There are so many predictable aspects to life. The sun will rise. Taxes will come due. James Cameron will gross another billion dollars with a film.
To such predictability I add the yearly email rants I receive about the Million Writers Award excluding flash fiction.
This time, though, I received a rant before the award cycle even begins. In response to my call for more preliminary judges, said ranter emailed that she wouldn't consider volunteering for an award which so blatantly "discriminates" against flash fiction.
I offer no apologies for the award excluding flash fiction. From the start, the award has focused on longer length stories, which our rules define as 1000 words or longer. My rationalization was thus: Since the ephemeral world of online publishing naturally provides a more supportive environment for flash fiction, I wanted this award to support longer stories. I've often said I'd support anyone who wanted to run a flash fiction contest along the lines of the Million Writers Award. But the Million Writers Award will not throw flash fiction and longer short stories into the same award-consideration pot.
At the risk of receiving more rants, I also point people to Jeff Crook's take on the Mississippi Review's new flash fiction issue. Jeff wasn't impressed with their new issue and quotes an essay I wrote almost six years ago, in which I stated "...there is no evidence that short shorts are being read by anyone outside the 'literary' community."
That made me wonder if what I wrote six years ago is still correct. While I continue to enjoy the better examples of flash fiction (including "Mr Cat" by Paul Lisicki, which Jeff rightly names as the highlight of the MR issue), I still don't see any evidence that many people outside the literary community read flash fiction. At least, not when compared with the millions of readers around the world who devour short stories and novel length fiction.
Perhaps I'm wrong, and am overlooking some sea change in flash fiction readership over recent years. If so, please let me know.
Are there really millions of readers devouring short stories? I'd personally lump them in with flash fiction as far as readership, but maybe I don't know where people are getting them. I kind of expect most people that read short stories get them through anthos of one sort or another--and so it would depend on the given antho as far as what lengths they considered. (My reasoning there isn't very deep, but anthos seem to sell better than magazines).
It's sort of an ongoing rant I haven't put down coherently (short fiction), but outside of the odd creative writing exercise and studying "the greats", schools (through high-school) really don't seem to give short fiction the nod; and outside of shorts being turned into the odd movie, I'd say popular culture doesn't, either. I'd love to see more study of short fiction (the stuff that's being produced "now") in high-school, for instance. Even when I was doing short fiction challenges in English there was no connection between them--short fiction was what you did because it was something smaller to focus on. Novels were what were consumed.
Per your essay, I have to agree that short-shorts allow for greater laziness; but in my opinion there's much that also hits that poetic line of character, plot, and context the way the two pieces you mention seem to. It's just that the easier something _can_ be, the more of it gets churned out. But just because it _can_ be easier doesn't mean that there aren't plenty of people spending days, weeks, or months to turn that perfect phrase...
Posted by: Kaolin Fire (GUD Magazine) | January 18, 2010 at 06:50 PM
As a previous and current judge for the Million Writers Award, I respect the constraints of the competition. As the creator of the competition, you, of course, have the right to design the rules however you see fit. It excludes flash pieces, so what?; a flash competition would have its own length restrictions.
Is there a readership for flash outside literary circles? Being that I am so embedded--when it comes to both my professional and social contacts--in the literary community, I do not know the answer to that question. A brief search of "flash fiction" on Amazon.com turned up pages of results, consisting mostly of flash collections and flash writing guides. My guess is that some of these would be available in Barnes and Noble, and that people browsing for fiction to read, who really didn't know any better, might pick up a collection of flash and not draw much of a distinction between flash fiction and traditional-length short stories.
But I'm curious. For what it's worth, I'm going to post a question to that effect on Twitter, and see what responses turn up. If I hear the crickets chirping, I'm either close to an answer or I need to get more followers.
Best,
Cynthia Reeser
Posted by: Cynthia Reeser | January 18, 2010 at 06:51 PM
There IS a contest for flash fiction more or less along the lines of the Million Writers Award, and it's open to print stories too. I run it, and it's called the Micro Award. Go to www.microaward.com if you want to learn more about it.
Posted by: Robert Laughlin | January 18, 2010 at 07:43 PM
Kaolin: You are correct about short stories being a distant second to novels in readership. But short story anthologies still sell very well, either original anthologies or the numerous year's best collections across different genres. So I wouldn't yet lump short stories in with flash fiction as only being read by those in the literary community.
Cynthia: Look forward to learning what you hear. You are also correct about there being a number of flash fiction anthologies. But I'm not sure how well they've actually sold. Anyone know?
And Robert is correct about the award he runs. I was actually thinking about his award when I mentioned supporting a Million Writers style award for flash fiction. Didn't intend to make it sound like nothing along those lines existed. Obviously it does. Anyway, check out the Micro Award at http://www.microaward.com.
Posted by: Jason Sanford | January 18, 2010 at 08:03 PM
I should also mention the Wigleaf 50, an annual selection of the best flash stories on the Internet, as chosen by the staff of Wigleaf Magazine. It's not the same sort of thing as the MWA or the Micro Award, really; there's zero input from the general public. But the relentless excellence of Wigleaf's choices makes one wonder what's wrong with that. Is a potholed democracy preferable to a prosperous, benevolent despot state?
Posted by: Robert Laughlin | January 18, 2010 at 10:24 PM
I personally don't enjoy flash fiction. I never have. I prefer stories with meat on their bones.
That's not to say there isn't good flash fiction out there, but I'm of the opinion that anything worth reading needs to be something that takes up a good portion of my time. I want to sit down and read something that is going to keep me occupied for thirty minutes to an hour, not a snippet that I can read in 10 minutes.
In non-fiction, in the freelance world, I regularly reference what I call "blurbs". These are short little 500 word "articles" that exist all over the Internet. How-to, About, etc. No one, I do not care how qualified, will ever be able to impart anything more than the briefest blurb of information in 500 words. It is the back of a DVD cover. The jacket of a hard-cover novel. The blog post about a movie.
I feel the same way about flash fiction. To me, flash fiction will never be able to impart anything meaningful to me. Maybe that means I'm not reading some brilliant work, but that's my opinion, and my choice. I know it's certainly something that jaded my opinion when I decided to finance a spec-fic zine...our submission guidelines specifically state nothing less than 5,000 words.
It's just me. I prefer reading meaty fiction.
Posted by: T.W. Anderson | January 19, 2010 at 06:24 AM
Flash fiction has its place and its uses. Having published several flash fiction stories, I am a fan of the genre. Stories that get close to 1000 words can tell a complete story. However, even at this length it is a genre with its own special rules and expectations. To me, flash has to be more than simple fiction. It's more like narrative prose poetry. It captures a single, intense, brief emotion or moment. The intensity of that moment is the key, and I think it is where so many flash fictions fail as they either strive to be too much like a longer work of fiction, or they try to hard to be poetic and brilliant.
One of my favorite flash markets is the Futures feature on the back page of Nature magazine (and Nature Physics). Length is 850-950 words.
Posted by: Jeff Crook | January 19, 2010 at 09:26 AM
Jason, I disagree but it's your right to hold an opinion any way you want.
On the other hand, I don't think it's any great slight to flash fiction. There's no more reason to include flash than to include haiku or watercolours.
I generally read flash fiction and novels, and very little in between, but I've certainly enjoyed my share of longer shorts in the past.
Inevitably, as our attention spans decrease and communicating by Twitter becomes the norm, flash fiction will doubtless be looked on with the sort of dread I reserve for War and Peace.
(and, ironically, if you check out my blog you'll see my flash fiction is on hiatus while I summon the energy to tackle something meatier. Hey ho.)
Posted by: Anton Gully | January 21, 2010 at 03:32 PM
Since I edit a flash fiction magazine, it's hard for me to be impartial. Yet I want to say that you can appeal to the readers of longer fiction by creating a "full" story or even a novel consisting of interconnecting flashes. That's what I did in my novel "My Life at First Try."
Posted by: Mark Budman | January 31, 2010 at 12:52 PM
Mark: Excellent point. I'll have to read your novel. Had it on my to-read list a while back but forgot to pick up a copy.
Posted by: Jason Sanford | January 31, 2010 at 01:36 PM