I am aware of how many excellent writers there are out there writing in flash fiction forms and shorter. And there are many places that publish the best of this work. If I have time this month that may be something I explore here.
As for my own work, whether I am writing very short or a bit longer, I tend to write plot driven pieces when under time pressures and word constraints. A professor in grad school even called me a “plot driven writer.” In that setting, it wasn’t necessarily considered a compliment. lols. But that same professor was quick to point out a strength of my collection of stories that first year: A flash fiction piece of a thousand words.
Fifty-word fiction is pushing the boundaries of “narrative.” Some wouldn’t call these pieces stories. And yet, the best of shorter fiction pieces have dimension, evoke a wider context and an ongoing narrative. Fifty-word pieces aren’t simply one or two sentences of words. And a one thousand flash fiction piece isn’t simply a few paragraphs.
Fifty-word fiction is obviously not longer fiction in terms of what it does, how it reads. For me, personally, having run three prompt-based exercises this past year, I think the 50-word writing experience is mainly useful to the writer. Readers may want “more” though a collection of fifty-word pieces on a theme could prove interesting. Or a collection of fifty-word pieces may become an interesting story or imagistic experiment.
But so far, my opinion of writing short and flashy is that it is a way to generate material; sharpen ideas; build characters, settings, and situations; work on tone and point of view. I don’t treat these pieces as “just exercises,” however. I fully commit to trying to tell a story in only fifty words. Like I said, there are those who do more of it and do it better. Nonetheless, I find it immensely enjoyable.
When I fully commit to story no matter the length and no matter the style—plot oriented or more imagistic—I begin to build a personal wealth from which to draw in later projects, sometimes without consciously realizing it. I think of it as similar to an artist doing sketches or studies.
Here are two Inktober pieces from last year that are more suggestive and imagistic as opposed to plot- driven. One is pretty dark. The other is a bit lighter in tone.
Coat
Lady death’s dark coat is long and ragged, dragging in its train the stillborn, accident deaths, junkies, the weak and infirm, victims of famine, disease, and war, dead bones clinking and clanking, the reek of flesh. Souls are not her purview, only death’s physicality, its inevitability, our commonality with animals.
Swing
On All Hallows’, witches swing on electric currents like ballooning spiders, shifting from place to place, their belongings on their backs – potions, books of spells, cats – riding their besom brooms. At gatherings, the thinning veil and a ritual incantation, a single candle in the night, allows their company with spirits.