Show #4: Flash Fiction

The show started with a poignant story from Anna Lunk, Dragons, inspired in part by her holidays in France. The story touches on many themes, as a daughter who cares for her ageing and widowed father approaches a moment that is sure to change her life.

I am sure many of you know Anna as an excellent creative writing tutor. Anna is currently seeking a publisher for her novella Flight, and is currently working on a novel about a lost garden on the welsh borders.

Many of you may also know that one of our regular readers, Chris Waters, is also a superb tutor who, like Anna, has been a mentor and inspiration to many, including myself. It would be nice if this show could be a point of meeting for writers and tutors and writing groups. If you are a tutor with details of courses, a writing group looking for members, or a potential student, please don’t hesitate to contact the show, either through the blog or privately on submissions@soundartradio.com and I will endeavour to bring everyone together.

Flash Fiction

I talked on the show about flash fiction. It would be great to broadcast more short short stories. I have a few submissions that fit this description but it would be nice to have the occasional show devoted to this shortest form, maybe broadcast five or six stories in a single episode.

So, what is flash fiction?

Well in short, it’s short. Really short. One definition of a standard short story is that it is a piece that can be read in a single sitting. Flash fiction is something that can be read between blinks of an eye.

Despite the current flowering of flash stories, it is by no means a new category. Hemingway was famous for his brevity, as was Raymond Carver. Borges wrote many stunning short shorts. We can go back further. Miniature stories were all the rage in 16th century China and I think old Aesop would make a claim for his fables as a foundation stone for the form.

Anyway, the new demand for the shortest stuff sparks the need to define, in terms of word count, what constitutes flash fiction. Some collections allow up to 1,500 words, some reduce it to 250 words, which is the current limit in the Bridport Prize’s flash fiction section, or even less.

Obviously these specific word limits are pretty fluid and meaningless, at least until you come up against a publisher or a competition that demands these constraints be met. For the purposes of Soundart Stories I’m hitting the middle ground and asking for pieces up to the 750 word mark for the flash fiction broadcasts. This is the target length for the stories that appeared in the influential 1992 Flash Fiction compilation and I see no reason to change it.

So, what are the secrets of writing flash fiction?

Precision and concision, basically. It’s a short piece, so you need to make every word count, and to get to the heart of the matter without too much messing about. There is no time for multiple, detailed scenes and an extensive back story for each of the characters. If you are writing a straightforward narrative, think of a single scene or moment that encapsulates the story, start in the middle of the action and go from there.

So far, so obvious.

There are common forms of flash fiction – the anecdote, the fable, the fairy tale and the story with the surprise twist at the end. Straightforward stories, perfectly pleasant, but often pretty forgettable. The truth is that this shortest form of fiction can aim for the same depth of emotional impact and connection with the reader as a longer piece.

You would not dismiss a poem as trivial because it was short. The same applies here. It is true you are limited to a few lines, so this is when you have to make the spaces between the lines do so much of the work. The best flash fiction connects through implication and suggestion. What is not said is as important as what is. Just give the readers enough information to get the hooks in, then let them run with the lines themselves. Let the reader tease out meaning by inhabiting the characters and the moment, seeing things through their eyes.

Try this for size. Hemingway claims it as his shortest ever complete piece. You could argue over whether or not this six word sentence constitutes an actual story, but even if it has no beginning, middle and end, it certainly creates a great deal by implication. Here it is:

For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

So many potential stories planted there in the reader’s mind, probably more than Hemingway envisaged, a different shade of story for each reader, the power of implication.

Precision, efficiency, economy of language. Are these techniques particular to flash fiction? I don’t think so. To start in the middle of the action, to make every word count, to engage the reader by making them work a bit, by not serving out all the information on a plate – this is as relevant for the novel, the novella and the longer short story as it is for the very short story. The beauty of flash is that it forces the writer to engage with these techniques, making them a perfect exercise, even if the stories are not destined for a wider audience.

Of course you can set out to deliberately write a flash story from scratch, that central scene with the telling yet enigmatic detail. But, if you’re anything like me, you will have quite a few old and dusty and mediocre short stories lying about that never really got anywhere. Have another look at them, think about converting them to a flash piece. It might seem impossible, cutting a three or four thousand word story down to 750 words or less. Believe me, it isn’t. And I can almost guarantee that if you succeed, the story will be much the better for it.

Before you get too carried away with the red pen, look at the story again and ask a few questions. What is it’s key scene? What actually happens? What is it about? How much information does the reader really need to make it work? Keep that scene and cut everything else. If there’s a paragraph of setting, make it a sentence; the same with dialogue. If there’s any description of a character’s background, get rid and replace it with a single telling action that reveals a nugget of personality. If there are any characters who are not crucial, really crucial to the story, make them disappear. Adverbs, unnecessary adjectives, sentences where you’re telling the reader what to think. Slice a big red line through them all. Be brutal, be savage, and trust the process. You might end up amazed.

And one last thing, don’t feel that flash fiction is some sort of constraining form with a specific formula for success. As Leonardo da Vinci said: “Art breathes from containment.” You might be limited by word count, but that’s all. You can be as wild and experimental as you like. In fact, flash fiction lends itself to the more out there prose styles that might not hold up in a longer form. Stream of consciousness, prose poetry, dream-states, rants, extended lists. You can do what you want, be brave and true!

A few titles that might be of use if you want to pursue this - no better way to learn than to read the good stuff:

Flash Fiction: James Thomas, Denise Thomas & Tom Hazuka (eds) (1992. Norton)
One of the early compilations in the current wave of interest.
ditto
Sudden Fiction International: Robert Shapard & James Thomas (eds) (1989: Norton)
Another great compilation drawn from around the world, including several classics from master storytellers.

A useful textbook I looked at was Short Circuit, A Guide to the Art of the Short Story, ed. Vanessa Gebbie (2009. Salt Publishing). This has a couple of chapters devoted to Flash fiction.

Anyway, the response to show continues to be excellent, lots of stories coming in. Keep firing them at me and think about those really short ones.

Looking forward to the next show on March 22