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Wikipedia has everything you’d ever need to know about anything, including synecdoche. According to Robert Harris, synecdoche “is a form of metaphor in which the part stands for the whole, the whole for a part, the genus for the species, the species for the genus, the material for the thing made, or in short, any portion, section, or main quality for the whole or the thing itself (or vice versa).” Harris gives the following examples:

1. Farmer Jones has two hundred head of cattle and three hired hands.


2. If I had some wheels, I’d put on my best threads and ask for Jane’s hand in marriage.


3. The army included two hundred horse and three hundred foot.


4. It is sure hard to earn a dollar these days.


5. Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. —Genesis 2:7


6. Get in here this instant or I’ll spank your body. [Whole for part—i.e. “body” for “rear end”]


7. Put Beethoven on the turntable and turn up the volume. [Composer substituted for record]


8. A few hundred pounds of twenty dollar bills ought to solve that problem nicely. [Weight for amount]


9. He drew his steel from his scabbard and welcomed all comers. [Material for thing made]


10. Patty’s hobby is exposing film; Harold’s is burning up gasoline in his dune buggy. [Part for whole]


11. Okay team. Get those blades back on the ice. [Part for whole]


12. A major lesson Americans need to learn is that life consists of more than cars and television sets. [Two specific items substituted for the concept of material wealth]


13. Give us this day our daily bread. —Matt. 6:11


14. If you still do not feel well, you’d better call up a sawbones and have him examine you.


15. This program is for the little old lady in Cleveland who cannot afford to pay her heating bill.

In writing flash fiction, I see two key roles synecdoche plays. I’ve written often that flash isn’t wishy-washy, that it’s fearless. I feel that wishy-washiness enters my writing when I use many words (often modifiers, but not always) to do the work of one. For example, I might say “His brown, bushy, wild, strung-out eyebrows.” Synecdoche reminds me to pick the one thing that “stands in” for the whole of it: “His strung-out eyebrows.” I imagine myself writing in this way throughout, in each case picking the perfect one word to represent all the others I’ve left out.

Also, syncedoche plays a role in choosing what I focus upon in flash, what one of the many points along a character’s lifeline to hone in on. I search for the defining moment, the one that renders all the other unnecessary because that moment has the power to represent them all. It’s as if you were asked to pick the one play that defined Michael Jordan’s greatness or the one sentence to define Virginia Woolf’s genius. Again, it feels connected to the search for the one, the representative thing, the one-shot rather than the many.

So, give synecdoche a shot. Imagine you only have one word to define things, one moment to represent the all of it. Imagine this single flash will define you forever as a flash writer. This is it. Your only chance to get it right. No pressure, right? Remember, flash is for the fearless. Imagine you are like Jean-Luc Picard (of Star Trek, The Next Generation), chosen by Q to be representative of the all of humanity. Engage.

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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