When I did a creative writing course, we had these sessions where we were supposed to critique each others’ work. It may be memory, but I have this impression that the average work, when not poetry, was around 3,000 words. That’s about 10 to 12 pages, double-spaced lines, top third of the first page with writer details then the title, by-line and a couple of lines to the actual start.

Mine were, almost invariably, less than 1000 words (four to five formatted pages) in length. Oh, the critiques were glowing – never any groans about lack of completeness, nice comments on dialogue, setting and so on. But always, this added barb: “too short”.

Was my work “flash fiction”, although the term did not come into use until long after?

We can all tell/write a story with a low word count. Frederic Brown was noted for telling short-shorts that were often under 100 words, but few of them are “flash fiction”.

A short-short can be very complete. With practice, anyone can get the full “Story = Conflict + Action + Resolution” effect in a low-word-count piece. But these are short short stories, and not “flash fiction”.

What makes flash fiction?

Few people have not heard the Hemmingway six-worder (For Sale: Baby Shoes; Never Used”). One thing this is NOT is a short short story! There’s no obvious conflict, action or resolution in the words themselves. Yet the combination can evoke lots of emotion.

Flash fiction does not become a story until it is read (or heard). It is the reader’s mind that puts in the characters, the conflict, the action, the resolution. It’s rather like some of the food mixes. The cook (reader) just adds the necessary ingredients: Hamburger Helper – add the minced meat for a pasta meal; Maggi’s cook-in-the-pot meals – add the wine, meat, vegetables for a gourmet result.

Flash fiction is related to jokes: the joke is not there until one hears that last set of words. The rest of the joke, however long, is a set-up for delivering that punch line. Then the hearer/reader either “gets it” or not.

Take a look at any good flash fiction piece. You’ll find that it works in exactly that way: there is very little real reader reaction, until the final revelation, and then the message comes across, making the set-up a full blown story in the reader’s mind.

The difference between flash fiction and jokes is that jokes are intended to generate laughter, while flash fiction can use any emotion, including laughter.

The next time you read a short piece, try using the “punch-line” idea as your measure. Does the last image/set of words “explode” in your mind, making all the words that came in the set-up change to a message instead of exposition/description? If it does, then it is flash fiction.

If not, it might be a very good short short, but it is NOT flash fiction!

Want to comment on this Blogs? Sign up to Edit Red and you will be able to comment on Blogs and get access to: Upload your own stories and poems, get readers and their feedback, promote your work...