J.C. Wigriff's picture
J.C. Wigriff from Carbondale, IL is reading Playboy (for the articles) August 9, 2014 - 11:21pm

So I really hadn't been exposed to much flash fiction before joining LitReactor, and I have grown to thoroughly enjoy the format. I was wondering though... is there a place for writing even shorter than flash fiction?

For example: I have  friend who makes hilarious facebook posts. They're well-written and well thought out, always get a ton of attention and laughs, and they're usually about 3-8 paragraphs long. I've seen some as short as 2 paragraphs. Some aren't funny, but are just insightful, or conjure specific imagery.

It all made me think that there might be a place for something like that in this day and age. Maybe a novelette filled with them. Like poetry, someone could even strategically and artfully craft 2 paragraphs that tell an entire story. It would be a lesson in efficiency.

Hell, maybe something like this already exists. It's late and I'm rambling.

Redd Tramp's picture
Redd Tramp from Los Angeles, CA is reading Mongrels by SGJ; Sacred and Immoral: On the Writings of Chuck Palahniuk; The History of Sexuality by Michel Foucault August 10, 2014 - 7:55am

On here somewhere, there's an essay about Micro Fiction, which I guess is just shorter Flash Fiction. Also, in the forum somewhere is the Game of Threes, where people have to write stories in 3 paragraphs.

I was thinking how cool a collection of Micro Stories would be, like a short-story anthology but with all of these little, easily-digestible things. Would be pretty rad. But maybe it's been done and I just don't know.

Vonnegut Check's picture
Vonnegut Check from Baltimore August 10, 2014 - 9:59am

Check out Lydia Davis. She's one of the best.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120953449

L.W. Flouisa's picture
L.W. Flouisa from Tennessee is reading More Murakami August 10, 2014 - 8:02pm

Twitter fiction comes to mind specifically. Though if your follower count is anything like mine, you'll have people acting like copy cats.

I prefer fiction between 500 and 1,000 words anyway. For books, chapters that are between 1,000 and 1,500 words.

I used to do full length short fiction, that was a collection of micro-fiction.

I seemed to have neglected to mention twitter epistolaries. Where it's a collection of short stories that are told in twitter feeds.

Gordon Highland's picture
Gordon Highland from Kansas City is reading Secondhand Souls by Christopher Moore August 11, 2014 - 8:08am

I've been sitting on that Lydia Davis book for a while now, so eager to dive in.

I used to tweet a ton of microfiction; need to get back on that.

As far as outlets for microfiction, my friend Gayle Towell runs Microfiction Mondays, appropriately enough. I own three volumes of The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories by Joseph Gordon-Levitt's hitRECord community, as well as Not Quite What I Was Planning: Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure. I also have Smash the Hammer, but haven't gotten around to reading that one yet.

Delete Me's picture
Delete Me September 2, 2014 - 4:43am

I purchased Anit-Twitter by Harrold Jaffe. It is a collection of 50 word stories.

Carly Berg's picture
Carly Berg from USA is reading Story Prompts That Work by Carly Berg is now available at Amazon September 10, 2014 - 4:58am

Flash fiction is generally considered 1,000 words or less. Micro-fiction word limit is usually considered lower than for flash fiction but I don't think the cut-off for it is well defined, and occasionally I hear the two terms used interchangeably. Here are a few litmags with low word count limits:

Journal of Compressed Creative Arts- 600 words

Camroc Review, Vestal Review, Apocrypha & Abstractions, Dr. T.J. Eckleburg Review, Yellow Mama, First Stop Fiction - 500 words

Linnet's Wings- 400 words

Nano Fiction- 300 words

Boston Literary Magazine- 250 words

Dogzplot- 200 words

100 Word Story- 100 words

Nailpolish Stories- 25 words (title should be a nail polish color)

Short, Fast, and Deadly- 420 characters (not words)

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I'm sure there are some single author micro-fiction collections on Amazon, although there are many more flash fiction collections. Here are a couple of multi-author micro-fiction anthologies:

Micro Fiction (250 words) edited by Jerome Stern

Hint Fiction (25 words) edited by Robert Swartwood