My MFA program was pretty traditional. Most classes focused on the fundamentals of storytelling. Had realism not been placed upon so high a pedestal, I think I would have found my voice sooner. I took a novel class that tried to convince me not to write one. A couple of creative nonfiction classes in which I realized my life was blessingly boring. A forms class, though I don’t remember discussing any forms, especially experimental ones, though we must have. I wish there had been more discussion on other ways of constructing narrative. Other than Jamaica Kincaid’s “Girl” I don’t remember reading any flash. In fact, I’m not certain that “Girl” was framed as flash at all.
Flash was not new nor were its writers. After all Sudden Fiction Anthology edited by Robert Shapard and James Thomas was published in 1983 and included stories from Carver, Cheever, Hemingway, and Updike, all of the dudes so revered by my teachers. Flash Fiction: 72 Very Short Stories edited by Tom Hazuka, Denise Thomas, and James Thomas appeared in 1992. And subsequent updates have been made over the years: New Sudden, Flash Fiction Forward, international editions, etc.
But somewhere along the line, things shifted in publishing, online journals became prestigious in their own right, and the flash floodgates opened.
My introduction to flash happened through friends I made at a writing conference just about the time Wigleaf began tallying their Top 50 list. Flash was easier to pass around on social media, and I began noticing it in ways I hadn’t before.
I didn’t consciously set out to write my first flash piece. It began as a bit of therapeutic writing to make sense of a relationship that had ended. Just a sliver of a story written in the corner of a notebook, with an image and a sharp toothed narrator who didn’t really want to sift through backstory. Nor did I. The lack of explanation made it feel all the more raw. I sharpened it some more and sent it out. The rejections came, but so did notes to send more. And then it stuck. Somewhere around the time that my town was being bulldozed by a tornado, I got word it had won a prize. Something about this this little one resonated while my longer pieces still weren’t finding homes.
It gave me confidence to keep writing. To try bite sized stories. More than one, even, about that storm. But mostly, it taught me to write lean. Even when I begin with flash in mind, they almost always exceed 1000 words. I have to whittle them down, worry every word.
Writing flash has made me a better writer. I’ve learned to let go of words that I don’t need. Of images that miss the mark. Of endings that don’t stick.
I have a tendency to write more than I need. To write competing metaphors. In flash, there is no room for that. The action happens quickly, and with a bang. Each image must be sharp. There can be no tangents, no spots that drag. Characterization, backstory, dialogue: these are limited to a line or two. Everything must earn its word count.
And I like the challenge of it. That eternal question: can I make this work? Can it lose a hundred words? What about a hundred more?