Turning Fiction Upside Down

Here is a short story*:

Jermaine's Postscript to His Seventh-Grade Poem Assignment

• Marjorie Agosin

• Lydia Davis

• David Gaffney

By: Christoffer Molnar

Ms. Tyler, the girl part was about Shantell. Please don't tell anyone.

How can that be a story? There is no exposition, rising action, climax, nothing. All it gives you is an emotion, a glimpse into the longing and embarrassment of a sensitive boy. This story could have been told in the form of a short story, a novel, or a picture book. But adding back-story and details might have distracted from its heart. Anyone can relate to a seventh-grade crush, and fill in the holes with their own experiences, their own awkward adolescence, and their own perceptions of love.

Apparently, the attention spans of "today's children" have been hacked away by television and instant gratification to about the size of a peanut. You can barely fit a comic book in there, let alone Moby Dick or the dictionary. So when people write stories as short as Molnar's, are they playing into the culture of never focusing long enough, and fitting their stories into said peanut-sized attention spans?

First, let's take a look at flash fiction. The definition of flash fiction is simply a very short story. Definitions of its required length range from six to 1000 words, but basically if you write something that can be easily consumed in one sitting that is too short to be considered a full short story, then it is flash fiction. The names for flash fiction are varied and enchanting. Postcard fiction, microrelatos, short short stories, miniatures, micronouvelles, hint fiction, Kürzestgeschichten. I went to a seminar on flash fiction in which a teacher told me that one Japanese author calls very short stories "stories that can fit in the palm of your hand." I have never been able to find this author or this quote again, but I think it perfectly captures what flash fiction is. Small, precious, and smooth. The question is, if people began to write their stories shorter and shorter, would that mean they were playing to the world that TV has created, and abandoning the integrity of literature?

I would say no. Sometimes, attention span and length have nothing to do with each other. The Junie B. Jones books are longer than some of David Gaffney's 150 word stories, but which one will hold the attention of a kindergartner? It's true that a bite-sized story can be consumed far more quickly than a novel. But oftentimes the meaning is far harder to digest. To truly appreciate flash fiction, one must spend time with it, read it more than once, truly ponder and feel it. This is not work for those who crave instant gratification.

Flash fiction reflects an urge to boil writing down to nothing but emotion or meaning, to start a story in the middle and end it before it ends. Edgar Allan Poe believed that anything that could not be read in one sitting could not be fully enjoyed. Palm-sized stories leave a taste in your mouth, a sensation on your skin, plant a thought in your mind. I love reading books and novels, but flash fiction brings something new to the table. Writing so succinctly is not the act of "dumbing down" literature. It's introducing a new genre of immediacy and lingering thoughts.

If you are interested in exploring these stories (it's easy to make time for), here are some authors known for their bite-sized works that I learned about in the seminar I attended:

Flash fiction can also be found in copious amounts online. The following articles on flash fiction include its history, some examples and instructions on writing it yourself:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/may/14/how-to-write-flash-fiction

http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/03/short-and-sweet-reading-and-writing-flash-fiction/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_fiction

*This story came from the second link, a New York Times article on teaching children how to write flash fiction. It was originally printed in The New Yorker.