What is Flash Fiction?
In 1986 the short short story reemerged in the first of many
anthologies edited by Robert Shapard and James Thomas. Short shorts were
surfacing at the time in literary magazines such as North American Review and Sundog.
A separate genre, Sudden Fiction, appeared
and then a further shortening of the term evolved, and “flash was coined by James Thomas in 1992, which he defined it as
being 250-750 words and debuted in Flash
Fiction: 72 Very Short Stories. Shorter than its predecessor sudden
fiction, but longer than Jerome Stern’s microfiction, flash is one of the more popular terms used to reference short
shorts in the United States.” (xxxvii)
The computer lured back the audience that television stole
and it reduced the American attention span even further spawning online
magazines and blogs publishing Flash. Plus, its “brief length makes it perfect
for viewing online and on hand-held electronics.” (xxxvi)
So far, during its adolescence, sub-genres of Flash Fiction
have included: “dribbles (50 words), nanofiction (55 words), drabbles (100
words), quick fiction, fast fiction, microfiction, furious fiction, sudden and
flash fiction postcard fiction, napkin fiction (from Esquire online), minute-long stories, smoke-long stories, skinny
stories, vest-pocket stories and pill-size stories (from the forties),
pocket-size stories, palm-size stories. . .” (xxxvii)
Flash Fiction was a sub-genre of Micr-O Fiction and defined
as: “a novel crossed with a haiku,” in The
Oprah Magazine (July 2006). Eight stories of 300 words or less were
featured, including gems by Antonya Nelson, Stuart Dybek, and Amy Hempel.
(xxxvii)
Lindenwood’s Flash Fiction course in the MFA Program, along
with Rose Metal Press, bring together the advice of fifty or so experts and
offer a primer to its students. Flash Fiction is so much more than a story
quantified by a word count. Students in the Program will develop a set of tools
that allow them to use image, smart surprise and an economy of language to
write and publish Flash stories that,
as Robert Shapard suggests, “achieve a depth of vision and human significance
without ever wanting to be novel(s).” (89)
Masih, Tara
L. Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction: Tips from Editors, Teachers, and
Writers in the Field. Brookline, MA: Rose Metal, 2009. Print.
In the LU MFA Foundations series, our faculty members
discuss or clarify foundational elements of the craft of creative writing.
Other entries in the series are linked here.