Flash Fiction

This week we began to read and discuss works of Flash Fiction. We read selections from MYOD and from the Oncourse resources tab. In class we learned the elements and terminology of flash fiction that differ from poetry. We applied these elements in small groups to an assigned story then gave a presentation to the class. As homework we chose an exercise from one of the Oncourse resources, then wrote a short story.

Flash Fiction is a bit more strange that I'd supposed. I'm intrigued by the idea of jumping into a story at the moment of conflict or action. It strikes me as a simple but elegant style. I like that the stories are short so that if you hate what you've written you haven't invested too much into them and you can just throw them out. I only liked one of the stories out of MYOD, about the book store clerk, because I loved how surprising the ending was! My difficulty with Flash Fiction is that writing is a really difficult and slow process for me. It can take me hours just to write a paragraph. The pressure of capturing the moment, of conveying the intensity of the situation in a really short story is a big hurdle. It is hard to know when to describe and when to just tell. I'm keeping an open mind though. I felt really daunted by poetry and by the end I found things about it that I truly enjoyed so I'm sure that Flash Fiction has it's pearls.

It is interesting to see the similarities and differences between Flash Fiction and Poetry. Robert Olen Butler says the difference between prose poetry and flash fiction is that flash fiction has a central character that yearns (102). Both ask you to use concrete language that convey vivid images to the reader because both are relitively short so you don't have a lot of time for description. Poetry focuses a lot of attention on the line structure which Flash Fiction does not. There is no need in Flash Fiction to worry about rhyming, end stop or syllables.