FlashFiction.Net

One group of writers I dearly admire is comic books writers. I think these guys tend to get a bad wrap for writing superheroes. I know I used to treat them this way. I started reading them as a guilty pleasure a few years back and when my college offered a graphic novel course, I thought, “Sweet! Easy A, here I come.” And it turned out to be one of the hardest writing courses of my career. I learned a lot in that course—pacing, describing things in very few words—things very similar to flash, and was introduced to a huge variety of fiction I was not even aware of. And, oh yes, there is graphic flash fiction. Stay tuned for GraphicFlashFiction.Net (just kidding).

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I thought it would be an interesting job to work for DC or Marvel, writing a series. And as I looked at the writers I admired (and still do) I started to think…how the hell do they come up with stories month after month, year after year? One writer, Chris Claremont, wrote for the X-Men series for seventeen years and is still writing comics. How do they generate so many stories? I thought, “What if I actually did start writing a series and the well ran dry?” That then led to the thought, “What if my well runs dry period?” Comics, novels, poems—what would I do if I woke up and couldn’t think of a single creative thought? Sure, not every idea is going to be a great idea, but at least it’s something, right? A bad story is better than no story at all. Some mediums don’t have to worry as much as the others. Novelists and film directors can have a few years between each project. Poets…poets can live in whatever world they want. But I think there is more demand on the flash fiction and comic book writer to always have something new, one right after the next. Both genres have one big thing in common: NOW!

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NOW! Like a single issue of a comic book, flash fiction can be read in one sitting and at more leisure than a novel or even a longer short story.  And there is probably even more pressure on the flash writer than the comic book writer because after you read a comic, to get another one (legally) by the same author, you might have to get up and go to a store to do so. For flash, you can Google that author and see everything he’s ever posted on any online journal, which flash is becoming the king of. So, a person reads my ONE flash fiction published so far, says (hopefully) “that’s cool,” searches my name and finds…zilch (for now). Maybe he or she will search every so often, but what if I truly have nothing more to write? What if the well runs dry?

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I was worrying about this when I started my flash fiction course, and it began to appear that almost every week we would have to produce a new story. Not to mention my other courses that demand creative output. I can honestly say that I began this semester with only one story in mind—my thesis—that I have been working on since June, so that doesn’t count. So, for this flash course, we’ve had to write three stories so far in five weeks. I haven’t missed a week yet, and for my other class (my own independent study on the graphic novel) I’ve come up with stories to tell. And sure, I still feel sometimes that the well is running dry, but every time I think it’s empty and toss the bucket down, something still comes up (sometimes it’s a bit muddy though).

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But then there’s this other thing about the well—what if you fall in? What if you can’t get out? Surrounded by too many stories, so many that you can’t write fast enough to hold onto them?  Don’t ask me. I haven’t figured that out yet.

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About the Author

Roman Colombo is an MFA student at Rosemont College and received his bachelor's degree in English-Creative Writing from the University of South Florida in 2008. He tries to write in as many genres as possible but loves prose, stage, and graphic novel the most. He has completed one novella, Trading Saints for Sinners (which can be found in the USF library), a Noir-play, Tampa Burning, and is now working on a military heist novel called Izzy's War as well as three graphic novels. He is exhausted.