Robert Shapard answers, "Why do I love writing flash fiction?"

In my case it should be why do I love collecting them in anthologies.

Before I forget, let me say I'm currently collecting for an anthology titled Flash Fiction International, with James Thomas and Christopher Merrill, who directs the U of Iowa International Writing Program. It will be published by W.W. Norton next year. We're especially looking for suggestions, translations, international authors, etc.

As for why I love flash, I'm reminded of an old song with the line "I don't know why I love you like I do, I don't know why, I just do" (sung by Eddy Arnold, Tony Bennett, Dean Martin, etc). From the first time I saw very short fiction, in literary magazines, I was fascinated. I can think of half a dozen reasons why, all true, and all inadequate. Maybe Irving Howe touched on the most important thing when he said that writers who write very short fiction "need to be especially bold. They stake everything on a stroke of inventiveness."

Yet the stories I loved seemed to go even beyond "mere" inventiveness. They evoked lifetimes and worlds—as Mark Strand said, flashes could "do in a page what a novel does in two hundred." They took many forms—I think of Isak Dinesen's "Blue"(traditional tale), or John Cheever's "Reunion" (classic realism in a coming of age story), or Dino Buzzati's "The Falling Girl" (magical realism), or Grace Paley's personal essay fictions or Margaret Atwood's metafictions, on and on.

Yet the word "form" hardly seems to apply to stories that speed up like Robert Fox's "A Fable" (about a young man on the subway who is so, so happy going to his first day of work in the city that he falls in love with a pretty young woman seated across from him and they are married by the conductor before the next stop); or stories that run backwards, like Hannah Voskuil's "Currents" (told not in flashbacks, which return to the present, but in short paragraphs that journey relentlessly farther and farther into the past); or stories like Raúl Brasca's "The Hole," which both shrinks and expands, its comforting voice taking us from a day at the beach to the disappearance of the world, the universe, and ultimately, us.

Stories like these seemed to me to be not just inventive ways of telling a story but trying to reinvent fiction altogether. Maybe that's why, from the first time I saw them, I loved losing myself in flashes (as one might lose oneself in a novel, if only for the moment) at the same time as trying to figure them out. A writer friend, Margaret Bentley, has said, "Flash seems to invite consideration of the form simultaneous with the reading." There's a pleasure to that, and it's another reason I love flash.

The truth, of course, is I wanted to write flashes. I have, but never so well as so many authors I have read, both well-known and unknown. In the lines of the old song, I don't know why I love you, you never seem to want my romancing. We've all been rebuffed. Friedrich Nietzsche said, "It is my ambition to say in ten sentences what others say in a whole book." Imagine him as the first flash philosopher! A philosopher friend of mine laughs at that. Nietzsche, he says, may have wanted to write short, but oh he just rambles and rambles.

Finally, I love hearing some people talk about flash. One of my favorites is Luisa Valenzuela, who says, "I usually compare the novel to a mammal, be it wild as a tiger or tame as a cow; the short story to a bird or a fish; the microstory to an insect (iridescent in the best cases)." Flash as iridescence—I love that.

James Thomas's story about how he got the idea for coining the title for the original Flash Fiction anthology, back in 1992:

I'd been using short-shorts or very-shorts in teaching at the Univeristy of Utah for a couple of years, not really calling them much of anything, cause they worked for that purpose—but it wasn't until I found myself parked on a Greek Island (thanks to an NEA), trying to write a novel, day after day and having a hard time of it, that I decided to take a break for at least for at least a day and try writing one of those shorties myself. Never had before. To challenge myself a little more I decided that it should be exactly 1,000 words. Of course it took more than one day, for me, maybe because I knew exactly how I wanted it to sound (a completely different voice from the novel), and I knew everything that needed to happen (all but the actual ending, of course, which I figure always has to find/grow itself). So, third day, it's hot and I'm sweating, figuratively and literally, counting words, conniving, the door's open (I'd rented an apt. on a hill), coming down on what I think is an ending, as a thin windy storm is coming down on the sea below, and the sun is going down, setting, I'm hungry, I'm thirsty, retsina maybe?, and yes by God I'm finding that last little situation, those last words and the storm situation is kicking up, thundering now and lightening, I've got denouement! I only need climax, God give me a last sentence of just the right sound and shape, the sun is gone now, about sixteen words, and as they (surprisingly) sort of suddenly slide out there is a total illumination of the sky outside, bifurcating explosive tendrils of light over the Med, and I swear to God (I personally go for Diana) that my period goes down somewhere in the blast and then rumble of thunder that follows a few seconds later. Flash? I don't know but it was certainly cathartic.

Or just an affect of coincidence. That was 332 words. You get the idea.]]> tag:flashfiction.net,2013://1.497 2013-01-23T15:15:58Z 2013-02-10T12:05:25Z

So what does it (really) mean to work with brevity? I won't keep repeating this warning, but here it is one more time: of course, all that follows are my subjective ideas about writing, and are in no way meant to represent the all of writing.

Imagine an opening sentence, like this one:

The bullet not meant for the driver of the car missed him, instead hitting the passenger next to him. (19 words)

Brevity might impose itself on this sentence first by looking at "less wordy" ways of expressing the same idea. For example, driver of the car might become the car's driver. Two words recovered! The him after missed him might not be needed. Another word! So that leaves us with this:

The bullet not meant for the car's driver missed, instead hitting the passenger next to him. (16 words)

In a world where every word is trying to matter and literally counts, then implication becomes another tool of the writer working with brevity. Does driver imply car? Does passenger imply next to him? If so, we now have this:

The bullet not meant for the driver missed, instead hitting the passenger. (13 words)

What about not meant for the driver modifying bullet? Is there a word that captures that sense? What about this:

The stray bullet missed the driver, instead hitting the passenger. (10 words)

But is brevity only about cutting things to the barest essentials? I think it's also about adding "weight" to the words, to see how much information, theme, backstory, character (and so on) each word might carry. The who of this story might be more clearly defined by this addition.

The stray bullet missed the driver, instead hitting his wife. (10 words)

Notice how the his implies the driver's gender and relationship (husband). Why did the bullet miss? I always think having a character be somehow responsible for the action adds interest and tension. How might the husband be responsible in some way? What if he had ducked at the sound of gunshot? How might brevity help get that information into that sentence? What word might capture that movement: Duck? Dodge? Evade? Is the husband someone who dodges things in general? Maybe. But missed the dodging driver sounds odd and unclear to me. Maybe the sentence needs to be changed so the driver is doing the action.

The driver ducked, the stray bullet instead hitting his wife. (10 words)

Does it make sense why he ducked? Does that need to be made clear?

At the sound of the gunshots, the driver ducked, the stray bullet instead hitting his wife. (16 words)

The driver heard gunshots, ducked, the stray bullet instead hitting his wife. (12 words)

Does that second sentence kind of capture the husband's progression, so that the sentence itself hears it, ducks, and then veers elsewhere? Maybe. The original sentence clocked in at 19 words. What might we do with those other 7 words?

The driver heard gunshots, ducked, the stray bullet instead hitting his wife. Reflex, he said, in the ambulance. To leave me uncovered, she said. (24 words)

Oh, no. Five words over the original 19! That won't do.

The driver heard gunshots, ducked, the stray bullet just missing his wife's heart. Reflex, he said, in the ambulance. To leave me uncovered, she countered. (25 words).

Oh, fudge. Now six words too many.

The driver heard gunshots, ducked, the bullet barely missing his wife's heart. Reflex, he said, in the ambulance. To dodge, she countered. (22 words).

Getting there. Now three words too many.

He heard gunshots, ducked, the bullet barely missing his wife's heart. Reflex, he said, in the car dialing 911. To dodge, she countered. (23 words).

The driver heard gunshots, ducked, the bullet barely missing his wife's heart. Reflex, he said, awaiting help. To dodge, she countered. (21 words)

Wait! If this is the first line, maybe the title can help out in some way. What if the title were "While Driving"?

He heard shots, ducked, the bullet barely missing Sara's heart. Reflex, he said, awaiting help. To dodge, she countered. (19 words)

So what is brevity exactly? I don't know. It's about getting words to count more than they might in other less-compressed forms. It has something to do with being aware of needless words and the power of implication. It's about adding weight to words by making each one carry a number of important things within the story. The above opening might incite a story in which the man's reflexive desire to "dodge" keeps leading to that shot (of Cupid?) missing his wife's heart, and this incident brings that conflict to the surface. His reflex runs counter to what the wife imagines love should be; he should reflexively protect her, not duck out of the way.]]> tag:flashfiction.net,2012://1.496 2013-01-07T06:49:50Z 2013-01-07T12:13:22Z

The Bear Came Over the Mountain" manipulates dialogue through summary and indirect quotation to heighten dramatic effect and emphasize changes in Fiona, one of the story's two main characters. Writers can look to this short story to add tension and conflict to their dialogue, and avoid the pitfalls of boring speech.

 

A writer's initial impulse might be to create dialogue that seems as true to life as possible; however, such speech "wanders, loops, stop, digresses, and picks up subjects from a hundred other conversation." Glover recommends that writers not indulge in "fully-realized dialogue scenes that are not on the direct conflict line," which would include a lot of the speech that occurs most frequently in real life. Sticking to only conversations that intensify a story's conflicts help a writer avoid the functional exchanges that make up so much of daily speech. Glover espouses summary as a technique to avoid these boring conversations, as well as "free indirect discourse and reported dialogue."

 

The first time Alice Munro summarizes dialogue in "The Bear Came Over the Mountain" underscores Fiona's swift slide into dementia. This summarization marks the turning point at which Grant knows Fiona can no longer live at home and the serious extent of her illness. Fiona wanders away while she and Grant are grocery shopping, and is eventually picked up by a police officer. At first she makes jokes about the incident, but her true condition is revealed in the following construction: "He laughed. But then she made the mistake of asking if he'd seen Boris and Natasha." In the next paragraph, Boris and Natasha are revealed to be the pair's long-dead dogs.

 

Munro could have written this as direct dialogue, attributed to Fiona. The line just previous to it is in fact Fiona's direct dialogue, so it would have been natural to continue the flow of the conversation. Instead, leaving the dialogue technically unspoken actually increases the dramatic tension. Fiona's remarks about the dogs come as a surprise to both the officer and the reader, since Fiona had seemed lucid in the previous dialogue, and this surprise is made more dramatic using Munro's summarization technique.

 

For a writer, it may be instructional to rewrite this scene as many of us would have written it, as follows:

He laughed.
"Have you seen Boris and Natasha?" she asked.

Notice the extent to which the drama has been diffused. Without the summarization, Fiona's comment is no longer a "mistake"; foreshadowing and significance is lost. Writers can take a cue from Munro and approach their most dramatic and revealing dialogue in this manner. Though it may seem counterintuitive to many writers, taking the words out of a character's mouth, so to speak, can allow you to restructure dialogue for its most dramatic impact.

 

Summarizing this exchange of dialogue also allows Munro to highlight the words that are most directly on the conflict line, if one considers the story's conflict to be Fiona's battle with senility and Grant's struggle to adjust to her decline. Munro avoids the officer and Fiona greeting each other, the series of questions the officer must ask and Fiona's subsequent answers and uses the summarization to keep the most important, conflict-related dialogue in the foreground.

 

Munro utilizes this technique a second time later in the story, when Grant is recalling Fiona's earlier remarks about the possibility of traveling to Iceland, the land from which her ancestors hail. At the end of Grant's recollections, Fiona's dialogue is again summarized as opposed to directly quoted. The reliability of Grant's memory does not seem to be the reason for this, as earlier in the section, he is able to recall obscure terminology Fiona used, such as "old Njal and "old Snorri." These terms are directly quoted. But Fiona's later sentiments are not quoted. Munro writes "Also—she said—there ought to be one place you thought about and knew about and maybe longed for—but never did get to see." Munro definitely wants the reader to know these words were spoken, thus the "she said" set off with dashes, but doesn't use quotation marks, the most obvious signal. Commas would serve the same purpose, but would not slow the reader down as much as the dashes do, thus giving writers a way to use punctuation to serve as dramatic pauses within summarized dialogue.

 

This summarization details the tension inherent in never getting what one "thought about and knew about and maybe longed for." Grant will soon find himself in this position, as he is unable to have the old Fiona any longer. Though Fiona is referring to Iceland, that she claims there "ought to be" a desired destination one never sees, is appropriate, since for Grant, she herself will assume that role. Writers can use this as a model for adding more drama to their dialogue. Emphasizing the tension naturally in these sentiments makes the dialogue work overtime and keeps the speech on the main conflict line.

 

Later in the story, Fiona's dialogue is again summarized instead of quoted directly. At this point in the plot, Fiona is mourning the departure of her companion Aubrey. Munro writes: "She was still polite—she apologized for her tears, and never argued with a suggestion or refused to answer a question. But she wept." Again, Munro could have shown this with dialogue, in which Fiona in fact answered questions and failed to argue.

 

Here writers can see a different effect. Here, drama that may have been maudlin if rendered as spoken dialogue is made more subtle. Writers leery of overly emotional scenes can use this technique to avoid overblown "movie of the week" dialogue without defusing the drama altogether. Munro avoids a fully realized teary scene, which may have seemed overplayed. Writers who are intimidated by what are potentially their stories' most dramatic scenes—confrontations in particular—may find this technique helpful. Try writing the dialogue in summary, and then see if particular snatches can be revised into direct quotes, or if the whole passage works better as a summary, as does Munro's.

 

Dialogue attributed to the supervisor of the nursing home in which the rules of the home are explained to Grant is similarly summarized, then moves abruptly into direct dialogue. Munro summarizes how the supervisor explains that Grant won't be permitted to visit Fiona for thirty days as to avoid the temptation to bring her home. The direct dialogue begins: "Whereas we find," the supervisor said, "we find that if they're left on their own they usually end up happy as clams." This dialogue anticipates the change Fiona will undergo, from nervous and tearful new resident to one who regards the nursing home as her true home. It's right on the conflict line, and is emphasized appropriately as the only part of the exchange actually spoken. This technique also prevents a potentially uninteresting discussion of the facility's rules.

 

Late in the story, Munro constructs a scene in which all of Grant's dialogue is indirect, without quotation mark, and nearly all of Kristy, the nurse's dialogue is directly quoted, in this manner:

"Her weight is going down even with the supplement. We're doing all we can for her."
Grant said that he realized they were.

Alternating between direct and indirect dialogue helps keep the most important and dramatic information (what Kristy says) highlighted. All the direct dialogue emphasizes conflict; Grant's more mundane responses are not given the attention-getting quotation marks.

 

Dialogue can be daunting to write, and strong dialogue is a challenge for many writers. In Munro's work, we can see how summarizing dialogue skillfully can be used instead on some of the most dramatic and meaningful dialogue, keeping the focus on the story's main conflict line. On the other hand, the technique can also be used successfully to render potentially over-dramatic scenes with more subtlety.

 

Bibliography

Glover, Douglas. "The Drama of Grammar." In Attack of the Copula Spiders (Ontario, Biblioasis, 2010), 63-82.

Munro, Alice. "The Bear Came Over the Mountain." In Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage (New York, Random House, 2001), 275-322.

 

Author's Note
Jennifer Fenn writes and teaches in Downingtown, PA. Fenn is also an avid runner and an MFA candidate at Rosemont College. Her fiction has appeared online in Fiddleblack and The Writing Disorder; her nonfiction has been published in Education Week, Bitch, Backhome, and Venus Zine. ]]> tag:flashfiction.net,2012://1.492 2012-12-06T17:23:21Z 2012-12-06T17:24:47Z

Click on the pic to view our flash fiction wordle:...

Randall Brown http://flashfiction.net/cgi-bin/mt/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=1&id=1

]]> tag:flashfiction.net,2012://1.491 2012-10-30T13:22:35Z 2012-10-30T13:51:46Z

Try to write a flash piece that follows the narrative pattern in Beverly Jackson's "Buddha Gold."

Chelsea Covington Maass http://flashfiction.net/cgi-bin/mt/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=1&id=1703 Chelsea Covington Maass

 

Some clever flash fiction writers have mastered the art of the lure. As writers, we all want to discover a magical narrative structure that will succeed in hooking readers. Beverly Jackson's "Buddha Gold" from the twelfth volume of Eclectica Magazine provides an excellent narrative example: the beginning snares the reader's attention, the middle holds the reader's interest with conflict, and the end reveals new information before releasing the reader from the story's grasp.

 

Jackson's flash piece starts with an expert narrator, Charlene, who is so completely at home in her environment that the reader naturally trusts her version of things. Readers want insider information, so when characters offer up the truth about unfamiliar situations, it creates interest: "Pigeons were her specialty among the women. The ten-dollar players looked for men in the Rodeo Drive suits with fat wallets, but Charlene did nicely with visiting Persian housewives, bored girls who stood around waiting for their boyfriends, and oddballs like this Chinese chick. In a five-dollar game, she could go home with as much as $500 on a good night." People are curious by nature, and this setup pulls readers in by offering a voyeuristic view of another person's life experience. The strategy is most effective when it involves a dangerous or fringe lifestyle, like the female hustler's point of view in this story.

 

In the middle of this flash, Jackson introduces doubt: "Charlene nodded and looked around the room. Did she like it? There were no accidents, right? It had come to be her life. She could feel the girl staring at her. It made her squirm. What did she see? That same shiny hunger that was in the eyes of the other regulars?" Charlene, once so sure of herself and her surroundings, now seems uncertain under the scrutiny of another character, Mei Li. Charlene's sudden shift in attitude from cocky to questioning makes the situation feel dangerous. When things turn in a new and unexpected direction, the reader detects conflict, which heightens interest in the development of the story. Flash is so short that any hint of predictability should be stricken. Readers want new, fresh, unforeseen flash, not timeworn stories that happen to be short.

 

Jackson increases the uncertainty of her main character, escalating the situation: "It made Charlene feel bad about herself—the bleached hair, too much makeup. Skimpy skirt, too much leg. She sighed. She would like to go to the alley and take a little hit; it would make her feel better." Now the reader discovers that Charlene is a drug addict and possibly an unreliable narrator. The sure footing of the initial set-up slips even further as Charlene begins to suspect that Mei Li is the true hustler and she is the mark.

 

The power transition occurs when Mei Li propositions Charlene, who at first seems horrified by the idea: "Did she look like a whore? Had it come to that? How many of these high-rollers had she bedded down?" But then, Charlene's addiction and the reality of the situation overwhelms her and she imagines giving herself over to Mei Li. "She could almost envision a large, golden Buddha before her, kind face, big soft hands. She pictured herself kneeling down." The story ends with Charlene asking how much money she might make working for Mei Li as a prostitute. With that final sentence, all of the original assumptions in "Buddha Gold" have been turned inside out. The reader finishes the story with a new truth, and that feeling of having something revealed over the course of the story is satisfying.

 

With this narrative format, Jackson manages to subtly shift the story until it is the opposite of what it first seemed. Instead of an insider's look at an expert gambler conning an unwitting victim, the reader receives a depiction of a down-on-her-luck addict turning to prostitution as she realizes she has no control over her situation. To achieve a similar narrative structure, follow these guidelines:

 

1. Begin with an "expert" main character. Someone who knows the ins and outs of a dangerous environment will create excitement and interest.
   
2. Stir up conflict. After the initial presentation of the character as an authority, introduce doubt about the reality of the situation.
   
3. Expose the main character. An unreliable narrator makes it clear that all previous information can no longer be trusted.
   
4. Reveal a new truth. At the conclusion of the story, the narrator should be humbled and startled by the unexpected reality that emerges.

 

To write a flash piece that follows the narrative pattern in "Buddha Gold," try to provide the reader with unexpected insider information. Remember, the main character doesn't have to be likeable, just interesting. Have fun with it—a carnie might believe he is king of the fairground, for instance. Imagine the situation from the main character's point of view. Now, think about how things might really be, despite the insider's beliefs. Is the carnie really royalty? Of course not. To initiate conflict, introduce doubt about the main character's perceived authority. Another character might help readers discover an unreliable narrator. Perhaps the fairground manager talks down to the carnie in front of a customer to clue the reader in on his true status at the carnival. Finally, expose a new 'reality' in the story. When the character achieves a new perspective on the truth, the reader will share in the revelation. So, what kind of fringe lifestyle would you like to explore? Indulge your curiosity and write from the insider's point of view to gain the insight this narrative experiment will surely yield.

 

Author's Note

Chelsea Covington Maass has lived in Kansas, San Francisco, and now Philadelphia, where she is an MFA candidate at Rosemont College. Her recent fiction can be found at HOOT Literary Review. ]]> tag:flashfiction.net,2012://1.490 2012-09-11T10:52:12Z 2012-09-12T01:07:09Z

Glass towers and taxis littered the distance.

Randall Brown http://flashfiction.net/cgi-bin/mt/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=1&id=1

This collection is dedicated to the memory of the author's father—Dr. Harry A. Guess, Jr.—and the stories' titles come from the index of The Science of the Placebo, a textbook co-edited by Carol's father. Carol Guess talks more about the book here.

Here is a sample of the brilliant, cutting prose you'll find find inside:

bright light therapy

We met on a wind farm. It was windy. Hair covered our mouths so we couldn't kiss. Nicknames clicked against our teeth. Glass towers and taxis littered the distance.

You loved white blades, knives knitting the sky. I loved bare knees, your spindrift skirt. When you went back to fossil fuel, I wept. My tears blew west: spendthrift, bereft.

Available here from Matter Press, a nonprofit literary press committed to compressed creative arts.]]> tag:flashfiction.net,2012://1.488 2012-09-10T10:00:00Z 2012-09-10T14:08:55Z

Flash is by nature tight.

Chelsea Covington Maass http://flashfiction.net/cgi-bin/mt/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=1&id=1703

As a writer, flash is asking me to find that one instant that changes everything for a specific character in a specific situation. Specificity is required for urgent revelations to occur in such a concentrated space.

As a reader, I think flash is asking me to come to the story without preconceived notions or expectations. I want to observe the magic show in awe and not bother with wondering how the magician pulled it off or which illusion will be next.

Author's Note

Chelsea Covington Maass has lived in Kansas, San Francisco, and now Philadelphia, where she is an MFA candidate at Rosemont College. Her recent fiction can be found at HOOT Literary Review.]]> tag:flashfiction.net,2012://1.489 2012-09-09T12:40:21Z 2012-09-09T12:51:16Z

Philly hosts Conversations & Connections, including a craft workshop on Fearless Flash Fiction.

Randall Brown http://flashfiction.net/cgi-bin/mt/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=1&id=1 Conversations and Connections Philadelphia 2012
September 22, 2012
The conference will be held at the Gershman Building on the campus of the University of the Arts, at 401 South Broad Streeet in downtown Philadelphia.

Conversations and Connections brings together an eclectic mix of writers and editors for an all-day conference in the heart of Philadelphia. Whether you're an experienced writer looking to take the next step, a newcomer looking for the coolest small presses, or anybody else sending your writing out into the world, Conversations and Connections has the panel discussions, craft workshops, and feedback (actual interaction with actual editors!) you need to hone your work.

Join me for Fearless Flash Fiction, a Craft Workshop with Randall Brown

This session discusses the technique behind writing great and fearless flash fiction. You will receive specific writing prompts and other methods that you can take home and put to use in you daily writing life. It's an interactive, hands-on hour of immersion into this exciting world where every word counts, where texts desire to end as soon as they begin, where every choice, every word, every second is your chance to go for it, like you never have before.

Register here.

]]> tag:flashfiction.net,2012://1.474 2012-07-12T10:00:00Z 2012-07-12T13:11:32Z

When writing a flash piece that is meant to propel a usual situation to the readers in a deeper or unusual way, writers need to be able to use metaphor and juxtaposition along with word choice and diction to make the piece interesting. I came across "How It Was when a Car Caught Fire on the Street outside my House Last Night" by Jensen Whelan in the eleventh issue of Quick Fiction.

Maranda Stewart http://flashfiction.net/cgi-bin/mt/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=1&id=225 Editor's Note: We are grateful to Lee Martin's article "Stuart Dybek's 'Sunday at the Zoo': A Class in Narrative Structure," an article that served as our own model for the structure of the narrative analysis essay of short short fiction.]

 

When writing a flash piece that is meant to propel a usual situation to the readers in a deeper or unusual way, writers need to be able to use metaphor and juxtaposition along with word choice and diction to make the piece interesting. I came across "How It Was when a Car Caught Fire on the Street outside my House Last Night" by Jensen Whelan in the eleventh issue of Quick Fiction. What struck me about the piece foremost was the extremely long title which seemed to sum up the entire piece. It was intriguing because it was so long, but also because I wanted to know exactly what the writer meant by "How It Was." I immediately asked myself "How what was?" The rest of the piece relies on juxtaposing the situation of the narrator's marriage and the burning car outside which serves as a metaphor for their relationship.

 

The opening of this story immediately intrigues the reader as we wonder 'Whose house? How? Why?' It begins, "A car caught fire outside my house last night." The conflict can be implied here as a universal; having a fire outside one's home seems like an obvious conflict of safety for the characters involved.

 

The next couple of sentences emphasize the physical conflict, the danger of how close this fire was to not only the narrator's house but also all of the houses around the neighborhood: "The car started to burn. Flames tickled the roof, making the interior glow...The fire lit up each of our houses." This first section is about the outside world, while the next paragraph immediately zooms into the narrator's house.

 

Suddenly the readers are now inside the house and are introduced to a different kind of burning. Whelan writes, "My wife and I put on our shoes. It concerns me slightly that her imagination will do terrible things to our child, but I know she means well." The narrator sees the imagination of his wife as a threat to their child, and her actions and thoughts affect him in a negative way. She is the burning car inside of the home. The narrator tells us that he knows that they are in no immediate danger from the car. The wife asks him what is happening and he replies, "I told her I couldn't see through the smoke." The narrator is building the situation between him and his wife, depicting her as someone who lives through smoke and mirrors, lies and deceptions. He reiterates that when he writes, "I left the possibility of certain danger hanging between us like the potted plant I had managed to kill last fall when she was away on a business trip."

 

It is obvious here that we are dealing with an insecure and unreliable narrator who believes that his wife is unfaithful. What is interesting in the piece is that the writer has used the form of the piece as a metaphor when he includes paragraph three which zooms out of the house and on the steps of the house: "After several minutes, the fire department arrived. We were in the middle of our argument when the doorbell rang. A fireman is on the steps." There is no longer a separation between what is going on outside with the fire in the car and what is going on between the narrator and his wife inside the home. The firefight comes into the home, bringing the outside in. This paragraph is the only one containing dialogue of any sort. The fireman gives them the all clear, gives the wife the assurance of safety that the narrator refused her. In this action, the narrator is revealed as a controlling character who has an obsession with intrusion within his home, his own parenting, and his relationship to his wife.

 

In the fourth paragraph as the story comes to a conclusion; the fire is out and the firefighters leave. We are zoomed back inside of the home as the structure is circling back through: "Clearly she had not been listening. That seems to be the major problem with us. We just talk. Nobody listens." The firefighter has put out the fire within the home, and in fact we see the narrator's failure to be active enough to solve this problem. He cannot resolve the conflict between him and his wife just like he cannot do anything about the fire in the car.

 

In the fifth and final paragraph, we are zoomed outside as police have come to give the abandoned car a ticket: "Nothing so far has threatened the well-being of our son. The car is still sitting in front of my house, its hood split like a giant yelling mouth waiting for me, or somebody else, to finally do something about it." The firefighters have taken care of the fire but not the resulting damage of the car. It sits in front of their house to remind them of what happened. In the previous paragraph the wife decides to go to sleep saying that she doesn't feel like arguing anymore. The firefighter had disrupted the fight, or put out the fire in the previous paragraph. However, the outside/ inside damage is still there. The son is the reminder of the fiery arguments that they have, and he is what's ultimately damaged. We realize the character of the narrator fully in the final paragraph as someone who cannot do much of anything about any of it. To finally do something about it implies that the inside "fires" have been happening for a long time and that he has been powerless to stop the damage, mostly because he himself is the problem.

 

Not only does Whelan do a wonderful job of intertwining the deep story into a tightly knit short piece, but he also was able to zoom the story in and out without being jarring the reader. He uses the burning car outside as a metaphor for their failing marriage, and simple, short sentences to move the story along. If we want to mimic Whelan's structure we would need to have the following:

 

1. An opening that clearly starts with one kind of conflict.


2. The next paragraph to immediately set up the mirror of the opening metaphor within the context of one or more characters.


3. Pay close attention to the form of the paragraphs. Does the first paragraph begin outside, and the second one inside? Do the paragraphs fit a pattern that helps to propel the metaphor of the piece?


4. The conflict must be weaved tightly throughout through the mirroring metaphor.


5. The reader must learn something new about the relationship of the characters in each opposing paragraph.


6. The conclusion must have a resolution which reveals something about the main character and the central metaphor/ image of the piece.

 

To write a short piece like Whelan's, try starting with an image that reveals a conflict right in the opening sentence or paragraph. Use it as a metaphor for the 'real' story of the piece. Play with form by mirroring two situations from paragraph to paragraph. Have your character's respond to each other in shocking and unusual ways like when Whelan writes, "It concerns me slightly that her imagination does terrible things to our child but I know she means well." Use the metaphor in the first paragraph to drive the situation close to home for the readers. Don't forget to have fun with your form.

 

FF.Net Author's Note  

Maranda Stewart holds a Bachelors of Arts in English Literature from Kutztown University. She is currently attending Rosemont College for her MFA in Creative writing with a concentration in poetry. She has won the Raymond Ford Award for poetry and is enjoying exploring the flash fiction genre. She agrees with William Carlos Williams who said, "It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there," and believes that the same can be said about flash.]]> tag:flashfiction.net,2012://1.487 2012-07-11T10:00:00Z 2012-07-11T13:24:48Z

A reprint from flash fiction writer Kim Chinquee.

Randall Brown http://flashfiction.net/cgi-bin/mt/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=1&id=1 [Editor's Note: Each Wednesday, FF.Net will feature a reprint of our favorite flashes that originally appeared in print.]

 

Formation

by Kim Chinquee

 

The technical instructor sang a cadence. uu, oo, ee, our. Little consonants were needed. The airmen had been in training for three days, and they could march, swing their arms, and turn when they heard a column right.

The tallest airman was the front and right of the formation. The shortest was the back and left. The others were between. They were all in order. They almost looked alike, except for their sizes.

There was Minnie, Ruby, Scarlet. Sara, Betsy, Janet. Jill, and Kit, and Penny. They were all there for some reason.

The instructor commanded them to halt. They did, but not in unison. It was like a football game, the wave, which a girl named Stacy knew about so well. Her brother was a Packer. The instructor yelled for them to get it right.

Last night, in their beds they lay, the beds aligned in perfect rows. The blankets were green and the pillows were small and some pillows were wet. Some of the airmen had been crying. Some of them stared up at the walls, listening to the dripping of the sink, ready to jump up.

Now they stood in formation. Trying to act.

"Formation" originally appeared in NOON 2005, and then later in The Pushcart Prize XXXI: Best of the Small Presses, 2007. It appears here with the permission of the author, © Kim Chinquee.

 

Kim Chinquee is the author of the collections Oh Baby, Pretty and Pistol. She is an associate professor of English at Buffalo State College.]]> tag:flashfiction.net,2012://1.452 2012-07-10T10:00:00Z 2012-07-10T12:15:03Z

Here are five tips on great flash beginnings

Cathy Colborn http://flashfiction.net/cgi-bin/mt/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=1&id=221 here are five tips on great flash beginnings.

 

How do you rope the reader and not become tacky, tired, or bombard them in the first few lines? Sometimes starting with questions (rolling in the protagonist's head from other characters) gets things simply moving, especially, if the questions are hitting the reader with some scary ones. In "Swimming," by T. Cooper and appearing in The New Yorker in April 2007, for example, the first short sentences are the following: "People say to me, 'didn't you hear anything?' or 'Why didn't you stop when you felt something hit the bumper?' But I don't know how to answer either question." I can hear the nosy people asking the protagonist these questions. It is an uncomfortable place, so as I read on, I am trying to imagine what I would do if I hit someone with my car. He will always be guilty of this event (it seems) even if he turns out to be innocent. Very smooth technique to keep you wondering, I would say. I felt the need to keep reading and so will you.

 

Another enticing beginning is not just "something" interesting said, but just plain being "someone" interesting. My favorite prompt is making a bullet list of all my characters' likes and dislikes. I was a little apprehensive of wasting good writing time, but when I suddenly knew how, my character reacted to anything he encountered; it became one of my pre-writing commandments.

 

A good example of character introduction is in "Faulty Keys and Latches," by Kathy Fish and appearing in Wild Life. I found her opening line about a guy not only with a "sort of a purse," but it being "filled with rocks" to be a well-rounded character. We know three things about the protagonist in one short opening sentence: Male, Man-Purse, Rock Collector. This technique could really help in the compression of longer pieces that start with long character intros. Suddenly, I am not quite sure I need to know much more about his physicality, because I want to know the quirky man's use for those rocks. Why is he transporting them in a purse instead of a wheelbarrow or paint bucket? These questions moved the reader past unnecessary descriptions, exposed the conflict, and tied it all up from there.

 

When in doubt about a potential flash fiction date going dismal, embrace the grim foreshadowing and let it all implode or explode. A good example of this first sentence leading into the deadly dismal is "A Wind From the North" by Bill Capossere and appearing in Imaginative Writing. He starts, "When three days had passed and the snow still lay in smooth unbrushed drifts across the cold glass and silvery metal of the car, the neighbors, curious or concerned began a trail of telephone calls that led, eventually, to my own heated home." This first sentence foreshadowed something dreadful buried under the beauty of the setting. The author made a point to write "still lay in smooth unbrushed drifts" and I knew either a kid, animal, or something was lurking under that unbrushed windshield. The neighbors were concerned, so I was concerned and kept reading. It is a great hook but does the work of luring you in with growing trouble, scenery, and intrigue—all crucial points if you want to keep the reader invested in your story.

 

If you must be cliche, turn it on its head. "Safety Instructions" by Kerrin McCadden and appearing in Pank, Issue 6 does just that. She begins, "Unless directed by a crew member, do not construct if/then scenarios-not about the plane, not about your life." This sentence is sort of laughing at itself because most of us who fly are already nervous of the "if/then scenarios" let alone crew members pre-planning our entire life by these decisions. McCadden uses an unexpected technique to capture attention from the everyday and cliche. Writers should try elements of this example in their first sentences if they want to try jolting a reader from thinking they know what to expect.

 

Finally, a reminder about using the title as your first line: It worked if you continued the next line coherently. However, putting the elements of the ending in the title or first line will give away your conclusion. Steve Almond, mentioned this idea in "Who Wants to Play with a Headless Doll" in This Won't Take But A Minute, Honey (Essays). Just like trying to pick up that perfect person sitting at the bar and following through, flash has a smooth process starting with the first line. Don't tell the reader the Titled First Line is "Ten Days Ago in the Smokey Mountains" and then take us to your childhood in Philadelphia in the very next line. Remember, don't put any hints that are in the last line or you have ruined everything. Like when I end this Top Five list with a Steve Almond-type sass and use my disclaimer: My words on great flash beginnings are not fiction gospel, but the greatest verses I have read made me pray I would eventually write like that author.

 

FF.Net Author's Note  

Cathy Colborn is a MFA student at Rosemont College. She was published by Outrider Press, Ripple Zine, and Writers' Bloc and created a small online zine called Philly Flash Inferno. She loves sketching and painting graphic art with a psychedelic spin and recently had her work published in Pirene's Anthology benefiting Japan: Sunrise from Blue Thunder. Cathy has studied ekphrasis for ten years and created her own chapbooks: Recycled Shoes and Stoned in Paris. On the weekends she loves preparing for the zombie apocalypse and baking cupcakes (but not at the same time).]]> tag:flashfiction.net,2012://1.486 2012-07-09T10:00:00Z 2012-07-09T12:58:42Z

An interview with Carol Guess: "I try hard to remind myself that my struggle is personal, and that I'm primarily competing with myself."

Nichole Beard http://flashfiction.net/cgi-bin/mt/mt-cp.cgi?__mode=view&blog_id=1&id=211 conducted by Nichole Beard

 

Carol Guess is the author of ten books of poetry and prose, including Tinderbox Lawn and Doll Studies: Forensics. She is Professor of English at Western Washington University, and lives in Seattle. Find her here.

 

A lot of writers have the bad habit of comparing themselves to other writers whom they deem better. Have you experienced this? And if so, what advice could you offer a budding, yet not-so-confident writer who has this bad habit?

Thanks for interviewing me, Nichole, and thanks for these excellent questions! Your first question makes sense to me, but comparing myself to other writers isn't one of my bad habits. (I have plenty of bad habits, just not this one.) I try hard to remind myself that my struggle is personal, and that I'm primarily competing with myself. I want my next book to be better than my last book; I want to challenge myself to evolve as an artist. Other writers are a source of inspiration, encouragement, and energy. Of course I do struggle with jealousy, but not around the work itself. I think my jealousy is usually centered around public recognition, awards, and praise. And my jealousy of these things, or writers who acquire these things, is just petty—a bad habit, true. It's a distraction from the difficult work of making art, which for me is a private process that's translated through publication and performance into community building.

My recent engagement with collaboration (poet Daniela Olszewska and I just wrote a book together) has really helped me see this, so that's my first piece of advice: try collaborating with another artist, so that you create a shared, rather than competitive, mindset. Another piece of advice is to focus on finding joy in your process. If you're happy with your own progress, and take pleasure in making art, you'll be less inclined to pass judgment on yourself or others. Yoga helps me with this, so a final piece of advice is to establish a routine in another discipline—running, knitting, carpentry, cooking. Leave writing behind for a while, and be an expert or a beginner in another field.

 

In flash fiction and prose poetry, how do you deal with compression? How do you describe compression?

I love making things tiny and perfect. It gives me pleasure to focus on detail, so compression comes naturally to me. In fact, for years I was told by writing teachers to make my work longer and more plot-oriented. I thought compression was a bad thing, and fought against it in my writing for a long time. It was such a release when I finally gave in—when I realized my bad habit was actually a skill!

I describe compression as winnowing something—a story, an image, a character sketch—down to the most intense elements of meaning and music. The work must still make some kind of sense, but leave gaps for the reader to fill in the mystery. It's interesting that the form of yoga I practice, Bikram, is all about physical compression. You don't stretch, you compress—you curl inward. It's sexy and challenging and metaphor-laden. For me there's so much meaning in the physical sensation of curling inward—it looks vulnerable, but feels strong—as well as the release that follows.

 

Is there ever a point at which you give up on a story? How does a writer know when to let a story or an idea go? Should a writer even do this to begin with?

Good question! I do have a fair share of false starts, but I usually make use of them later. I hang onto most of what I write, and see it as ingredients for the next project. For example, one of the prose poems in Tinderbox Lawn was a failed short story, stalled at seven pages. I compressed it down to one page, emphasizing the most important elements of the narrative.

 

Do you have any specific successful, efficient editing techniques to share?

Compress! Do away with as many words as possible, but save all of your earlier drafts. It's also useful to consider whether seemingly unrelated poems, stories, or manuscripts are really parts of the same larger work. In my most recent book, Doll Studies: Forensics, I incorporated bits of an earlier unpublished manuscript. I pared the earlier manuscript down from 80 pages to about 20, and made those 20 pieces into a section of the book called "Departure Lounge."

 

A lot of writers who submit to journals and read journals, and even this blog, are MFA students. What advice would you offer an MFA student who feels his professor doesn't like or encourage his work? How important is it for a writer to have an MFA?

Thanks for asking such an honest question, Nichole. I don't think every writer needs (or can afford) to get an MFA. I see the MFA as primarily a teaching/professional degree. That is, it's not so much about becoming a better writer as about becoming a better teacher, editor, academic, and critic. All of those skills are useful to writers, so yes, the MFA is a very useful degree. But the end goal of most MFA programs is to place students in some kind of teaching job, or link them to an academic/professional circuit of some kind.

I have an MFA (confession!) and it was useful to me because I got teaching experience, and learned something about the politics and practices of academia. It didn't improve my writing at all, and in fact I stopped writing altogether for about a year after I graduated. I was really damaged by my professor's detachment, by a few of my peers' arrogant and cruel remarks, and by the incessant criticism of the (very harsh) workshops I attended. But that's just me. I'm an introvert; I'm a loner; I'm sort of (happily) odd. I learned to write by reading and by writing all the time. I mean, hours and hours a day, whenever I could, whatever I could. I learned to write by studying ballet very seriously as a young girl and recognizing early on that discipline was instrumental to the kind of artist I wanted to be. And I learned to write by falling in love, as I still do, with particular books—wanting to talk to those books in print, wanting to join that community.

The best advice I can give any emerging or beginning writer is to stay true to yourself, to believe in your aesthetic and your goals. If a professor treats you poorly, try to have compassion for them. Remember that they're human, and are probably just struggling with some human worry—a divorce, trouble publishing, illness, depression. Ground yourself in whatever inspires you outside of the program; don't let the program be your whole life. And stay close to other writers who are genuinely kind, smart, and thoughtful in their critiques. Be that person for a beginning writer, too—it's really empowering to understand that you can be the mentor you didn't have.

 

FF.Net Author's Note

Nichole Beard is a graduate of Rosemont College's MFA in Creative Writing program. She received her BA in Integrative Arts from Penn State University where she published articles for a student-run arts & culture journal. She is currently working on her first novel.
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