Flash Fiction............

This week we continued our journey with Flash Fiction. We read two essays with acompanying stories from oncourse and we read a number of selections from our Indiana Review books including Moore, Romba, Griner, Guerra and Doyle. In class we made ink blots from which we wrote 10 descriptive images that came to mind then a short story using 5 of the images. As homework we were to write a 500ish word story using surprising and fresh images.

I can appreciate the fascination with flash fiction as it is a way to tell a really powerful story in a short vivid burst of language. The concept might not seem like much at first, but I really admire the ability to write good flash fiction. It definitely requires a mastry of language and the ability to see and describe things as something different. You have to give people that lightbulb moment of understanding and delight. I enjoyed several of the selections from this weeks readings very much. Romba and the cockroaches was strange and entertaining. My favorite flash fiction story was Mine by Szilvia Molnar. It was just powerful and concise. It said what it needed to say and nothing more. I'm intimidated by writing this flash fiction of great language and vivid important images. It seems like the best way to begin is to write out a story and then to edit it down with better images and descriptions and to take out all of the nonessential stuff.

In class we did an exercise where we wrote a story as a group which really got me thinking; I wonder why more people don't write things as a group? It was a process that really seemed to play to each of our strong points. I'm great at ideas but slow with the actual writing. I struggle with wanting the story to be perfect as it comes out. But one of my partners was amazing with the writing part and the language just flew out of her! Meanwhile our other partner was great with details and gave really useful ideas on how to bring forth images that supported our storyline. As a group we were able to pick up where the other person left off and write something good in just a few minutes. It seems that there is nothing new under the sun and this is something that's been tried before. I'm sure that ego's and conflicting desires might get in the way if we tried to write a longer story in this manner but I still like the idea.