What Is Flash?
July 26, 2012 in Thursday Writing by Catherine Russell
Young smiling woman, holding a camera
Duotrope defines flash as fiction under 1,000 words. Wikipedia states the word count can be anything below 1,000 (with a sweet spot between 300 and 1,000 words). There are also other names for shorter fiction such as sudden fiction, drabbles, and microfiction. Where does the madness end?
Most sources agree that flash contains an actual story in short form – a marked contrast to a vignette, which captures a particular moment but does not contain a plot. Rather, it illustrates a character, tone, or mood. While flash also may focus on a moment, that moment uses elements of a complete story – meaning a protagonist, a conflict, and a resolution. However, the short word count may mean these elements are hinted rather than expressly written. While a vignette may simply fill out a character by showing them in a particular moment, flash may use a moment to capture the essence of the story.
Certainly, installments in series can and have been considered flash, if they stand as stories in their own right. If they are part of a larger story and cannot be understood outside the larger context, then they would probably be more accurately described as chapters or installments.
However, would well-known flash stories even be considered flash under the above definition? Ernest Hemingway, arguably one of the greatest writers of the Twentieth Century, claimed to have written flash fiction. But does his flash actually fit the requirements?
For sale: baby shoes, never worn
by Ernest Hemingway
Is this a complete story? Does it have a beginning, middle, and end? Is it flash? A vignette? Micro-fic? Certainly a story can be read between the lines. It HINTS at a story, but what? Is it about a couple who have lost a child and are ready to move on? Were a pair of shoes given as a gift but not wanted? Could it be about a child who grew too big to fit into his shoes? The reader joins the author in telling the story, but what story is actually being told is ambiguous at best.
None of it really matters. A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, and short fiction – be it flash or otherwise – may entertain under any label. Write well, write often, and write whatever flash fiction you feel the muse demands of you.
~ Catherine Russell
*image courtesy of State Library and Archives of Florida via Flickr. No known copyright restrictions.
Contributing Correspondent of Friday Flash Dot Org
Author Catherine Russell shares her life with her high school sweetheart, their son, and two ferocious puppies in the Wilds of Ohio while writing short stories, editing her novel, and learning more about the craft every day.
Her work has been published in Flash Me magazine, Metro Fiction, Beyond Centauri, the 'Best of Friday Flash – Volume One' anthology, and the 'Best of Friday Flash – Volume Two' anthology. More of her writing can be found on her writing blog at ganymeder.com.
I suspect this debate will go on long after we have shuffled off to that great slush pile in the sky.
Great info, Cathy!
I’ve always thought of flash as a 1000 and under and an complete story. However, my latest offering to friday flash have been part of a series and over a 1000 – not what I would really call flash but still entertaining. Interesting post, I enjoyed it.
I don’t see that a flash has to have a beginning, middle and end. Many of mine take a central image and look at it from all its facets, like turning a diamond round to catch all its different sparkles of light. I also think flash allows you to play around with notions of time as well as just what we mean by story. Again, a flash doesn’t have to have conflict in it. I’ve written flashes without any characters (maybe that approximated to a landscape painting), but it still had a narrative drive through it. I’ve also written flashes that are anti-lipos, where every sentence contains the same lexeme (a short word as part of a longer word). there the ‘story’ was driven by the different meaning of the word. I’ve also written stories that are literally just list of words, but it’s how those words play off each other even though they are not arranged in sentences.
This is why I find flash so liberating and agree with your last paragraph wholeheartedly.
I agree- flash fiction is a usefully vague term. Its function is to entertain, to make us laugh or think or weep, on those days when we can grab only a few precious moments to stop and read.
I like your subject for this article, Catherine!
Funny, but I just started re-reading “One Minute Stories” by István Örkény, one of the best Hungarian flash fiction writer.
As an answer to reader’s questions, he has handling instructions at the beginning of his book. I’ll copy here so you can see what I mean. I absolutely love his approach, as people aren’t really familiar with flash fiction nowadays either, let alone in the 1950s (in Hungary).
“Handling instructions
Despite their brevity, the stories in this book have a certain amount of literary merit. They also have the added advantage of saving us time, since they do not require our attention for weeks on end. While the soft-boiled egg is boiling or the number you are dialing answers (provided it is not engaged, of course) you have ample time to read one of these short stories which, because of their brevity, I have come to think of as one minute stories. You can read them whatever your mood, whether you are sitting down or standing up, in fine weather or foul. They make good reading even on a crowded bus. Most can even be enjoyed on a walk.
Do pay attention to the titles, though. The author strove for brevity, which put a special burden of responsibility on him when choosing the titles for his stories, of which they form an organic part.
Do not stop at the titles, though! First the title, then the story. It’s is the only proper manner of handling.
Attention! If something is not clear to you, reread the story is question. If it is still not clear to you, dump the story, the fault lies with the author. There are no dim-witted readers, only badly written one-minute stories.”
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