The Golden Era of Flash Fiction!

Flash fiction has been around for many years (reportedly since the early 1990’s), but has become increasingly prevalent in the literary community in the last five to seven years. Once regarded as ‘lazy’ work flash fiction is now considered quite the opposite: intellectually challenging storytelling. So big in popularity is this flash fiction that in modern day, dozens of literary publications (both print and online) have shifted their focus to include flash fiction and in many cases exclusively feature works in flash fiction format.

Note: other names for flash fiction are short-shorts, short story, micro fiction, novelette, postcard, pocket-size story, and minute-long story.

What is flash fiction?

Flash fiction is a short form of storytelling defined by the number of words and/or sentences, which of course differ from writer to writer. All in all, flash fiction is any writing material more than 75 words up to 1,500 words, some flash fiction writers stretch the limit as far as 2,000 words.

Though by definition the context of flash fiction is to remain extremely short, it is not a venue that tolerates fragmented writing. The challenge of flash fiction is to tell a complete story in an well-expressed, concise fashion in which every word is absolutely essential.

Why write in flash fiction format?

A year ago I read and an editorial piece that claimed we live in the Golden Era of Flash Fiction.

It made sense to me when I read the article how this flash fiction format would take off. We do after all live in a society where people want and expect information at lightning speed so it stands to reason that with flash fiction providing instant gratification to readers that the medium would gain popularity. Oh, and if you don’t believe me just do a search on Amazon for anthologies (collection of short stories) and see how many results come up.

Now stop reading this article and go put some short stories down on paper :-)

That’s all for now folks. Take care and until next time!