Blink Fiction

 

Some time ago, a non-writer friend asked me about the term flash fiction. Specifically, how long or short does it have to be? I gave her what I suppose is the most generally-accepted answer: 1000 words or less. Some say 1500, some say 500--but I know 1000 is the upper limit for the flash category of the Derringer Awards, given annually by the Short Mystery Fiction Society.

I also told her that stories of that length aren't only common--they're popular. Their brevity is the very reason many readers like them. Marketingwise, there are some publications, like Woman's World, that use only flash stories, and most magazines that publish "regular" short fiction will also consider them. I can remember when submission guidelines for even the big publications usually said "also publishes short shorts," which is what flash fiction was once called.

But what if stories are very, very short? One of my published stories--"Tourist Trap," which was probably more fun to write than any other I can remember--was 400 words. If you want to read that story (it takes about a minute and a half), it's posted here. And a place called Punk Noir published a story of mine called "Retirement Plan" a few months ago that was exactly 200 words, here. What, you might ask, are those called? Short-short-short stories? Blink stories?

If you really want blink fiction, consider the following. (I think I've written about this before, either here or at Criminal Brief.) Here's the background:

I once saw a submission call for what I thought was a cool fiction contest. They wanted 26-word stories, and every word in the story had to start with a different letter of the alphabet, in order. There was only one gimme: The letter X, thankfully, could be considered Ex. I should mention, here, that I usually hate contests, and I never enter them--but this one had no entry fee and was super intriguing, so why not? By way of practice, I wrote seven different alphabetized 26-worders, which I fully realize were not examples of fine literature. If you need proof of that, here are four of those seven attempts:

1. Alameda Books Corporation. Dear Editor: Findings gathered here include John Kennedy's lost manuscript. No other publishers quickly responded, so this unsubmitted volume will Xcite you. Zimmerman. 

2. All Balkan country doctors exhibit friendliness, generosity, helpful inclinations, jovial kindness, likability, modest nature. Oddly, physicians quite rarely seem to understand video work. Xample: Yuri Zhivago. 

3. A British chemist detected evidence featuring green horses, indigo jackasses, khaki-like mules, nags occasionally painted quirky red shades. Therefore, unbiased veterinarians will Xamine yellow Zebras.

4. A baboon cage, discovered empty. Facility gurus hired investigator JoNell Kendrix. "Lost monkeys," Nell observed. "Possible quick reasons: sabotage, theft, utter villainy. Who, Xactly? You, zookeeper!" 

You might've decided by now a baboon cage is where I belong--but I did warn you. Equally silly is the story I finally decided to submit to the contest--I titled it "Mission Ambushable." But--picture Professor Brown screaming "Great Scott!"--it actually won. The prize was a $30 Amazon gift card, which I used about thirty seconds after they gave it to me. For what it's worth, here's that story:

Assassin Bob Carter deftly eased forward, gun hidden in jacket, keeping low, making not one peep. Quietly Robert said, to unaware victim: "Welcome. Expected you." ZAP.

Okay, enough of that. I've given you examples of some very short stories, but . . . What? You want something even shorter? How about six words?

A few years ago I found out about a competition for six-word stories inspired by this famous little ditty: For sale: baby shoes, never worn. That was supposedly written by Hemingway, but Wikipedia says it first appeared in 1906, when Papa Ernest was seven years old, so don't believe everything you're told on the Internet. Nobody knows who came up with it. 

Long story short, I once again broke my no-contests rule. The six-worder I submitted was titled "Radio Silence":

Entering Bermuda Triangle. No problems whatsoev-- 

Alas, that masterpiece won nothing. I never even got a response from the contest people. I choose to believe that either (1) my submission fell behind the refrigerator or (2) they published my story someplace far away, to wide acclaim.

Here are a few other six-word stories, from Quirk Books. All of them are better than mine:

Ever early, he died too soon.

For sale: writer's notebook. Never opened.

Revolutions existed long before the wheel.

Clown nose broken. It's not funny.

And, to sum up this discussion of six-word stories, consider this one, which I did write:

Get real. These aren't really stories.

So. Here are my questions for you. What do you think of flash, and even subflash, fiction? Have you ever tried writing it? Any successes? (I recall my buddy Josh Pachter winning a Derringer for a flash story a couple of years ago.) Any interesting rejections? Do you think writing them is hard? Fun? A waste of time? Do you like to read very short stories? What do you think the upper flash limit, in word count, should be? Have you ever written a flash story and then turned it into something longer?

It occurs to me that there's been nothing flash about the length of this post--so I'll fix that right now.

See you next Saturday.