Flash Fiction

[Lord Wolf]

This is for Manu or Laurel.

Guys, there's a form of writing that is being taught in Vancouver, It's called "Flash Fiction" and several anthologies are in print.

The object is to writr a complete story in about 250 words (you can fudge to 300 in a pinch) You rejected my last ouevre, apparently because it was too short. "Tsokay, even Hemmingway received rejection slips. All I ask is that if the length was your only problem with the piece, then please reconsider. Remember, size isn't everything. Oh and by the way, that is a true story. Makes you wonder what goes on in private schools!

Lord Wolf

 

[KillerMuffin]

People get around the length by posting a bunch of flash in one story.

I believe the reason the length limit is there would be to prevent a bunch of people from uploading tons of single paragraph "chapters" in a "lengthy" type "saga."

Laurel usually makes rules with the readers strongly in mind. They are, after all, who she caters to.

Most people come here to jack off and you just can't get a good wank to flash fiction. The object is to satisfy the reader, not frustrate him.

 

[BigTexan]

In my last Creative Writing course I was required to read quite a bit of "Flash Fiction".

I have never read any good flash fiction. I honestly don't think it can be done.

You can write a scene in 250 words, but not a complete, well developed story. Well okay if your idea of a complete, well-developed story is:

Me an' Billy Bob caught this here bitch up by the stockyards and we all took down her britches and fucked her hard like the bitch she was.

But I don't think this is a story. It's a sentence. Hell, I've written sentences that were more than 250 words long. All of the Flash Fiction I've seen turns out to be nothing more than a disjointed scene with no character development and no plot or story line.

Sorry, but I think Laurel and Manu's rule against flash fiction is a good one.

BigTexan

 

[TheEarl]

I agree with BT. Flash fiction is a scene, possibly two. I don't believe that you can fit a proper story into 250 words.

Of course if anyone can prove me wrong, I'd be interested to see an example.

The Earl

 

[Lord Wolf]

Well, at least you made me laugh. I just got tired of all the ways to describe genitalia in action or whether something is technically feasible without breaking an arm, so I wanted to submit something new.

Actually, I've stooped even lower. (blush). I've written political speeches and Party Policy. Now THAT is low!

 

[Lord Wolf]

Actually, when I think of it, a well told joke is really a short story.

 

[Weird Harold]

All I ask is that if the length was your only problem with the piece, then please reconsider.

The 750 Word limit has as much to do with the overhead to story ratio than it it does with any bias against Flash Fiction. If it takes lnger to download the HTML code that formats the story thanit does to download the actual story, then the reader is wsating his time downloading the story -- essentially it's perceived by the reader as "just an excuse to bombard me with advertising."

Think about how you feel about webpages that are more than 50% advertisements -- that's the problem the word limit is imposed to avoid.

 

[kristydoll]

I have never read any good flash fiction. I honestly don't think it can be done.

Off topic a little - because I can understand the rules against flash fiction (word count) here - but wanted to say that there is actually some writers who can do very good flash fiction work.

My favorite flash to read (and try) are 50 word flash pieces. If anything, it allows a writer to "kill" as many unneeded words as possible while still trying to convey some sort of message.

kristy

 

[Chicklet]

100 word flash

I think that flash fiction is fun and a challenge. I think having a flash fiction category would be a blast. But maybe instead we could just start a flash fiction thread right here, for people to write small stories and we could comment on them. Or in Story Feedback.

Chicklet

------
Their wicked smiles terrify me, yet I nod in agreement. The three of us make our way through the still house. No one stirs as we pile into my bed. He gets in first, then she follows. I’m alone and scared. Both pull me in.

I fall between hot bodies. Playful hands caress my breasts. Her sweet mouth drinks from mine as he tongues my stiffened nipples.

Gasping in pleasure, I thrash with joy. Laughter escapes my lips as we simultaneously experience the bliss of orgasm.

He trembles under me. She smiles into my calm eyes. Contentedly, I kiss her.

 

[TheEarl]

Chicklet: That's a scene though. I wouldn't say that was a story.

The Earl

 

[BigTexan]

Chicklet: That's a scene though. I wouldn't say that was a story.

The Earl

While I may have sounded harsh in my post, it wasn't intended. Still I agree with Earl.

Chicklet, what you have done, is what I usually find in Flash Fiction. I don't consider that a story. Someone said a joke was a short story. I disagree with that as well. I don't even think Dr. Suess books are true "stories." They are "readers"

To me, and I'll admit that this is not the dictionary definition, a story must have a few things to be complete.

It must have a plot of sorts. Something must happen and there must be a reason for it happening.

It must have some modicum of character development. An anonymous piece of cardboard performing some senseless act for no reason doesn't count.

It must have a beginning, a middle, and an end.

In 250 words or less, no one can develop a character, move that character through a plot with a beginning, a climax, and still finish the story.

Yes I know that not everyone will agree with my definition. That's fine. I know many people enjoy flash fiction. That's fine too. Many people enjoy eating squid. I would rather eat beef, thank you very much.

I was just stating my opinion. In my opinion, flash fictions are not stories.

All that aside, I wonder if Laurel and Manu's restrictions against it may be more from a file count standpoint than an artistic stand. It may well be that they just don't want to clog up their servers with ten trillion 250 word flash fiction files.

BigTexan

 

[gauchecritic]

Saviour of the universe?

Yeah yeah yeah, I know its really poetry but there are a great number of songs which hold complete stories and in much less than 250 words.

Two excellent examples being "The Killing of Georgie. Part I" (Rod Stewart) and "Alone Again Naturally" Gilbert O'Sullivan.

What else could I be but,

Gauche

 

[gauchecritic]

PS

And "Town called Malice" Paul Weller

Gauche

(Songs llike these deter me utterly from ever sullying the art form with my own)

 

[karmadog]

There was a thread on very short fiction (300 wds or less), but it died out eight or nine months ago. Here it is if you're interested. As I recall there was a heated discussion about whether a true story could be written in so few words, but I don't recall where that thread is.

 

[Madame Manga]

Where I come from (fan fiction) they are limited to 100 words and are called "drabbles". No, I have never written one, because I am not wired that way, and no, they are not stories by my definition. Poems, if done well enough; the only ones I've liked much are by a friend of mine who is primarily a poet.

MM

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Songwriter-wise, I'd say practically anything the late Harry Chapin wrote would qualify and a lot of Jim Croce's stuff.

But I'm in general agreement with the BT faction. IMHO, 250 word limit stories seem more an exercise in Reader's Digest type editing and condensing than story telling. But if someone enjoys writing this arbitary minimalism they should go for it and then do what KM suggested and post three or more at a time.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[KillerMuffin]

For the record, I don't think it's impossible to write a 200 word story. If it has a beginning and an end, it's complete.

However, I don't think you're going to get anyone off with a 300 word story. Or even a 750 word one. It's just not long enough.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

KillerMuffin,

Speaking of little things, that's one fine looking varmit on your AV. Is it attack trained?

Rumple Foreskin

 

[Chicklet]

Chicklet: That's a scene though. I wouldn't say that was a story.

The Earl

that's true, but 1) it was a first draft and 2) it was fun = )

Chicklet

 

[KillerMuffin]

Stories don't require developed characters. Or have you never read the average western/action adventure/harlequin novel? Stories don't require plots. You really must read experimental some time. Stories require two things to be stories. A beginning and an end.

184 words.

He hadn't seen his father in years, not since he'd left home in a storm of rage on the Fourth of July twenty-two years ago. A boy, not a man, angry with the world. Angry with the man who denied him his manhood. Just angry.

Somehow he'd always thought he'd fix it. He always thought there would be time. But things have a way of not working out as planned. He hadn't even read the notice in the paper until it was too late.

Kneeling in the wet grass, he touched his fingers to the wet marble and traced the words "Beloved father" carved in it. He was glad it was raining, because no one could see his tears. It was true. Despite the years between them and the anger that had carried him to this very spot, he still loved his father.

He placed the rose along the edge of the headstone, then stood up. Clenching his fists, he slowly walked away. A lifetime of anger melted with the tears and rain. It was the story of his life. Too little, too late.


A scene? Yes.
A character sketch? Yes.
A story? Yes. It has a beginning. It has a middle. It has an end.


What is a story? This is what Writer's Market says:

http://www.writersmarket.com/encyc/s.asp

Story


A story is a narrative told orally or written, either in prose or verse. It is designed to interest, amuse, entertain or inform an audience of readers or listeners. It involves its audience emotionally, encouraging them to care what happens to the characters.

A problem common to beginning writers is the inability to distinguish between a story and an incident. A story differs from an incident in that it possesses a quality of completeness: A character moves through a conflict to a conclusion, never completely the same at the end of the action as he was at the beginning. It is this change, for better or worse, that makes a story.

A further distinction exists between story and plot. A story is the sequence in which events occur as part of a happening; a plot is the sequence in which the author arranges or dramatizes those events. A murder mystery, for example, may be based on the following events: a man and woman engaged in an adulterous affair scheme to murder the man's wife; they drug her with a lethal dose of sleeping pills one evening and rig up a fake suicide note; an astute detective uncovers the crime and eventually brings them to justice. That is the story—the chronological sequence in which the events occurred. The author may decide the story would be told more effectively, however, if it began with the wife's death and ended with the uncovering of the affair and the murder. This sequence of events is the plot.

Robert Louis Stevenson, noted storyteller and novelist, had this to say about creating a story:

"There are only three ways of writing a story: You may take a plot and fit characters to it; or you may take a character and choose incidents and situations to develop it; or you may take a certain atmosphere and get action and persons to express and realize it."

 

[BigTexan]

Stories don't require developed characters. Or have you never read the average western/action adventure/harlequin novel? Stories don't require plots. You really must read experimental some time. Stories require two things to be stories. A beginning and an end.

Well, I knew a lot of people would disagree with my definition of a story

But by this definition this would be a story:


Jack woke up feeling the air about him tingle. He fell back into the bed, dead."


It has a beginning. He woke up. It has an end. He died.

What it doesn't have is all the stuff in the middle that makes it a story.

KM, I know you are right, as far as definitions and references go. But I simply disagree with the definitions and references. To me it's not a story without the elements I stated before.

Perhaps someone can do it in less than 250 words, but I seriously doubt they can do it well.

BigTexan

 

[Weird Harold]

Perhaps someone can do it in less than 250 words, but I seriously doubt they can do it well.

IMHO, "Flash Fiction" is simply an attempt to categorize a training tool for verbose writers into a literary form.

Flash Fiction is derived from writing assignements in creative writing classes designed to teach writers to choose their words carefully and write concise, efficient prose. It's a training exercise, not an art form and I personally prefer not to read other writers' homework assignments.

 

[Lord Wolf]

Actually, while I consider Flash fiction to stand by itself when well done, I agree that it is a very useful exercise when writing longer pieces because it forces one to consider every word, its rhythm, its sound and its balance within the sentence.

At one time in my life I had a daily 600 word newspaper column. Coming from a lifetime of reading Dickens, my sentences were one paragraph long, intricately strung out and full of "adjectival phrases, nominative in apposition" and all that bullshit.

Fortunately, I had a kindly editor who taught me how to be more concise, i.e., one idea, one sentence. Since I've drifted, (stumbled is more the word) into politics I've had to open my sentences up a bit.

If anyone has the time, for language use I recommend "Science and Sanity" (1933) by Korzybski. The telephone book is actually a more exciting read but it does open one up to how language works within the brain and that sounds of words are more important in transmitting meaning than the words themselves.

Consider the emotional response to "rot" as opposed to "decay". Or "Unnaturally close relationship with his mother", as opposed to the much harsher word.

I do think that flash fiction should be a category on Lits, but it does have one problem. It's awfully hard to create a satisfyingly erotic atmosphere in 300 words. Yeah, but most men cum in 71/2 minutes, so maybe it could be done.

 

[Weird Harold]

It's awfully hard to create a satisfyingly erotic atmosphere in 300 words. Yeah, but most men cum in 71/2 minutes, so maybe it could be done.

I read at approx 600 wpm so 7.5 minutes would take 15 pieces of flash fiction -- assuming I could even maintain the proper mood through 15 different scenarios.

 

[TheEarl]

I'd say that all a story requires is a plot. You can have 2D characters if you want, but if they're doing something, then it's a story.

The talk of songs being considered good flash-fiction is interesting. I said that I was willing to retract my statement about no good flash-fiction if someone could provide an example and I think this serves:

He's drunk again. It's time to fight. She must have done something wrong tonight. The living room becomes a boxing ring. It's time to run when you see him clicking his hands. She's just a woman.

Just tell the nurse you slipped and fell. It starts to sting as it starts to swell. She looks at you. She wants the truth. It's right out there in the waiting room, with those hands. Trying to look as sweet as he can.

He's drunk again. It's time to fight. Same old shit, just on a different night. She grabs the gun. She's had enough. Tonight she'll find out how fucking tough is this man. Pulls the trigger fast as she can.

For those of you not up with your lyrics, that's the verses of Never Again, by Nickleback. That is 237 words and I think that makes quite an adequate story.

The Earl