Sunday
The question too often asked of flash fiction is "Can you deliver a story in so few words?" It's an okay question, if that's what you want to do with flash fiction--deliver stories. As the word count lessens and the space constricts, the question seems to remain constant (for some). Even when it gets Twittersized, people focus on the challenge of delivering a story with so few words. Personally, as either a writer or reader, I don't particularly want 140-character stories. I want something else, something uniquely suited for 140-characters, something the world (perhaps) has yet to see. Some ideas:
Twitterku. Haiku's focus on 17 syllables feels akin to the 140 characters of Twitter. Somewhere someone told me that that Eastern desire to capture what the world is differs from my Western need to capture what the world symbolizes. I often have these tiny insights during my day--seeing the world for what is rather than what it might be--and Twitter feels uniquely suited to deliver that insight.
Essence of Wiffle Ball. It bounces on air, wiggles on its way, too unsmooth to be called curve, its path uncertain, its arrival all mystery. (140 characters)
Twitteriphanies. Most times I am far from reaching any understanding, but now and then I grasp something. These epiphanies tend to be tiny things, able to be contained (only?) within those 140 characters.
Dogs bark and mailman leaves--six days a week--and that is why dogs bark at the mailman; they think it works.
The Saeco Automated Espresso Machine never hits a home run with its brew, but can be counted on to deliver singles, time and time again.
Twittvenery. In her blog "Thoughts in the Weeds," Trina from Bryn Mawr, PA writes about The Venery Game, in which participants make up "names for a host of groups." She writes, "We might, for instance, say a coolness of yuppies, an incision of surgeons, a mess of adolescents, a didact of deans, and so on." I can imagine a twitter of tweets emerging from this "game," and maybe even eventually a book, similar to SMITH Magazine's Six Word Memoirs.
My Twitter Project, as I so cleverly call it, is entitled 140 Characters, each "character" defined by a tweet. Of course, there might be legions of Twitterites tweeting their twitteriphanies already. My hope is that writers (shall we call them a quiver of quills?) far more brilliant than I will, instead of looking how Twitter might recreate the experience of "story," look to discover within the space of 140-characters all the ways they might enlarge it.
For Further Reading
From Sarah Black
August 15, 2009 at 11:46 pm
Twitterku? hee hee!
I am trying a photo flash- the only words are the title- Rural Geometry- and the rest of the story is a series of 12 photos. Though after I decided this, I found a wonderful poem by a poet I didn’t know which would go wonderfully with the photo flash.
From Randall Brown
August 16, 2009 at 8:45 am
Well, flash does go with photo. Sounds like a cool idea.
From Jon
August 23, 2009 at 1:11 am
I like to tell stories in 10 tweets. I write them spontaneously usually with only a first line in mind. It has really become a great tantric writing exercise. You can see what I have done so far at the website I listed above.
From Randall Brown
August 23, 2009 at 9:36 am
Interesting. What do you think you have to change about “story structure” to meet the challenges of the “tweet”?