Introduction to Short Shorts (Week 6)

We started reading flash fiction or short shorts this week. Fictional stories are very similar to poems in that they use concrete language and are somewhat out of the realm of normal everyday writing or speech. For example, in Making Your Own Days, the short short titled “A Supermarket in California” poet Allen Ginsberg writes, “We will walk all night through solitary streets? The trees add shade to shade, lights out in the houses, we’ll both be lonely,” (293). This is an example of concrete language similar to what a story may have in it, yet the second sentence seems to be out of the realm of how people would normally write or think and instead how people would read or write poetry. In addition to this, with short shorts there is usually one or more use of the following: foreshadowing, allusions, irony, a setting, characterization, conflict, and a certain point of view.

This week’s readings sparked me to begin thinking about the kind of short shorts I may want to write. All of the readings that we did in class and the ones outside of class had very interesting and a wide variety of topics, setting, and themes that helped me start brainstorming.

Right now, I am working on brainstorming some fictional ideas to prepare me for writing a short short for our next homework assignment. I am really enjoying reading this flash fiction and evaluating how I want to approach this new type of way to write poetry. I am excited to start writing in this way and reading other’s work.

In addressing inspiration, reading other people’s work really induces inspiration and thoughts. By reading different varieties and ways to write a flash fiction short short, inspires and leads us through their example. I like that we read different types of short shorts because it opens the mind to all the sorts of possibilities one has to writing and that is very inspirational. I am beginning to really put together that are a variety of ways to get your point and emotions across through more creative/ non-standard ways of writing. This class is expanding my writing on so many levels.