Hearing a lot about Flash Fiction these days. I’m picturing short little stories that briefly pull open their overcoat and expose themselves to a shocked and disgusted audience.
But it seems it’s getting more, um, exposure (decent or not). It’s now a commercial entity now that the internet has successfully squeezed the pulp out of our collective attention span. Editors at online publications are looking for shorter works to meet the demands of our wandering, unfocused, meandering, taking a stroll in the park, that one near the zoo, right downtown, yeah, the one in Chicago, right in the middle of the city, do you think the animals like being in a busy downtown environment, wait, what was I talking about?
Flash Fiction are tales on the small end, between 300 and 1,000 words. To compare, short stories in publications like the New Yorker or Esquire typically run 3,000 to 5,000 words. Flash Fiction can be an in the moment story or a rehashing of multiple events. It’s a compressed tale where the tiniest movement matters. It’s a sudden realization that needs to be told. It’s so short that there’s no margin for error. Every word is essential. Every letter must be in the exact rihgt place.
The most widely-accepted example of flash fiction is a short, short, really short story by Ernest Hemingway:
“For sale: baby shoes. Never worn.”
Did you hear that? That was my imagination opening then slamming shut almost simultaneously.
I recently found a cool Sci Fi Flash Fiction site called 365 Tomorrows. I like sci fi, and I like short fiction. So I like the stories on this site. Here’s what these folks say about themselves.
“365 tomorrows is a collaborative project designed to present readers with a new piece of short science and speculative ‘flash’ fiction each day. Launched August 1st 2005 with the lofty goal of providing a new story every day for a year. We’ve been on the wire ever since.”
There are Flash Fiction contests, Flash FanFiction, Flash Non-Fiction, Flash Novels, you name it. Check out my own Flash Fiction attempt on my storytelling page here.