August 13th, 2009 / 1:12 am
Craft Notes

thinking about “flash fiction”

is there any definable characteristic that separates what is called “flash fiction” from what is called “short story” or “novella” or “novel.”

i read this story and wondered that.

i don’t know if i really have an answer myself.  it seems like quantity is the only clear division but that makes me wonder about differences in novel length, those of course exceeding the difference between “flash fiction” and “short story” length fiction, additionally the “novella.”

the only way to say yes to the first question is to provide a definable characteristic that resides in flash length pieces solely, or vice versa but i can’t think of any.  it would have to take length into account for definition or negation of that characteristic.

which makes me think about categories.

which makes me think of always approaching something with something else prefigured if you think you understand a category.

which makes me think almost every discussion of things is endlessly flawed because it relies more on a dual misunderstanding of a category rather than personal facts.

i just thought about “time spent with characters and/or ideas” as a qualifier that might differentiate them.  but that is untrue if the length of something and its effects with character/idea/language  is meted out in smaller sections.  meaning each flash length piece of the longer work could be held accountable for a certain duty in creating the overall effect (with indifference to the overall effect as anything other than something that definitely happens in an indefinite way).  so a longer writing, even when comparing a sentence to its paragraph conducts some amount of overall power.  this seems true regardless of realistic tendencies or otherwise.

so then i think that maybe the beginning and the end of the piece confer more significance than the length since those two things represent some kind of limits given.  the only context maybe. but then this would apply to all writing that was at least one full word long. so again, length wouldn’t matter.

i guess i just read the story that joseph young wrote and thought about the above.  and then thought that flash fiction is just another way of describing something that doesn’t need to be described.  but i’m probably wrong.  i feel love right now.  i use lower case letters because it’s quicker.  help out other people when you can.

46 Comments

  1. Janey Smith

      You always have to take length into account when someone’s flashing you. Duh.

  2. Janey Smith

      You always have to take length into account when someone’s flashing you. Duh.

  3. Thomas Moore

      I think that I just interpret the difference more as a technical note than anything else, and not as a way to denote anything to do with the quality or power of the work. For me, if something makes me feel – that’s the most important thing.

  4. Thomas Moore

      I think that I just interpret the difference more as a technical note than anything else, and not as a way to denote anything to do with the quality or power of the work. For me, if something makes me feel – that’s the most important thing.

  5. david erlewine

      Well put, Thomas.

      I primarily write flash/micro/short shit now. Some folks (hey dad) insist on calling it prose poetry.

      Many of my short pieces (few hundred words) start much longer and get whittled down.

      I hope Barry weighs in.

      I’m also curious what folks on here think about Twiction (140 characters on Twittah) and Hint Fiction (under 25 words). I struggle to write something meaningful within those constraints but enjoy the challenge, especially when I’m working on a novel. I do cringe reading my older work. Every story was at least 4000 words and full of coughing, wheezing, picking things up and putting them down, and baleful stares.

  6. david erlewine

      Well put, Thomas.

      I primarily write flash/micro/short shit now. Some folks (hey dad) insist on calling it prose poetry.

      Many of my short pieces (few hundred words) start much longer and get whittled down.

      I hope Barry weighs in.

      I’m also curious what folks on here think about Twiction (140 characters on Twittah) and Hint Fiction (under 25 words). I struggle to write something meaningful within those constraints but enjoy the challenge, especially when I’m working on a novel. I do cringe reading my older work. Every story was at least 4000 words and full of coughing, wheezing, picking things up and putting them down, and baleful stares.

  7. Gabriel Orgrease

      the label depends on how far our love will extend at any particular point in time

  8. Gabriel Orgrease

      the label depends on how far our love will extend at any particular point in time

  9. thomas p levy

      what about prose poems that look like short fiction?

  10. thomas p levy

      what about prose poems that look like short fiction?

  11. Elizabeth Creith

      I have no idea what prose poetry is. I don’t see the problem with defining flash by word limit – that’s how other narrative forms are classified (at least one method). I do feel strongly that flash should be narrative, should contain character, setting, conflict, resolution.

      Of course, this is only my opinion. Some have called me hidebound and anal about plot. They are now in unmarked plots of their own.

  12. Elizabeth Creith

      I have no idea what prose poetry is. I don’t see the problem with defining flash by word limit – that’s how other narrative forms are classified (at least one method). I do feel strongly that flash should be narrative, should contain character, setting, conflict, resolution.

      Of course, this is only my opinion. Some have called me hidebound and anal about plot. They are now in unmarked plots of their own.

  13. John Madera

      Here’s an “answer” I gave to a similar question Molly Gaudry raised here:
      http://greencitynews.blogspot.com/2009/03/flash-fiction-indie-lit-and-beats.html

      It’s a tremendous challenge you face regarding defining, compartmentalizing, speculating about, teasing apart, questioning a form that’s reared in, or at any rate, results in a feeling of immediacy, poignancy, intimacy, connection, something that may act like a virus, a germ, that assaults, coerces, teases, a form having, at its best, haiku’s cogency, a stand-up comic’s delivery, the speed of telling the news but not the weather, a form that stings like a slap, purples like a bruise, a form that at its worst sounds like some drunk dude flapping his gums (it sounded funny or clever at the time, but was really just some guy being dumb), a form that because of its democratic impulse, has opened the floodgates for all kinds of detritus, making it all the more difficult to ascertain quality, importance, significance. Maybe time will tell. But then again what tale does time really tell anyway?

      And so now I ramble.

      As for demarcating lines between flash, micro- and short fiction, mini-prose poems, etc., I think it’s critical to consider that while hairsplitting results in two hairs, it also results in one original hair diminished. But then again, who’s to say split-ends don’t have their own kind of beauty? Ah, it’s all pretty hairy anyway.

      So then, disjointedness and confusion is one possible, if not viable, approach.

  14. Joseph Young

      for me, flash fiction–like novel, short story, and villanelle–is intention. you write a flash fiction because you intend to. i know not everybody operates this way.

  15. Joseph Young

      for me, flash fiction–like novel, short story, and villanelle–is intention. you write a flash fiction because you intend to. i know not everybody operates this way.

  16. sasha fletcher

      the same answer i feel can go for a prose poem v flash fiction.
      the poems in the world doesn’t end are prose poems.
      the chapters in between stories in in our time are flash fiction.
      a lot of it is about feel and intention. i’m sure things can be confused. but i’ve been under the impression that the two simply are attempting a different end. that they use the same tools (words in the shape of an unbroken box or paragraph) but that their intentions are different.
      there are all kinds of people who have decided they don’t understand the difference.
      there are also all kinds of people who have decided that they don’t get poetry.
      that’s fine. i spent years saying poetry was bullshit and stupid. by saying i meant believing.
      anyway changing the topic sort of a lot i found this in parade magazine the other day, and thought i’d share it on here
      Q Why are my tax dollars going to pay a poet laureate when nobody reads poetry?—Jeff Kawabata, Omaha, Neb.

      A “It is difficult/to get the news from poems/yet men die miserably every day/for lack/of what is found there,” wrote the great American poet William Carlos Williams. (We hope you’ll look him up!) While it’s true that not many people read poetry, they’d probably get a lot out of it if they gave it a try. The current U.S. Poet Laureate, Californian Kay Ryan, earns all of $35,000. But fret not: Her stipend is funded from a private endowment, not tax revenues.

      whatever.

      also as to the question what about prose poems that look like short fiction:
      a dude that dresses like a lady is still a dude champ. even he’s real pretty and has some nice titties.

  17. sasha fletcher

      the same answer i feel can go for a prose poem v flash fiction.
      the poems in the world doesn’t end are prose poems.
      the chapters in between stories in in our time are flash fiction.
      a lot of it is about feel and intention. i’m sure things can be confused. but i’ve been under the impression that the two simply are attempting a different end. that they use the same tools (words in the shape of an unbroken box or paragraph) but that their intentions are different.
      there are all kinds of people who have decided they don’t understand the difference.
      there are also all kinds of people who have decided that they don’t get poetry.
      that’s fine. i spent years saying poetry was bullshit and stupid. by saying i meant believing.
      anyway changing the topic sort of a lot i found this in parade magazine the other day, and thought i’d share it on here
      Q Why are my tax dollars going to pay a poet laureate when nobody reads poetry?—Jeff Kawabata, Omaha, Neb.

      A “It is difficult/to get the news from poems/yet men die miserably every day/for lack/of what is found there,” wrote the great American poet William Carlos Williams. (We hope you’ll look him up!) While it’s true that not many people read poetry, they’d probably get a lot out of it if they gave it a try. The current U.S. Poet Laureate, Californian Kay Ryan, earns all of $35,000. But fret not: Her stipend is funded from a private endowment, not tax revenues.

      whatever.

      also as to the question what about prose poems that look like short fiction:
      a dude that dresses like a lady is still a dude champ. even he’s real pretty and has some nice titties.

  18. Rawbbie

      prose poem v flash fiction: intentions and concerns. Prose poems are concerned with the same thing all poems primarily concerned with and that is sound rhythm language etc and are using the sentence and grammar as their form of the “line”. Prose poems are often called prose poems by writers that write prose poems. Flash fiction is concerned the same things that fiction is concerned with and that is character plot setting etc.
      I might be and probably am, full of shit…

  19. Rawbbie

      prose poem v flash fiction: intentions and concerns. Prose poems are concerned with the same thing all poems primarily concerned with and that is sound rhythm language etc and are using the sentence and grammar as their form of the “line”. Prose poems are often called prose poems by writers that write prose poems. Flash fiction is concerned the same things that fiction is concerned with and that is character plot setting etc.
      I might be and probably am, full of shit…

  20. david erlewine

      WCW is one of the best. “The Use of Force” is incredible.

      The last paragraph made me think of poor Stevie falling off the stage last week.

  21. david erlewine

      WCW is one of the best. “The Use of Force” is incredible.

      The last paragraph made me think of poor Stevie falling off the stage last week.

  22. david erlewine

      and i mean last paragraph of your post, not “Use of Force”

  23. david erlewine

      and i mean last paragraph of your post, not “Use of Force”

  24. sam pink

      joseph i really liked that piece of yours.

  25. sam pink

      joseph i really liked that piece of yours.

  26. Janey Smith

      For me, it has nothing to do with emotion, or provoking thought. If it doesn’t flash, then it’s not flash fiction. The best flash fiction blinds me for a second. And then I blink its after-image for a few moments before forgetting the whole thing.

  27. Janey Smith

      For me, it has nothing to do with emotion, or provoking thought. If it doesn’t flash, then it’s not flash fiction. The best flash fiction blinds me for a second. And then I blink its after-image for a few moments before forgetting the whole thing.

  28. jereme

      really all of this is moot once some one great uses flash fiction as a form.

      then every one will profess their love of it and how creative it is and etc.

      i don’t understand the concern though. write what you want to write because you want to write.

      writing solely for publication is a fake ass bitch move.

  29. jereme

      really all of this is moot once some one great uses flash fiction as a form.

      then every one will profess their love of it and how creative it is and etc.

      i don’t understand the concern though. write what you want to write because you want to write.

      writing solely for publication is a fake ass bitch move.

  30. Blake Butler

      promises, words.

  31. Blake Butler

      promises, words.

  32. Adam R
  33. Adam R
  34. darby

      but i agree with sam, even if you intend to write something that has a characteristic of flash, if a common characteristic exists, maybe its just a style, what is that characteristic and is it dependent on an arbitrary word count constraint? I’ve always kind of thought, okay people can write flash if its their style and its what they write, but putting word count constraints seems unnecessary w/r/t an artform. its only necessary as a marketing term to let someone know how long its going to take a person to read a thing. But when someone defines ‘flash’ as fiction strictly not allowed to be over 1000 words, I just ask, why?

  35. darby

      but i agree with sam, even if you intend to write something that has a characteristic of flash, if a common characteristic exists, maybe its just a style, what is that characteristic and is it dependent on an arbitrary word count constraint? I’ve always kind of thought, okay people can write flash if its their style and its what they write, but putting word count constraints seems unnecessary w/r/t an artform. its only necessary as a marketing term to let someone know how long its going to take a person to read a thing. But when someone defines ‘flash’ as fiction strictly not allowed to be over 1000 words, I just ask, why?

  36. Janey Smith

      Totally.

  37. Janey Smith

      Totally.

  38. Michael James

      I’ve had a few flash fictions in my life and they’ve left me really feeling good. I mean, they were some hot pieces of flash. But afterward, I realized they were only fleeting. The bad kind of fleet. You know, where you only semi-remember. And even then, you only get a smile. I tend to remember those flashes when its in an orgy, all grouped together and all over each other. Then it kind of sticks out more. Don’t know why. And sometimes the flashes don’t even have to touch each other, sometimes they can be in different rooms, but you hear the sounds and sometimes the motions. Its crazy.

      But it’s not poetry.

      Poetry is the guy in the corner with a pen and a pad on the table next to a camera, with his penis in his hand going at it. Yup. And from time to time we look at him and are reminded how silly we are.

  39. Michael James

      I’ve had a few flash fictions in my life and they’ve left me really feeling good. I mean, they were some hot pieces of flash. But afterward, I realized they were only fleeting. The bad kind of fleet. You know, where you only semi-remember. And even then, you only get a smile. I tend to remember those flashes when its in an orgy, all grouped together and all over each other. Then it kind of sticks out more. Don’t know why. And sometimes the flashes don’t even have to touch each other, sometimes they can be in different rooms, but you hear the sounds and sometimes the motions. Its crazy.

      But it’s not poetry.

      Poetry is the guy in the corner with a pen and a pad on the table next to a camera, with his penis in his hand going at it. Yup. And from time to time we look at him and are reminded how silly we are.

  40. Joseph Young

      thanks, sam. i figured you did, but thanks for saying.

  41. Joseph Young

      thanks, sam. i figured you did, but thanks for saying.

  42. Joseph Young

      if i intend something super short, 50 words, i’m going to write it differently than if i intend to write something longer. maybe i don’t want to define what that difference is (though actually i’ve tried lots of times), and maybe whatever that difference is will be completely different than what it is for another person who writes a 50 word story. so, maybe then there is no common characteristic. still though, i’ve written a flash, or a microfiction, and it is not a short story, or a prose poem. it is different.

  43. Joseph Young

      if i intend something super short, 50 words, i’m going to write it differently than if i intend to write something longer. maybe i don’t want to define what that difference is (though actually i’ve tried lots of times), and maybe whatever that difference is will be completely different than what it is for another person who writes a 50 word story. so, maybe then there is no common characteristic. still though, i’ve written a flash, or a microfiction, and it is not a short story, or a prose poem. it is different.

  44. HTMLGIANT / What We Talk About When We Try To Talk About What To Call The Stuff We Write: Notes Toward an Answer to Sam Pink’s Question from Yesterday

      […] >>is there any definable characteristic that separates what is called “flash fiction” from what is…<< (click thru for Sam’s whole post) […]

  45. Rawbbie

      poets write great novels. Ondaatje, Bolano, Denis Johnson, Hemingway, were all poets first, and I’m sure I could keep going if I wanted to… We don’t all rub it out under the table….

  46. Rawbbie

      poets write great novels. Ondaatje, Bolano, Denis Johnson, Hemingway, were all poets first, and I’m sure I could keep going if I wanted to… We don’t all rub it out under the table….