Flash Fiction: I just don't get it. What is the point of trying to squeeze a story into just a few words? Why not just write a story at the length it deserves?
Sure, I get the whole baby, two shoes, never worn thing. But I rarely read prose forced into those kinds of constraints even remotely satisfying.
It seems to me an excuse for lazy writing. Something a fledgling writer (like me, like many of us) can tackle without too much effort required. Leaving little at stake. There simply seems too little to gain from it. Too little opportunity for advancing art in a progressive manner that challenges us to read or write or think about reading or writing in new, substantive ways.
It's not as if our great writers publish flash fiction. Even edgier young writers (I'm thinking Blake Butler or Roxanne Gay) don't publish it (I don't think). Just because there are Web sites that specialize in flash fiction, who I think do so to get easy business, if mediocre submissions, doesn't automatically validate it as a form of writing that's worth paying attention to. To me, flash fiction is an unsatisfying failure. An artificial construct. Merely a writing exericise in disguise.
Thoughts? Am I completely wrong?
I discovered flash fiction when I joined Litreactor, and I have to say it's made me a much better writer. Flash is a challenge of brevity; think of it as a form of prose poetry. Certainly not all stories can be reduced to 500 word or less pieces, but many certainly can, and in my case, it has taught me how to radically trim the fat from my work (of which I still have a tendency of adding). One thing it isn't is "lazy writing." I find it FAR easier to write a mediocre long-ish short story than to craft a solid flash piece. Anyone can write 250-500 words and create a scene or coax an emotion, but it's hard as fuck to generate a comprehensive, self-contained experience that has both depth and staying-power with those constraints.
It seems to me an excuse for lazy writing. Something a fledgling writer (like me, like many of us) can tackle without too much effort required. Leaving little at stake. There simply seems too little to gain from it. Too little opportunity for advancing art in a progressive manner that challenges us to read or write or think about reading or writing in new, substantive ways.
I can't disagree more with this. It's a real challenge to master this form, and the stakes--as with any discipline--are what you chose to attribute to the work. I put high stakes in anything and everything I write. It's about challenging myself. In September I won a flash contest that actually paid money, and I have to say that it was the toughest, yet most satisfying challenge I've ever undertaking in writing.
Just because there are Web sites that specialize in flash fiction, who I think do so to get easy business, if mediocre submissions, doesn't automatically validate it as a form of writing that's worth paying attention to.
There are a lot of mediocre sites, unfortunately, but there are good ones too--like anything else in any field. There are some tough-ass ones out there that will challenge AND reject you if you submit less than your best (Narrative magazine, The Lascaux Review). It's not an automatic publication. It's like sports: you want to get better, play against better competition.
Want to read about a dozen defenses of flash fiction, read this book: Field Guide to Flash Fiction.
It also has good articles and stuff about flash fiction, but half the book (so far) has been a defense of flash fiction and its history.
I don't really care for it either, but I can still see the merit of it in a "less is more"/learning to use word economy type of way. As you said, a writing exercise in disguise.
For example, we have a guy on the forums who has an overwriting problem. He's admitted it, and the regulars know who he is. For that guy in particular, I would make him write nothing but flash for a while just so he could get the the hang of stripping his stories down and not being so wordy.
And I don't know if I'd go as to call flash "lazy." Some people have a hard time cramming in a full story in 1,000 words or less. I'd say it's more niche than anything.
Here's what I think:
I think flash fiction forces you to get your point accross quickly, effectively, and, oftentimes, it results in a more concentrated, powerful piece. I see your point, but look, when I write flash it's always because I don't think I need more words to get my point accross. I don't usually go into it thinking, gosh, I haven't written a 500 word story. I think I'll do that. I say usually because if there's a place I would like to get published in, I may attempt to fit a story into a word limit. For example, Shotgun Honey (700 word limit).
Sometimes it is an exercise, though. An exercise in making sure you're only using the words you need to use. Stories that drone on and on because writers can't find the right word that says it all are frustrating, and dull. There are times that I've set out to try something out and the result is a really short piece that is better than all of my longer stories and gets published in no time.
Also, I think it's unwise to go about it thinking of "merit" based on wordcount. There are a ton of stories workshopped that could be told in far less words.
Does this guy look lazy?
LOL
I love it. I'll be sure to tackle (and thank) other responses later. But for now, well that just made my day.
@Bryan: Don't say that...I haven't even gotten it and I'm disappointed already.
No, you're not wrong. Because what's the point of a painter using a small canvas when he could just go paint a mural. I see art forced into those confines not even remotely satisfying. I want the whole side of a building, not an 18x24. I feel it's a forced exercise in laziness if you confine space.
I guess the artist would argue, "I said my piece on that canvas" but to me, I'm like, you could have expounded that for another 100 square feet. Why are you making things so tight? Why is this sitcom on 22 minutes? This shit should be an hour. Know what I mean? It's lazy.
Bottom line, for me, is that flash fiction can be fun in a way that longer fiction can never be. It's a literary peep show, as opposed to going to all the way with a short story hooker. Sometimes a glimpse of the stockings is sexier than the full frontal, right?
It's just a different animal.
Besides, if there's no point in flash, then what about poetry? Surely we can do away with that too. And while we are at it, why bother with short stories less than three thousand words? Why bother with short stories at all? What's with all the lazy writers who release novels with less than five hundred pages?
;-)
Some stories are told best when they are told in a flash.
What Dino said. Also, it seems unjust to limit a definition of the flash format to 'shorter than a short story.' It's like saying a short story is the same as a novel, only shorter. Or that a child is a short adult.
That said, you certainly don't have to enjoy flash fiction. If I'm lucky enough to find something really fucking good to read, I'd have it be a 1000p novel over a 100 word flash every time, but if 100 words is all I get I can still appreciate.
Lazy writing and only published by mediocre publications? I have never heard anyone who knows anything about flash fiction say anything like that. But I guess you could say the same about poetry, if you felt the need. For one thing, it is not "just a few words," but under 1,000, or about four pages. Every word counts, it has to be tight. If you think that's easy to do well, try it and find out. Flash fiction is published by top publications everywhere. Just because you know someone who doesn't publish any particular form doesn't mean it's an inferior form. Franz Kafka, Anton Checkhov, Kate Chopin, H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allen Poe, Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain, Virginia Woolf, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, just a few unprofessional idiots who have written such a useless form...Maybe better to ask a question rather than start off with unknowledgable insults to everyone on here who writes it.
Why are you making things so tight?
Sometimes that's the whole story, painting, or show.
I'm not a fan of flash fiction for the most part. I find it to be too little, but some stories are only a certain length. Padding for the sake of padding doesn't thrill me, either.
Thanks for all the responses so far. I hope to read lots more. I'll be away from the computer until late this evening.
Just to be clear, I ended with the question: Am I wrong? I'm certainly willing to be. It's how I learn. It's how someone might learn reading this thread, or searching and finding it, 6 or 12 months down the line.
They might learn better and not be justifiably offended if your questions hadn't first assumed it was lazy writing and only for mediocre publications and all the other things you said that unknowledgeably insult flash fiction writers. Just putting "Am I wrong?" at the end of it does not negate that, obviously.
Carly, I absolutely appreciate your candid responses. I gotta go now. :)
^lol.
Donald Barthelme wrote flash.
There are a lot of stories that would be told best in the flash form.
You can explore kinds of stories in flash that simply wouldn't work in short story form.
With the internet now and all, there's more and more markets for flash fiction than, say, the long short story.
Amy Hempel writes flash.
You can write a piece in an evening and still have it be elegantly written, compelling fiction.
You can read a flash story on your smoke break at work.
Making a story longer doesn't mean the content is that much better.
If you see writing flash as "a constraint," you might be doing it wrong.
Barry Hannah, Aimee Bender, Amelia Grey, pretty much all the writers I can think of that end up in for Best American Short Stories anthologies, yeah, they've successfully written some amazing flash fiction.
If you write the kind of stories you want, regardless of length or form, you'll probably end up with some good stories you'll be happy to have others read.
If you don't like flash, don't read it. Everyone doesn't have to have the same shitty tastes as eachother.
I didn't write much flash until I ended up in The Pit for the currently occuring WAR. A lot of the flash I read online always felt like it was missing something, but I think part of that issue lies within the nature of 'literary' fiction and that is an entirely different debate. Some flash I don't like, but there's good stuff out there is you look hard enough.
Flash, like poetry, is about saying as much as you can in as few words as possible. I think there's a challenge in that you need to be the sort of writer who can convey emotion well, yet sparingly.
Also, I realize that the stories produced in The Pit aren't exactly flash (1200 words) but in reading those stories, and writing some, I've learned quite a bit about word economy.
Flash is about editing, not about writing 200 words and being satisfied with them. It is about the process of refining one's writing until these 200 words carry all the significance of a story ten times their size.
It will assist your development of minimalist techniques. It will help you introduce other people to your style of writing (who doesn't have time to read a flash story?). It is apparently designed (from the consumption angle) to cater to the limited attention spans which are a pox on our age.
But when people try to reverse that, when they believe that flash is designed to cater to a writer's limited attention span, well, yeah, it misses the point.
As others have said, flash needn't just be a short-short story. Me, I think the form works best when you're not trying to tell an actual arcing story with beginning, middle, and end with deep characterizations, but rather just a vignette, some slice of life.
The "for sale: baby shoes, never worn" thing would be considered microfiction or hint fiction, which is even more about having the reader actually participate and fill in the rest of the story themselves.
If you can create at least one "impact event" in <1000 words, then, theoretically, you should be able to do it 50+ times in a 50k word novel. I'm not saying writing a novel is the same as writing 50 flashes, but if you can write an effective flash piece, you can write an effective chapter. Then, assuming you can do large-scale plotting and development and keep your stuff organized, you can write an effective novel-length story.
I guess.
^^^ Hey, I'm going with it J.Y. That's kind of encouraging. And they say each chapter of a novel should stand on it's own right.
That's kind of encouraging.
Rarely said about me.
But yeah, in a way it is encouraging. The approach wouldn't work for every kind of book or story, but it should work for some.
Hey folks. Before I dig in and start responding, I think I owe an apology. My intention was to be provocative to spark discussion, rather than leave this thread dying on the vine. Being very new here, and seeing the response, it was a needless concern.
So... if you're able to, please accept my apology for the "lazy" characterization. It's not accurate or fair or constructive in any way shape or form. Any criticism or concern I have should be directed at the form itself and not the writer behind its creation. Big mistake on my part!
It's cool. You started a good conversation. Welcome to LitReactor. We'll take the wood off the stake and put the caps back on the kerosene.
Make sure you stick around.
Thank you, Michael.
All's good. Until the next one.
Ok, so I officially have a love/HATE relationship with my new Macbook Air. The trackpad gestures that are supposed to be so great, have caused, more than once, a swipe to the previous web page and I lose my content in the process. I think I'm going to turn those gestures off, or start copying text as I go to save it to the scratchpad. Or maybe I'll write, then copy and paste from Pages.
Anyway, Dino, hmm what was I saying:
I find it FAR easier to write a mediocre long-ish short story than to craft a solid flash piece. Anyone can write 250-500 words and create a scene or coax an emotion, but it's hard as fuck to generate a comprehensive, self-contained experience that has both depth and staying-power with those constraints.
I get what you're saying. Perhaps my bias going in prevents me from appreciating the work. I prefer a symphony over a sonata, a film over a short, the album over its single, and yes, longer narrative arcs than what flash is able to contain, in my experience reading it.
BTW, congrats for the contest win! I hope that doesn't seem disengenuous given the topic of discussion. Winning is always cool, except when it's Charlie Sheen's version of it.
I'm going to check out the publications you mentioned; I appreciate the suggestions.
Want to read about a dozen defenses of flash fiction, read this book: Field Guide to Flash Fiction.
It also has good articles and stuff about flash fiction, but half the book (so far) has been a defense of flash fiction and its history.
It's added to my wishlist and I've officially told the publisher I'd like to read it on my Kindle, at least according to Amazon. Based on many of the responses here, it perhaps might be very wise for me to check it out! Reviews are strong on Amazon. Thanks.
I don't really care for it either, but I can still see the merit of it in a "less is more"/learning to use word economy type of way. As you said, a writing exercise in disguise.
For example, we have a guy on the forums who has an overwriting problem. He's admitted it, and the regulars know who he is. For that guy in particular, I would make him write nothing but flash for a while just so he could get the the hang of stripping his stories down and not being so wordy.
And I don't know if I'd go as to call flash "lazy." Some people have a hard time cramming in a full story in 1,000 words or less. I'd say it's more niche than anything.
Yeah, I've also been thinking about its niche designation. I agree. How sellable is it? I'd rather spend time focusing on writing and workshopping short stories or longer fiction. I'm guessing they pay more in the long run, and the readership is much wider. That's kind of why I go back to the whole writing exercise aspect. It's almost like flash fiction is the gateway drug to more mainstream pieces of fiction writing.
Of course, I'm using some artistic license here. The short story isn't exactly mainstream. Not with 50 shades of whatever out there, and the like. And I don't mean to sound too very snooty. I know she's laughing all the way to the bank. And in this day and age, there's certainly something to said for earning cash doing what you enjoy most.
Here's what I think:
I think flash fiction forces you to get your point accross quickly, effectively, and, oftentimes, it results in a more concentrated, powerful piece. I see your point, but look, when I write flash it's always because I don't think I need more words to get my point accross. I don't usually go into it thinking, gosh, I haven't written a 500 word story. I think I'll do that. I say usually because if there's a place I would like to get published in, I may attempt to fit a story into a word limit. For example, Shotgun Honey (700 word limit).
Sometimes it is an exercise, though. An exercise in making sure you're only using the words you need to use. Stories that drone on and on because writers can't find the right word that says it all are frustrating, and dull. There are times that I've set out to try something out and the result is a really short piece that is better than all of my longer stories and gets published in no time.
Also, I think it's unwise to go about it thinking of "merit" based on wordcount. There are a ton of stories workshopped that could be told in far less words.
So I went looking for this Shotgun Honey story of yours, then realized it was an online site. :)
It's not the wordcount aspect, it's the constraint against the form that demerits it to some extent in my eyes. It's an artistic expression re-born for the Information Age. I don't think we'd be seeing the boom in flash fiction were it not more immediately publishable online. Would writers be as inclined to hone this craft, pursue publication, if there were still such long, interminable waits before "print" beaurocracies got around to culling, publishing their submissions? At this point, I just can't see such short fictions as part of the canon, whatever it might be in a 100 years or so.
No, you're not wrong. Because what's the point of a painter using a small canvas when he could just go paint a mural. I see art forced into those confines not even remotely satisfying. I want the whole side of a building, not an 18x24. I feel it's a forced exercise in laziness if you confine space.
I guess the artist would argue, "I said my piece on that canvas" but to me, I'm like, you could have expounded that for another 100 square feet. Why are you making things so tight? Why is this sitcom on 22 minutes? This shit should be an hour. Know what I mean? It's lazy.
This kind of speaks to an argument I think has also been made in a later comment about poetry. I think there are vast differences between poetry writing and fiction writing, and between art forms in general, like fiction writing and the visual mediums you stated above, that are prerequisites for consumption of (and overall satisfaction with) the media presented.
Personally, I'm really really glad most sitcoms are 22 minutes? haha
I definitely find a larger piece of art more pleasing, aesthetically. Perhaps that speaks to my ignorance. But at the same time, I love black and white photography. I don't love it as much, though, when it's a 5x8 picture that I have get so close just to see it and form an opinion. To me, often it provides less crunch in the proverbial potato chip!
Where do museum goers gravitate? Most often it's the larger pieces in general, unless the work, the smaller work, has accrued significant mainstream notoriety. This is a parallel for me as I think about flash fiction (although I know it's not a perfect comparison).
And, while I like the larger pieces, I also like taking pictures of sections of artwork (small and large) and then using the smaller snippets as wallpaper on my phone and tablet. You never know what you're gonna get. Some of those tiny pics are pretty cool.
I can see why you don't like flash.
Jeffrey, feel free to add more to the discussion!
Bottom line, for me, is that flash fiction can be fun in a way that longer fiction can never be. It's a literary peep show, as opposed to going to all the way with a short story hooker. Sometimes a glimpse of the stockings is sexier than the full frontal, right?
It's just a different animal.
Besides, if there's no point in flash, then what about poetry? Surely we can do away with that too. And while we are at it, why bother with short stories less than three thousand words? Why bother with short stories at all? What's with all the lazy writers who release novels with less than five hundred pages?
;-)
Some stories are told best when they are told in a flash.
Literary peep show? Love it. Personally, I'm not into stockings. BUT, I get what you mean. :)
To me, poetry is quite different. There are dozens, hundreds of poetic devices, and many of them would short-circuit the success of a piece of narrative fiction. The emphasis on imagery, repetitive cadences, more restrictive form differentiates poetry with prose. I find poetry much more successful because the imagery is able to evoke in me emotion that I haven't felt reading very short fiction.
My favorite poets are Louise Glück and Philip Levine.
One of my favorites from Glück (now I just have to find it):
This is the closing piece in her collection, Averno.
FABLE
Then I looked down and saw
the world I was entering, that would be my home.
And I turned to my companion, and I said Where are we?
And he replied Nirvana.
And I said again But the light will give us no piece.
This piece, indeed much of her work really cranks my engine. Strikes me it might be a great prompt for a flash fiction companion piece. Anyway, I put it here only to show what I love in poetry, the feeling poems such as this instills in me. I don't find comparables in flash fiction. I wonder if anyone has flash examples that they might consider comparable to this in terms of being able to evoke this, the sense of gravitas heavy as granite that can be found in most all of her poetry?
What Dino said. Also, it seems unjust to limit a definition of the flash format to 'shorter than a short story.' It's like saying a short story is the same as a novel, only shorter. Or that a child is a short adult.
That said, you certainly don't have to enjoy flash fiction. If I'm lucky enough to find something really fucking good to read, I'd have it be a 1000p novel over a 100 word flash every time, but if 100 words is all I get I can still appreciate.
True, I don't. But one reason I started this thread was to hopefully form greater appreciation for what it is, and what writers of it hope to accomplish.
There are so few "great" works out there, each one is a treasure—especially when you add up all the books you manage to read in a year, figure out your lifetime sum, and realize how little time you have to read anything at all. Just a fraction of a fraction will I ever get to. :)
Then fraction that into what can be termed "great." But a pittance. :(
MES saw fit to spare my comment.
More questions:
If you wrote four consecutive narrative sonnets, and didn't break up the lines, could it be a flash piece?
Are prose-poems really poems, or just flash pieces with a heightened sense of language?
Was Baudelaire a flash pioneer?
Are brief, anecdotal bits of folklore flash fiction?
Did Yeats write flash pieces?
Are bits of fictional history flash fiction?
Did Borges write flash?
I honestly don't know how well-defined "flash fiction" is apart from the word limit. Prose-poetry is pretty casually defined. (Doesn't help that poetry itself is near-impossible to define in a way which will satisfy everyone who has some idea of what it is.)
There's probably more flash fiction than prose-poetry already written, even though the term is more recent. Some people probably have dismissed prose-poems, but why would they? Likewise, why dismiss flash?
J.Y., I'm up and awake because I'm watching the Australian Open. Allowable because I'm taking some vacation days.
I just haven't gotten to you yet, but I'm not sure if in your opening sentence you're glad I've not responded, or think that I might be deliberately ignoring you. I quite agree with your first post.
Now, back to the fourth set, Murray vs. Federer. I'm rooting for Federer. I always do, unless Nadal is his opponent.
Ha, I'm up because---no good reason, just not sleeping.
I just haven't gotten to you yet
Figured that was all there was to it.
Federer is something to see. I mean the guy is quick. Twinkle-toes. (Used to be, anyway.)
I can see why you don't like flash.
That was flash. See, he's using the form for his argument.
Also, you type a lot. Which is what forums are for and not an insult.
I kind of think of Flash as the Spider-Man of the DC universe.
Saying 50+ flashes could make a novel is like saying 50+ gerbils could make a dog.
(No gerbils were harmed in the creation of this message.)
Holy shit: DoGerbil!
Saying 50+ flashes could make a novel
Did anyone say this?
Totally unrelated: Can you imagine what a bad-ass engineer it would take to get fifty gerbils working in tandem to reproduce the functions of a dog.
Da Vinci probably drew up some diagrams.
For the record I am with Carly Berg on this one.
There is some talk of an earthbound Flash, but let's not forget that Flash can also be the savior of the universe.
50+ flashes could make a novel
Sure it could. It would be a weird novel, but why not? If every chapter is under 1,000 words and self-contained while still being about the same plot... then that would make it a novel. You'd have to be a great writer to pull it off, but why not?
I'd read it.
Good God. I never expected it would be possible to appear in a thread posthumously. But I have just had a couple of interesting experiences in a row with flash fiction, and finished a draft of a story two days ago inspired by the prompts "dying voice" and "my muse" in a recent thread by Sound. So, I should share 'em now that I've landed from that. I've got some pretty strong feelings about word economy and fiction writing and this site in general which I've been brooding over and feel like elaborating on. I think the whoring thread soon would be the place for that, and how the above's related to the story that more or less popped out of me.
Now that I've returned from the actively dead with a reasonable seeming draft, I'm going to bounce back and forth between reading others and submitting this Gorilla in the Midst story of mine. It's a little too rooted in this particular reactor and hot off the presses to be sure what to make of between poetically well done or defiantly overwritten. But I do think at the heart of any persistent problem a degree of demoniac defiance can often be found. If for example a writerly pride syndrome is left untreated, a true inability to recognize when excessive stylizing or idea generation are gumming up and occluding the chance for fiction to be interestly readable rather than enhancing it, can become the case. And then, succinctly put, you're fucked. That is if and until the way out of that self-blind hole which is there for a limited time only before it swallows, is discovered. And so I do think in a sense, flash fiction has been helpful in a kind of funny (to me anyway) roundabout way, at least in the direction of discovery. But I'll save that for my first whoring experience.
So then what do you say to shared world flash fiction then?
I personally have a hard time with anything about 3,000 words. (That didn't use to be the case, of course. I was more of a 4,000 word writer.)
Here are a couple things flash fiction taught me:
1. Don't waste time monologuing.
2. Stick to the plot.
Flash fiction helps with figuring out how to write subtlely, instead of overtly.
I'll also add (and I know knowone has said this), is a flash story can still flow like a longer story. Some stories I've found have actually flowed at a more normally slow pace than a "normal" length one. Speed largely depends on how the language itself is constructed.
