Cyborg Menagerie

I’ve been reading a bunch of flash fiction in the past few days, so I thought I’d share some of my observations on what works for me as a reader.

First of all, what is Flash Fiction? To put it simply, flash fiction is just a piece of fiction that is just really short. From Wikipedia:

Flash fiction is a style of fictional literature or fiction of extreme brevity.[1] There is no widely accepted definition of the length of the category. Some self-described markets for flash fiction impose caps as low as three hundred words, while others consider stories as long as a thousand words to be flash fiction

Let’s frame this a bit more. Let’s stick with really short fiction, say 100 to 500 words.

1. Grab the reader’s attention right away. Flash is meant to be bite sized nuggets of story goodness. Don’t make me choose the other dessert.
2. Tell me a story. A complete story. Yes this can be done.
3. Don’t be so nebulous–the reader shouldn’t have to wait until the last sentence to know what the heck is going on.
4. Show don’t tell. You hear the rule all of the time for a reason. Don’t tell us the protagonist is scared. Paint the picture.
5. Easy of the flowery prose. Flowery prose can be good, but in flash fiction you only have so many words. There’s no sense in using them all to describe the supporting character’s jacket.
6. Easy on the murder, rape, violence. There are other ways to create tension and drama. And with so little words to work with, it is really difficult to do murder, rape, violence that doesn’t seem just cheap and gratuitous.
7. Surprise endings are overdone. Surprise! Those two people you thought were in love were newts the entire time. (I’ve written a bunch of these in my day and they are fun to write, but do feel a little like the easy way out to me now)
8. Make me feel. A good piece of flash fiction should make me feel happy. Or sad. Or nostalgic. Or anything other than meh.
9. Seriously, though. Take it easy on the violence.

Anybody else have thoughts on what makes good flash fiction?

I posted this on Facebook and Twitter, but I’m pasting it here for those of you who aren’t Facebook friends with me (sniff), because I promised to post a photo when I finally had finished the Lego coffee table I have been working on the past few months.

Well, here it is, in the living room, complete with Lego plates. There are things I’d change, but overall I’m happy with it. Not too bad for the first piece of furniture I ever built.

I’m a light sleeper. This needs to be said upfront. If there is a noise in the night I hear it. Except for my own snoring.

One of the most frightening noises in the night I’ve found, as a parent, is the child’s cough in the night. Not just any cough. THE COUGH. The one where you hear it and your think to yourself, “whelp, looks like I’ll be doing laundry at 2:30 AM”. That cough.

You are usually okay if it’s just one cough. I mean, hey, humans (yes, kids are humans) cough. But if you hear a bunch of them, strung together, and that last one sounds a little…wet? You better get yourself on your horse and in that kid’s bedroom. Oh, and on your way, grab whatever trash can, bucket, snow boot you can get. What you catch now, you won’t have to clean up later.

This happened last night, which is why I’m writing. I hear my 4 year old son in the other room, cough, and fight or flight kicked in. I got there in time, only without the bucket. That’s when I called for my wife for backup.

To be honest, though, I think I’m a bit lucky in this regard. I have a co-worker who has this happen like once a week and all night. Ours are more like twice a year and one and done. Stuff happens. Kid feels better. I wrote that last sentence because I don’t believe in jinxes. Fingers crossed.

So, whatever. I’m a bit tired today, but my wife has it worse. She’ll be home with both sickies today, most likely watching Disney all day. Maybe they’ll watch Wreck it Ralph again. That’s a good flick.

Over the past month, I’ve been helping online literary magazine The Lascaux Review with the redesign of their website. It was a pretty good experience and they seem to be pretty happy with the results. Why not go over there and check them out.

Also of note, they are currently hosting a $250 Flash Fiction contest. You might want to give that a shot too.