FlashFiction.Net

On Friday, February 12, I talked about "The Nuts & Bolts of Flash Narrative" at Flash Fiction Chronicles. There I wrote the following:

In short, I need to make the reader think there's a reason for this narrative to exist. And, if it's flash, I need to figure out how to meet the demands of compression so that the story doesn't feel like a shortened form of the short story, so that it feels like something else, like a flash.

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That idea of a reader's need for purpose--for the reader to get an answer to "Why am I being told this now?"--is something featured (a lot) in Gerald Graff's and Cathy Birkenstein's "They Say / I Say": The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing. In talking about "the centrality of 'they say / I say," the authors discuss their core belief:

The central rhetorical move [in academic writing] is the 'they say / say' template...In our view, this template represents the deep, underlying structure, the DNA as it were, of all effective argument. Effective persuasive writers do more than make well-supported claims ("I say"); they also map those claims relative to the claims of others ("they say"). (xix)

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In other words, as Graff and Birkstein make clear, the writer's response to the  "they say" argument gives academic writing its reason for existing. That "they say" argument exists as a standard view or as one's own internalized view, as something implied or assumed, as an ongoing debate, or as the views of an author or authors, whose opinions carry some weight within that conversation (221-223). To respond to that argument, the "I" can introduce the "they say" argument, explain it, disagree with reasons; agree, with a difference; agree and disagree; and so on (225-226). Something in the "they say" argument compels the writer to respond, thus giving both the writer and the reader that sense of charged, urgency and meaning: I am writing this because this "they say" cannot go on unanswered.

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So what exists as the "they say" argument in flash writing? They say flash fiction must be a story, can't be a story, doesn't matter; they say every word must count, the ending must have emotional resonance; they say the ending can't be twisty, must be twisty; they say the language must be compressed; they say the title must matter. And so on. It is not inconceivable that part of the reason why someone writes a flash fiction, the desire that drives it into existence, is to respond to the standard view, the implied or assumed view, the "expert's take"--by agreeing with a difference, disagreeing with reasons, or some mix of agreeing and disagreeing.

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It is also conceivable that the "they say" becomes implied in the flash fiction pieces themselves. Part of what drove me to write flash fiction as I did was the sense in the flash fiction I read and read about that flash had to have twist endings. I wanted to write flash that mattered and existed for some other reason, but I did agree partially with the idea of twisting readers' expectations, but I thought that twist should happen from the outset, as part of an ongoing process, and that the flash itself should not lead to that twisted, surprise but to something more emotionally resonant and haunting, something that held up to repeated readings.

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So yes, character's desire and that inciting incident that forces desire to take the form of action answers the reader's question, "Why is this story happening now?" But I think also that the "they say" argument--the stuff people say directly about flash in craft articles, interviews, blogs, and journal guidelines and the stuff they say indirectly through the flash they write, read, and publish--might also be a place where a flash piece might discover its purpose, its reason to be told.

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For further reading, check out FlashFiction.Net's suggested readings of flash fiction and prose poetry collections, anthologies, and craft books, by clicking here.

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