Flash Fiction?

[Cate]

I am a non-fiction writer, but when I do dabble in fiction, it is flash fiction--under 1000 words. Does that fit in this category?
Eek!
I am such a fiction newbie!

[JenNipps]

I am a non-fiction writer, but when I do dabble in fiction, it is flash fiction--under 1000 words. Does that fit in this category?
Eek!
I am such a fiction newbie!

I would think it does. :)

Even with flash fiction, you still have all the various genres and such to experiment with.

[maestrowork]

Sure. But flash has more to do with length than genre. I think the best flash storeis are probably in Horror...?

[JenNipps]

Sure. But flash has more to do with length than genre. I think the best flash storeis are probably in Horror...?

Could be. I've never thought much about it. I've seen some intersting ones in romance, too, though.

In the contest I've been working on this year, there was a short-short story category. Some of the ones in it could definitely qualifiy as flash fiction.

[Cate]

I can't seem to write anything BUT flash fiction! I just run out of words.

This, is why I am not a fiction writer.

[Birol]

I think there's some good humor flash fiction, too.

Cate, flash is more about length and less about genre. Just as a novel can be any genre -- humor, horror, scifi, fantasy, romance, contemporary -- so can flash fiction.

[Anatole Ghio]

I'm not sure why Maestro feels the best flash pieces are in horror... do you mean the horror section of this board?

I've read some really good flash stuff in contemporary lit. Grace Paleys last short story collection had some really good flash stuff, and there are compilations of current flash writing out there.

It's just a length, and like anything else, genre is the mode of writing, so it all depends upon the writer to utlize the length in the best way possible, given the mode they work in.

This is one of my interests right now, flash writing, since it's the ideal blog length... almost all my blog writing is flash fiction. Anything longer would be pushing reader attention spans given the competition for viewer time the web naturally promotes... I just know if I were to post anything over 500 words, I would lose some readers.

[reph]

Try http://www.the-phone-book.com/ for a large collection of tiny stories. Among genres there, I believe mainstream predominates. Humor isn't far behind.

[awatkins]

Oh, I had forgotten about them, Reph. Thanks for the link.

I love to write flash fiction.

[maestrowork]

Would you consider the shorts in the New Yorker flash and mainstream?

[pixiejuice]

Hmm... I thought the abundance of flash fiction stories were literary/mainstream... I've seen humor before too. But some other genres (Sci-Fi, Horror) would be hard to do, I would think, because you don't have the room to set up another completely different world.