Flash Fiction…what is it really?

Flash fiction is a short form of storytelling defined by the number of words and/or sentences, which of course vary from writer to writer. In a nutshell, flash fiction is any writing material more than 50 words and less than 1,500 words—some flash fiction writers stretch the limit to 2,000 words.

Note: Other names for flash fiction are micro fiction, pocket-size story, and minute-long story.

Flash fiction has been around for many years—reportedly since the early 1990’s—but has become increasingly prevalent in the literary community over the last five to seven years. Once regarded as “lazy” work, flash fiction is now considered quite the opposite: intellectually challenging storytelling. So even though by definition the context of flash fiction is to remain extremely short, it is not a medium that tolerates fragmented writing. The challenge of flash fiction is to tell a complete story in which every word is absolutely essential.

It stands to reason that in a society where people expect information at lightning speed that the instant gratification that flash fiction provides would grow in popularity. Due to its wide spread appeal today, many mainstream publications have shifted their focus to include flash fiction. For example there are many publications that exclusively feature works in flash fiction format, Vestal Review, Brevity Magazine, and FLASH Fiction Online just to name a few.

As it pertains to the romance genre itself – the genre I specialize in – numerous romance publishers such as Decadent, Etopia, and Evernight have in recent years added Anthologies to their categories; Anthologies are compilation of flash fiction and/or short stories.

Hope you found this article to be informational; if you did I very much would appreciate a comment. 

Thank you!