What Is Flash Fiction
Big Impact, Few Words
Flash fiction is a very short story. While there is no set word count, flash fiction stories are usually less than 1000 words and can be as short as a few words like this one which is sometimes attributed to Ernest Hemingway: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”
Flash fiction dates back to the time of fables and parables and has appeared in many languages. People have always recognized that a brief story makes a large impact and convey deep truths. Aesop’s Fables are a great example.
Authors, speakers, and marketers realize the power of saying less. “If I Had More Time, I Would Have Written a Shorter Letter” is an infamous quote that highlights the importance of brevity and editing in writing. It’s been around for nearly 400 years.
The earliest recorded use of the quote “If I Had More Time, I Would Have Written a Shorter Letter” is 1657. It is from Lettres Provinciales by French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal. Written in French, it translates to “I have made this longer than usual because I have not had time to make it shorter.”
In 1690, philosopher John Locke said in the preface to his work An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. The preface makes this explanation for the length of the essay:”I will not deny, but possibly it might be reduced to a narrower Compass […] But to confess the Truth, I am now too lazy, or too busy to make it shorter.”
In 1750, Benjamin Franklin wrote the quote in a letter to the Royal Society in London regarding his experiments on electricity entitled New Experiments and Observations on Electricity Made at Philadelphia in America: “I have already made this paper too long, for which I must crave pardon, not having now time to make it shorter.”
In 1857, author Henry David Thoreau in a letter to a friend said, “Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.”
In 1871, Mark Twain wrote, “You’ll have to excuse my lengthiness–the reason I dread writing letters is because I am so apt to get to slinging wisdom & forget to let up. Thus much precious time is lost.”
Nearly 50 years later, in 1919, President Woodrow Wilson responded to a question about how long he spent preparing speeches: ”That depends on the length of the speech. If it is a ten-minute speech it takes me all of two weeks to prepare it; if it is a half-hour speech it takes me a week; if I can talk as long as I want to it requires no preparation at all. I am ready now.”3 Characteristics of Flash Fiction
- Brevity. Flash fiction compresses an entire story into the space of a few paragraphs or even a few words.
- A complete plot. A flash fiction story is a story, with a beginning, middle, and end even if they are only implied. For example, the famous six-word story, “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” tells a story of a child who died, and whose parents are selling his unworn clothes. This sets it apart from a prose poem or vignette, which can explore an emotion, memory, or thought without a plot.
- The aim is to lead the reader to think about the true meaning of the story.
Flash fiction is the ultimate result of Stephen Kings advise, “Remove everything that is not part of the story.”
