Flash Fiction
by Russ Heitz
More than just another “flash in the pan,” the genre of flash fiction seems to be growing by leaps and bounds. A new Internet e-zine devoted to this genre seems to pop up almost every day. But what exactly is flash fiction?
Good question. The most common definition is “anything less than a thousand words.” But some sites will go as high as fifteen hundred words. Other sites have very weird words limits: like 67 words, 123 words, 214 words, etc. And that’s precisely what they mean. The want a complete story—beginning, middle, and end—in exactly 67 words, or exactly 123 words, and so forth.
For us old timers, flash fiction stories used to have another name. They were called short-short stories. Short-shorts, too, had a word limit of somewhere between one thousand and fifteen hundred, depending on the magazine.
There are also flash fiction sites that are very specialized in their subject matter. Some are devoted to science fiction. Some to mysteries. Some to Christian or other religious topics. Some lean toward literary ideas. Others step lightly along the razor edge of porn, and many fall over that edge on a regular basis.
Why the sudden interest in flash fiction? Chalk it up to our modern society’s obsession with speed, speed, speed ! Today, very few people have the patience to read a seven thousand words short story. If they can’t read a story or article in five minutes or less, many people now move on to something else.
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Texting is another example of what direction our society is moving in. Forget about spelling rules. Forget about vocabulary. Forget about everything except getting your message across with the least amount of effort and the least amount of letters. Twittering carries that trend even further.
Is this emphasis on speed, impatience, and improvised spelling a good thing? Probably not. Especially from the point of view of a writer who savors words and meanings and thought-provoking ideas. But whether we agree with the direction or not, it seems to be the one in which society is moving.
Words, meanings, and thought-provoking ideas, however, have not become extinct. Yet. So I guess a good goal for us writers would be to try to insert each of those things—words, meanings, and thought-provoking ideas—into all of our writings, no matter what their length.
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Russ lives in Sarasota, Florida with his wife. He is a graduated from Temple University in Philadelphia with a degree in psychology and has been writing most of his life. His new suspense novel, "Crosshairs", is available through all the major bookstore chains in the US and UK, as well as on Amazon. Russ's website: www.russheitz.com |
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