism. I looked away as if I were considering whether it was my
place to go on. Then I said, “The memories of an old person are sometimes
confused, my dear.” I made a point of looking at the coffin and shaking my
head.
That should be sufficient. I
nodded and took my leave, saying again as I went, as if in sorrow for the
delusional state of my departed friend, “Poor Lizzie.”
There were many guests on the
Fordham estate in the heyday of Fordham wealth and power. A long-time friend
for Elizabeth was certainly plausible. She knew so many people. What grandchild
would know all of her grandmother’s friends?
The young woman might still
believe the version of events that Elizabeth Fordham Roth once told her, but I
had at least planted a seed of doubt. In my profession, we had been planting
seeds of one kind or another about Francis Fordham ever since his death. That’s
what we do. We’ll continue to work on the remembrance of this man until the
mortuary endowment runs out. It’s a healthy endowment. As I said, mine is
hardly the work of an afternoon.
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