FlashFiction.Net

Brandi Wells has writing forthcoming from McSweeney's, Improbable Object, Apt, SmokeLong Quarterly, and Bust down the door and eat all the chickens. She has a chapbook forthcoming as part the chapbook collective Fox Force 5, which is being released by Paper Hero Press. She blogs at http://brandiwells.blogspot.com/ .

Below is the complete, unadulterated text of the interview with Flash Fiction Writer Brandi Wells.

FFNet: As a writer of a lot of very short fiction, what's your one sentence definition of flash fiction?

I’m really bad at labeling writing as flash fiction or short story or novella or novel. Someone else can do that.

FFNet: What drew you to flash as opposed to longer work?

The creative writing classes I took as an undergraduate required a maximum length of five pages, double spaced, in a courier font. The professor figured it was best to start small. Otherwise you have to listen to some girl’s story about her pet goldfish and it’s 5000 words and you want to go to her house and kill her damn goldfish. Start small and get bigger, right? If I’m not boring in 500 words, maybe I can be not boring 1500 and then not boring in 5000.

FFNet: How does your flash work influence your longer work?

They’re the same thing. I sometimes have trouble deciding if something ought to be 20 different flash fictions or if it’s one longer story.

FFNet: Describe your writing process. How do you generate ideas?

I write things on my hands. Constantly, there are things on my hands. And then I wake up and those ideas are on my face. I sit at my computer and bite my toenails in between typing. Sometimes the dog whines and I let him sit in my lap while I’m writing.

FFNet: Are there any writers who are major influences on your work? Who?

Right now I really like Blake Butler, Michael Kimball, Brian Evenson, Shane Jones, Matt Bell, Miranda July, Aimee Bender, Amanda Davis, Lorrie Moore and Cormac McCarthy.

FFNet: How do you go about generating a narrative structure in such short pieces? Is generating a definitive narrative structure important to you?

No. It isn’t. It’s not something I think about. I mean, after something’s written I look at it and think, “Is that interesting?” and “Am I saying enough there?” But I don’t think about it up front. I just write. I like lists. I like things that are fragmented. I like things that bust the hell out of narrative structure, but really it’s all still narrative. By definition.

FFNet: You've been published widely, and you're now in the grad school application process, how do you think formalized study will aid your flash process? What about the perception that it stunts creativity?

To be honest, I’m leaning away from shorter things right now. It’s not that I don’t appreciate flash fiction, but I’d like something with more invested. I’m hardly ‘published widely.’ I have a list at least 200 places that I’d love to publish me. And fuck anyone that says grad school stunts creativity. How is giving me money and time to write going to stunt my creativity? Please, stunt me.

FFNet: Do you think flash is a confining or liberating story medium?

It’s probably both. I mean, you can skip a lot and “tell” more in flash and it’s okay. That’s liberating. But in such a short amount of space there are things you can’t do.

FFNet: Do you consider flash fiction pieces full blown "stories?" Which one (or two or three) of your flash pieces would you say most embody your vision of flash?

The shorter it is, the more carefully it ought to be written. I think a flash fiction piece can certainly be a full blown story. It can also be someone’s gimped up lazy version of a story.

I have a flash fiction at elimae that’s actually part of a much longer story that I wrote. I think it stands well on its own though.

FFNet: Are you working on anything now that you'd like to let folks know about?

I’m working on a series of letters or notes from a landlord to tenants, owners, etc. I’m the landlord at a property management group that caters to college students and very poor families, so it’s a natural thing to write about. Some of the letters are published or forthcoming at McSweeney’s, Shoots and Vines, LitNimage, Improbable Object and The Legendary. I’d like it if someone wanted to publish them all bound together.

FFNet: You're part of a chapbook that's coming out soon? How did you pick what went into it? What was that process like?

The thing I have in the chapbook is actually just one story that’s a bit fragmented. Barry emailed me and asked if I had anything and I sent him the story I’d been working on. Everyone else’s section is flash fictions. I don’t think I have a group of flash fictions that fit together well or would read well together.

FFNet: Any advice on flash writing or anything else?

When you’re making blueberry pancakes, be careful not to bust the blueberries or your pancakes are going to look stupid.