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Flash fiction is fiction
Fiction

Fiction is an imaginative form of narrative, one of the four basic rhetorical modes. Although the word fiction is derived from the Latin fingo, fingere, finxi, fictum, "to form, create", works of fiction need not be entirely imaginary and may include real people, places, and events....
 of extreme brevity. The standard, generally-accepted length of a flash fiction piece is 1000 words or less. By contrast, a short-short measures 1001 words to 2500 words, and a traditional short story measures 2501 to 7500 words. A novelette runs from 7501 words to 17,500, a novella 17,501 words to 40,000 words, and a novel 40,001 words and up.

r names for flash fiction include sudden fiction, microfiction, micro-story, postcard fiction, and short short story, though distinctions are sometimes drawn between some of these terms; for example, sometimes 1,000 words is considered the cut-off between "flash fiction" and the slightly longer "sudden fiction".

The term "flash fiction" may have originated from a 1992 anthology
Anthology

An anthology, literally a "garland" or "collection of flowers", is a collection of literary works, originally of poems. In genre fiction and especially science fiction, anthology is used to categorize collections of shorter works such as short story and short novels, usually collected into a single volume for publication....
 of that title.






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Encyclopedia


Flash fiction is fiction
Fiction

Fiction is an imaginative form of narrative, one of the four basic rhetorical modes. Although the word fiction is derived from the Latin fingo, fingere, finxi, fictum, "to form, create", works of fiction need not be entirely imaginary and may include real people, places, and events....
 of extreme brevity. The standard, generally-accepted length of a flash fiction piece is 1000 words or less. By contrast, a short-short measures 1001 words to 2500 words, and a traditional short story measures 2501 to 7500 words. A novelette runs from 7501 words to 17,500, a novella 17,501 words to 40,000 words, and a novel 40,001 words and up.

Terms

Other names for flash fiction include sudden fiction, microfiction, micro-story, postcard fiction, and short short story, though distinctions are sometimes drawn between some of these terms; for example, sometimes 1,000 words is considered the cut-off between "flash fiction" and the slightly longer "sudden fiction".

The term "flash fiction" may have originated from a 1992 anthology
Anthology

An anthology, literally a "garland" or "collection of flowers", is a collection of literary works, originally of poems. In genre fiction and especially science fiction, anthology is used to categorize collections of shorter works such as short story and short novels, usually collected into a single volume for publication....
 of that title. As the editors said in their introduction, their definition of a "flash fiction" was a story that would fit on two facing pages of a typical digest-sized literary magazine, or about 750 words.

History


Flash fiction has roots going back to Aesop's Fables
Aesop's Fables

Aesop's Fables or Aesopica refers to a collection of fables credited to Aesop , a Slavery and story-teller who lived in Ancient Greece. Aesop's Fables have become a blanket term for collections of brief fables, especially beast fables involving Anthropomorphism animals....
, and practitioners have included Boleslaw Prus
Boleslaw Prus

Boleslaw Prus , whose actual name was Aleksander Glowacki, was a Poland journalist and novelist who is known especially for his novels The Doll and Pharaoh ....
, Anton Chekhov
Anton Chekhov

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian Short story writer, playwright and physician, considered to be one of the greatest short-story writers in world literature....
, O. Henry
O. Henry

O. Henry was the pen name of United States writer William Sydney Porter . O. Henry short stories are known for wit, wordplay, warm characterization and clever twist endings....
, Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka

Franz Kafka was one of the major fiction writers of the 20th century. He was born to a middle-class German language-speaking Jewish family in Prague, Austria-Hungary, presently the Czech Republic....
, H.P.Lovecraft, Arthur C. Clarke
Arthur C. Clarke

Sri Lankabhimanya Sir Arthur Charles Clarke, Order of the British Empire was a British people science fiction author, inventor, and Futurology, most famous for the novel 2001: A Space Odyssey , written in collaboration with director Stanley Kubrick, a collaboration which also produced the 2001: A Space Odyssey ; and as a host and comment...
, Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury

Ray Douglas Bradbury is an United States literature, fantasy, Horror fiction, science fiction, and mystery writer.Best known for his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles, Bradbury is widely considered one of the greatest and most popular American writers of speculative fiction of the twentieth century....
, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Fredric Brown
Fredric Brown

Fredric Brown was an United States science fiction and mystery fiction writer....
 and Lydia Davis
Lydia Davis

Lydia Davis is a contemporary American author and translator of French. She is the daughter of Robert Gorham Davis and Hope Hale Davis. From 1974 to 1978 Davis was married to Paul Auster, with whom she has a son, Daniel Auster....
. New life has been brought to flash fiction by the Internet
Internet

The Internet is a global network of interconnected computers, enabling users to share information along multiple channels. Typically, a computer that connects to the Internet can access information from a vast array of available server and other computers by moving information from them to the computer's local memory....
, with its demand for short, concise works. A ready market for flash-fiction works is ezine
Ezine

An ezine is a periodic publication distributed by email or posted on a website. Ezines are typically tightly focused on a subject area....
s; however, flash fiction is also published by many print magazines. Markets specializing in flash fiction include Vestal Review
Vestal Review

Vestal Review is the oldest magazine dedicated to flash fiction. It has been published continuously since March 2000. Vestal Review was featured on NPR in 2004 and is a recipient of the Broome Council of the Arts grant....
, SmokeLong Quarterly
SmokeLong Quarterly

is a quarterly online literary magazine which publishes flash fiction and interviews with its authors. Its first issue was published on September 15, 2003....
, Every Day Fiction, Flash Fiction Online
Flash Fiction Online

is the first online magazine dedicated to professionalizing flash fiction in its own right.Flash fiction is loosely defined as stories of 1,000 or fewer words, although publishers vary....
, and Quick Fiction
Quick Fiction

Quick Fiction is a contemporary bi-annual literary magazine published in the United States of America. The journal's publishing focus is on the narrative prose poem/flash fiction, and they have proven instrumental in providing both newer and veteran writers the opportunity to showcase their work....
.

One type of flash fiction is the short story with an exact word count
Word count

A word count is the number of words that a document contains. Knowing the number of words in a document is sometimes important, for instance if the author is required to stay within certain minimum or maximum bounds, particularly in academia, legal proceedings, journalism and advertising....
. Examples include 55 Fiction
55 Fiction

55 Fiction is a form of microfiction that refers to the works of fiction limited to a maximum of fifty-five words....
, the Drabble
Drabble

A drabble is an extremely short work of fiction exactly one hundred words in length, although the term is often used to indicate a short story of fewer than 1000 words....
 and the 69er. Nanofiction
Nanofiction

Nanofiction may refer to:*A term coined by role-playing game designer R. Sean Borgstrom to describe the fictitious quotes which appear in the margins of the role-playing game, Nobilis....
s are complete stories, with at least one character and a discernible plot, exactly 55 words long. A Drabble
Drabble

A drabble is an extremely short work of fiction exactly one hundred words in length, although the term is often used to indicate a short story of fewer than 1000 words....
 is a story of exactly 100 words, excluding titles, and a 69er is a story of exactly 69 words, again excluding the title. The 69er was a regular feature of the Canadian literary magazine NFG, which featured a section of such stories in each issue. Short story writer Bruce Holland Rogers
Bruce Holland Rogers

Bruce Holland Rogers is an United States author of short fiction who also writes under the pseudonym Hanovi Braddock. His stories have won a Pushcart Prize, two Nebula Awards, the Bram Stoker Award, two World Fantasy Awards, and have been nominated for the Edgar Allan Poe Award and Spain's Premio Ignotus....
 has written "369" stories which consist of an overall title, then three thematically related 69ers, each with its own title. Writer Mark Budman
Mark Budman

Mark Budman is the founder, publisher and editor of the oldest continuously published flash fiction magazine Vestal Review. His fiction, creative non-fiction and poetry have appeared or are scheduled to appear in such literary magazines as Mississippi Review, The Virginia Quarterly Review, ''Exquisite Corpse, ''The Iowa Review...
 has written a novel-in-flashes "My Life at First Try." (Counterpoint Press, November 2008).

Vignette

Flash fiction differs from a vignette
Vignette (literature)

In theater Play and poetry writing, vignettes are short, impressionistic scenes that focus on one moment or give a trenchant impression about a character, an idea, or a setting....
 in that the flash-fiction work contains the classic story elements: protagonist
Protagonist

A protagonist is the main Character of a drama or Narrative. The word "protagonist" derives from the Greek language p??ta????st?? , "one who plays the first part, chief actor." In the theatre of Ancient Greece, three actors played all of the main dramatic roles in a tragedy; the leading role was played by the protagonist, while the othe...
, conflict, obstacles or complications, and resolution. However, unlike the case with a traditional short story, the limited word length often forces some of these elements to remain unwritten, that is, hinted at or implied in the written storyline. This principle, taken to the extreme, is illustrated by Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway

Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American novelist, short story author, and journalist. He was part of the 1920s expatriate community in Paris, France, and one of the veterans of World War I later known as "the Lost Generation"....
's six-word flash, "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

See also

  • Prose poetry
    Prose poetry

    Prose poetry is usually considered a form of poetry written in prose that breaks some of the normal rules associated with prose discourse, for heightened imagery or emotional effect....