365 tomorrows

An exerpt from ‘What is Flash Fiction?’, by Kathy Kachelries

“The most concise and widely-cited example of flash fiction is the story Ernest Hemingway penned, allegedly to settle a bar bet: “For sale: baby shoes. Never worn.” Despite the limitations of its length, this story, framed as an advertisement, satisfies all of the requirements of a short story: protagonist, conflict, and resolution. A reader imagines the person who wrote the ad: a parent torn apart by the loss of a stillborn or miscarried child. The reader senses the conflict: an incomprehensible feeling of loss, made all the more poignant by the fact that it is not directly addressed. Even the resolution is contained within that six-word masterpiece. By framing it as an advertisement, Hemingway allows us to see the protagonist’s coping mechanism: an attempt to distance him or herself from the loss by selling the only physical evidence that such a loss exists.

Not all short prose is flash fiction. Unlike the vignette or the prose poem, flash fiction adheres to the same conventions as a short story or novel. As demonstrated above, flash fiction gives readers a protagonist and a central conflict, and directs them to a resolution. Due to the constraints of the form, some elements can be implied rather than expressly stated, but a story that begins in media res still holds the shape of its unwritten beginning.

Flash fiction is fiction with its teeth bared and its claws extended, lithe and muscular with no extra fat. It pounces in the first paragraph, and if those claws aren’t embedded in the reader by the start of the second, the story began a paragraph too soon. There is no margin for error. Every word must be essential, and if it isn’t essential, it must be eliminated.

A busy reader may resist a lengthy story and return to their budgets and spreadsheets, but at 600 words or less, flash fiction requires less time than a trip to the water cooler. The writing has been acid-scorched and only the essential remains: without the inconvenience of length, the reader will follow a story to the final paragraph.

Although a vignette would have offered a thought-provoking snapshot, a reader hungers more than a thought exercise. For longer than written language has existed, the human psyche has ached for narrative. Storytellers were once considered indispensable members of society. The art hasn’t changed. The need hasn’t changed. Why have we allowed ourselves to become a luxury? The answer is simple: we’ve been satisfied to have an audience, regardless of whether or not that audience needs us. For the last decade, we’ve been preaching to the choir.

Fiction is both needed and desired in our modern society, though the people who need it the most don’t have the time to flip through a handful of novels per month. With flash fiction, we can fit a story into that small, stolen moment. As the creator of the flash fiction site 365tomorrows.com, I’ve received dozens of emails from people thankful to have something to read on their PDAs in the quiet moments before meetings begin. I’ve communicated with waitresses who print out our stories to flip through in the lulls before their first tables arrive. I’ve spoken with tow truck drivers, emergency room interns, and dozens of other people who consider themselves too busy to undertake a novel, and the message is universal: people want to read. Our job, as artists and storytellers, is to make reading as accessible as possible.”