Week 6: Flash Fiction

This week we began our venture into fiction writing by reading several flash fiction pieces. We then identified different parts of story writing elements in them and presented those to the class. Over all I found this a helpful exercise because it forced us to talk and debate over which parts were which.

My favorite piece we read this week was "Dismantling the City" by Hilary Leichter. I think I enjoyed this piece so much because it took the idea of trying to get over the loss of a child and moved into the idea with fresh and inventive attitude. Instead of just outright discussing what the parents were going through and what they were attempting. They start taking down parts of the city that remind them of their lost child. Packing up a toy store, a concert hall (their son tried to play clarinet), the subway (where their son thought there were monsters living), etc. It created such a grand imagery that merely describing the actual situation couldn't have met.

This week I learned that there is whole new kind of fiction. I have read short stories before, but I didn't know that there were such things as these "short-shorts". They are a whole different beast of story telling as you only have two or three pages to do so many things in a stroy. I'm excited to start trying my hand at them.