Song of the Day: “Flash’s Theme” by Queen
Hi all! Fantastic flash fiction week continues today with some information I’ve found to address the question, “What is flash fiction?” To put it in simple terms, flash fiction is very brief fiction. It’s safe to say that flash fiction is a story that has a beginning, middle, and end, just as any other story does. The word count is where it gets tricky. Anything under 1,500 words is considered flash fiction. However, it depends on the individual writer. Some writers consider flash fiction to be anything under 700 words. There are publications that only want flash fiction of 100 words or less. It is said that flash fiction originated in 1992 when an anthology with the term in the title was published. Franz Kafka, Ernest Hemingway, Kurt Vonnegut, and Anton Chekhov are all authors who have written flash fiction pieces.
It appears that there is not very much information available on flash fiction, and I can’t seem to get a straight answer. I think it is a form of fiction that at one time, was not very popular, but is now beginning to grow. People have less time these days to sit and read a whole novel. With the always changing influence of modern technology, flash fiction is not a bad way to go. If you’re familiar with Narrative Magazine, you’ll know that they recently introduced the “istory.” It’s a new application created for apple where readers can read a complete story that is under 150 words.
Flash fiction is also sometimes referred to as “micro fiction,” “sudden fiction” or “short short story.” Sudden fiction is considered to be longer than flash fiction and micro fiction is considered to be shorter. A thousand words seems to be the cut off between flash fiction and sudden fiction.
In my opinion, flash fiction is still evolving and so far, I like what I see.
