Comments on: thinking about “flash fiction”

By: Rawbbie

Rawbbie — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 21:01:58 +0000

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….

By: Rawbbie

Rawbbie — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 21:01:00 +0000

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….

By: 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

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 16:47:25 +0000

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

By: Joseph Young

Joseph Young — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 00:13:03 +0000

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.

By: Joseph Young

Joseph Young — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 00:13:00 +0000

By: Joseph Young

Joseph Young — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 00:02:24 +0000

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

By: Joseph Young

Joseph Young — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 00:02:00 +0000

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

By: Michael James

Michael James — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 23:35:24 +0000

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.

By: Michael James

Michael James — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 23:35:00 +0000

But it’s not poetry.

By: Janey Smith

Janey Smith — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:57:37 +0000

Totally.