An article by Pamelyn Casto
Lately there are brilliant flashes of fiction almost everywhere you
look. You see them in print journals, magazines, anthologies,
collections. You will also find dazzling examples of flash fiction
on the Internet, in all its many forms, guises, and under all its
many names. Is flash fiction something new? Or is this art form
presently enjoying yet another period of popularity? I would answer
that it is something old, something new, and even something borrowed
too. It is a wedding of sorts--a wedding of styles, traditions, and
genres.
Defining or stating exactly what flash fiction is would be
comparable to defining or stating exactly what a poem or novel is.
It just cannot be done to anyone's satisfaction. The main thing
about flash fiction, however, is that it is short. Randall Jarrell
once pointed out that a story can be as short as a sentence. And
there are some fine flash fiction examples where stories, one or two
pages long, are comprised of just one or two (sometimes quite long)
sentences. But the number of sentences such work contains will not
get us very far in defining or describing it.
Nor will trying to determine the number of words in such pieces be
particularly helpful. That is because editors, critics, and writers
will also differ on just how short (or long) it is. In general,
flash fiction runs from as few as 100 words up to 1,000 or even
1,500 words (some more and some even much less). Flash fiction, of
course, goes far beyond a mere word count.
To complicate matters even further, flash fiction also carries many
names. Other names for it include short-short stories, sudden,
postcard, minute, furious, fast, quick, skinny, and micro fiction.
In France such works are called nouvelles. In China this type of
writing has several interesting names: little short story,
pocket-size story, minute-long story, palm-sized story, and my
personal favorite, the smoke-long story (just long enough to read
while smoking a cigarette). What's in a name? That which we call
flash fiction, by any other name would read as bright.
There is yet another complication in trying to produce a
satisfactory definition or description. The term 'flash fiction' can
be used to describe several genres or modes of writing. Such writing
can include traditional or mainstream short-short stories as well as
various other types such as American haibun, ghost stories,
monologues, epistles, mysteries, myths, tall tales, fables,
anti-fables, parables, romance, fairy tales, horror, suspense,
science fiction, prose poetry, and more. It can also embrace several
"isms" such as magical realism, dadaism, futurism, surrealism,
irrealism, and postmodernism. Charles Baxter notes that these
short-short stories occupy many thresholds--"they are between poetry
and fiction, the story and the sketch, prophecy and reminiscence,
the personal and the crowd."
Flash fiction can also embrace highly experimental writing that
pushes the boundaries of traditional reader expectations. For
instance, some flash fiction stories are told through such seemingly
mundane methods as a magazine quiz, a survey questionnaire,
acknowledgments to a scholarly biography. Such stories can be
created from bulletin board messages, classified ads, or telephone
answering machine messages. Some are written using only one or two
sentences, others have dialogue only, while yet others use the rare
second person point of view. These small flashes are also often
identified by the surprising twists that take place; twists
throughout the story, or stories that have a twist at the end which
turns what came before on its head. The writers of flash fiction
also have a hand in helping to refine it, define it, and extend it,
and such writing is constantly reconfiguring and metamorphosing
before our very eyes. Works falling under the rubric of flash
fiction are like Daedaluses who refuse to stay put.
By whatever name you might prefer, flash or short-short fiction
covers a large range of forms and styles. It runs the gamut: it can
be clever, whimsical, and entertaining or can be literary, ironic,
satirical, or sublime. It is sometimes funny, and sometimes
controversial or unconventional. It can be troubling, unsettling,
and unpredictable. Sometimes it is enigmatic, elusive, ambiguous,
and is quite often paradoxical. This type of story is often rich in
implication and is tight and precise, compressed and highly charged.
The best stories often speak to us obliquely, and speak of the human
condition in a profound way--in truths that cannot be seen as
clearly in other ways. The best flash fiction lingers in the mind
long after the story has been read--the way of all great literary
works of art.
Some claim that the proliferation of the short-short story is due to
modern readers' attenuated attention spans, our shortened
sound-byte, text-byte mentality. Others think it is because of the
"asthmatic" conditions under which we live--our fiction is
reflecting the out-of-breathness of modern life. Some suggest that
it is due to increased printing costs and the way in which editors
can include more variety and less length in their publications. And
some think it is because so many have lost faith in the traditional
way of telling stories at great length. Such readers and writers
realize that "truth" comes only infrequently and only in flashes.
Who are the renowned writers of these very short fictions? Ancestors
to this short type of work would have to include Aesop's fables,
some of the stories from Ovid (in his Metamorphoses), Guy de
Maupassant, Anton Chekov (who once said "I can speak briefly on long
subjects."), O. Henry, and Franz Kafka (especially in his
Parables and Paradoxes).
Foremost in my mind among more contemporary writers is Jorge Luis
Borges. Many consider him one of the finest writers of the twentieth
century. Some of his pieces run only a half page long, and some even
less. Yet within these tiny and dazzlingly brilliant flashes are
philosophical, thought-provoking, and often highly unsettling
stories, the kinds of stories that remain in the mind and continue
to haunt.
Other fine writers of very short pieces (though not all mentioned
write exclusively in this form) include Barry Yourgrau, Bernard
Cooper, Donald Barthelme, Thaisa Frank, Daniel Boulanger, Elizabeth
Bishop (her fables), Italo Calvino, Yasunari Kawabata, Richard
Brautigan, Russell Edson, John Updike, Joyce Carol Oates, and
Raymond Carver. Other exceptional writers include Julio Cortazar,
Dino Buzzati, Juan Jose Arreaolo, and Agusto Monterroso. In fact,
there are far too many fine writers of this type of work to even
begin to name them all. And there are more up-and-coming writers on
the horizon.
Writers of short-short flashes are not only turning out pieces that
stand complete on their own and which are published as discrete
stories, but some are also using them in other ways. For instance,
some are using them to create longer stories and even novels. One
such writer is Italo Calvino, who wrote his novel, Invisible
Cities, with flash stories that are one or two pages long.
Another is Alan Lightman, a physicist-author, who wrote his
Einstein's Dreams using short-shorts. Roberta Allen also used
the flash fiction form for her novel The Daughter, and Sandra
Cisneros wrote in a similar fashion in her House on Mango Street.
Taking yet another direction, Barry Yourgrau turns his stories into
performance art, reading them in clubs, theaters, and on radio.
These writers show that even more can be done with this already
versatile and protean type of writing.
The writing and reading of flash fiction is presently a worldwide
phenomenon. It is rapidly increasing in popularity in the United
States and Canada where it is offered in more and more fine literary
journals. Further, translations are pouring in to English speaking
journals from all around the world. In Latin America, where such
work has a long tradition, it continues to thrive. It is also
flourishing in China where it appears in magazines, journals, and
daily newspapers. In Italy it is enjoying renewed life under the
influence of futurism and prose poetry. I find it especially
exciting that in Cyprus it comes in just behind poetry as the
predominant mode of published literary writing.
Flash fiction is clearly a worldwide phenomenon, a mode of writing
which seems particularly well-suited to our current fast-paced,
often breathless lives, in which we still crave the insights good
literature can bring. Further, flash fiction is particularly
well-suited to Internet publications, and the Internet will have a
large part to play in the proliferation of this exciting type of
writing. Flash fiction is not only fascinating reading in its own
right, but its size is also perfect for computer screen reading.
Short works are so much easier to read on screen, and many people no
longer bother with long unbroken chunks of text. I predict that soon
we will also be seeing a lot more of what the multi-media artists
can do with flash fiction on the Internet.
The wedding of flash fiction and the Internet seems to have all the
ingredients for a happy and prosperous relationship. In print, or on
the web, the future of this art form seems assured. There will
always be a need for good, tightly-written flash fiction pieces--
miniature condensations that open out the world for and with us.
They can show us, as Keats said of poetry, "infinite riches in a
small room."_____
Sources Consulted for Article:
Sudden Fiction: American Short-Short Stories Edited
by Robert Shapard and James Thomas. Layton, Utah: Gibbes M. Smith,
Inc., 1986.
Sudden Fiction International: 60 Short-Short Stories Edited
by James Thomas and Robert Shapard. New York-London: W. W. Norton &
Company, 1989.
Fast Fiction: Creating Fiction in Five Minutes Roberta Allen.
Cincinnati: Story Press, 1997.
Flash Fiction: 72 Very Short Stories Edited by James Thomas,
Denise Thomas, & Tom Hazuka. New York-London: W. W. Norton &
Company, 1992.
Eprile, Tony. "Uncovering the 'Uncommon Narrative.'" Fiction
Writer July 1999.
Suggested Reading:
Fast Fiction: Creating Fiction in Five Minutes
Roberta Allen. Cincinnati: Story Press, 1997.
Flash Fiction: 72 Very Short Stories Edited by James Thomas,
Denise Thomas, & Tom Hazuka. New York-London: W. W. Norton &
Company, 1992.
MicroFiction: An Anthology of Really Short Stories Edited by
Jerome Stern. New York-London: W. W. Norton & Company, 1996.
Short Shorts: An Anthology of the Shortest Stories Edited by
Irving Howe and Illana Weiner Howe. Toronto-New York-London-Sydney:
Bantam Books, 1983.
Sudden Fiction: American Short-Short Stories Edited by Robert
Shapard and James Thomas. Layton, Utah: Gibbes M. Smith, Inc., 1986.
Sudden Fiction Continued: 60 New Short-Short Stories Edited
by Robert Shapard and James Thomas. NewYork-London: W.W. Norton &
Company, 1996.
Sudden Fiction International: 60 Short-Short Stories Edited
by James Thomas and Robert Shapard. New York/London: W. W. Norton &
Company, 1989.
The World's Shortest Stories Edited by Steve Moss.
Philadelphia: Running Press, 1998.
Articles on Flash Fiction:
Eprile, Tony. "Uncovering the 'Uncommon Narrative.'"
Fiction Writer July 1999.
Woodman, Allen. 'The Short-Short: A Lesson in Concision." Fiction
Writer, September 1998.
Suggested Reading --Author Collections:
Barthelme, Donald. 60 Stories New York: Penguin Books,
1993.
Borges, Jorge Luis. The Book of Imaginary Beings London/New
York: Penguin Books, 1974.
-----. The Book of Sand New York/London: Penguin Books, 1979.
-----. Dr. Brodie's Report New York/London: Penguin Books,
1976.
-----. Dreamtigers New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc., 1970.
-----. Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings New
York: New Directions, 1964.
Other Titles and Authors:
A Brief History of Camouflage by Thaisa Frank
Revenge of the Lawn by Richard Brautigan
Parables and Paradoxes by Franz Kafka
Wearing Dad's Hat by Barry Yourgrau
A Man Jumps Out of an Airplane by Barry Yourgrau
Maps to Anywhere by Bernard Cooper
Pamelyn Casto is the
administrator of two online Flash Fiction Workshops and the
co-administrator of Muse-W, a poetry workshop. Pam's ongoing
graduate research includes all aspects of ancient Greek culture, the
witchcraze of early modern European history, and Nazi Germany. She's
a public speaker, an editor, and a writer whose poetry has won
competitions on a local, state, and national level, and her work has
been published in several journals and magazines.
Editorial Note
We thank Pamelyn Casto for the permission to use her article
which was published under the title 'Flashes On
The Meridian: Dazzled by Flash Fiction' in
Riding The Meridian.
As illustrative display of works of flash fiction, we place (links infra) here a few works of flash fiction of four
contemporary writers :
Thaisa Frank
Dawn Garisch
Avital Gad-Cykman
Ann Walters
Acknowledgement — The representative works of flash fiction
reproduced here were published originally in noted
periodicals / websites — Thaisa Frank's Silver and Animal Skins in
Able Muse and Poost, respectively; Dawn Garisch's
Digger in
Flashquake ; Avital Gad-Cykman's Witches and Fire. Water. in Vestal Review and SmokeLong Quarterly,
respectively; and Ann Walters's Three Hundred Stones, Cracks and
The
Peacock in Flashquake, SmokeLong Quarterly
and Cracked Lenses, respectively.
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