{"id":145,"date":"2013-06-21T09:28:00","date_gmt":"2013-06-21T09:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/host2021.temp.domains\/~nationo0\/index.php\/2013\/06\/21\/say-no-to-flash-fiction-david-hartley\/"},"modified":"2013-06-21T09:28:00","modified_gmt":"2013-06-21T09:28:00","slug":"say-no-to-flash-fiction-david-hartley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalflashfictionday.co.uk\/index.php\/2013\/06\/21\/say-no-to-flash-fiction-david-hartley\/","title":{"rendered":"Say No to Flash Fiction – David Hartley"},"content":{"rendered":"
I don\u2019t like the term flash fiction. Which seems a bit of an odd thing for me to say since I class myself as a flash fiction writer, I\u2019ve had a book of flash fictions published, I\u2019m part of a writing collective called Flashtag, and this is the official blog for National Flash Fiction Day 2013. But go with me on this; I don\u2019t like the term<\/i> \u2013 I do like the things themselves. Very much indeed.<\/span><\/div>\n

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Flash fictions are the art of brevity, and brevity is such an attractive thing in a gluttonous world of broadband teleportation, purple-sprouting dragon fruits, and eye-pad iPads. They fit well; on screens, in lives, into the fragmented rituals of our daily timeframes. And I believe they are a healthy medium too. They teach us control. And patience. And that leaving things out is almost always better than putting things in. Ahem. <\/span><\/div>\n

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They show us that stories don\u2019t have to be long and consuming to be long in the mind and wholly consuming. Characters don\u2019t need names. Or descriptions. Or back stories, or baggage, or a claim to the iron throne through something your half-sister\u2019s cousin\u2019s marriage partner\u2019s spy said to a baby dragon seven thousand years ago. All you might need to say is \u2018the ventriloquist\u2019 and already the reader has a picture in their heads \u2013 and so do you, the writer, and now all you need to do is play that picture like a postmodern symphony of flavour until everything is mixed up and frightening and unsettling and then \u2013 BANG \u2013 hit them with the creepy dummy that they\u2019ve almost forgotten existed, and stalk out of the room triumphant.<\/span><\/div>\n

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My problem with the term flash fiction is the word \u2018flash\u2019. It implies the brevity \u2013 ok that\u2019s fine \u2013 but it also implies a certain unimportance, and that\u2019s not fair. As more and more people discover flash fiction \u2013 readers and writers \u2013 its critical importance as a medium is becoming increasingly apparent. Many of the major short story writing awards now have a flash fiction category, and published collections are leaving in the super-short tales, rather than taking them out. Flash fictions fit neatly in the allotted timespan of an open-mic spoken word night, and as we train ourselves to speak brief on social media, our creative writings are evolving in the same way. Flash fiction is crucial \u2013 not a flash in the pan.   <\/span><\/div>\n

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Ultimately, flash fiction is just another way of saying \u2018short story\u2019 which, in turn, is another way of saying \u2018story\u2019, because the length of a thing does not necessarily determine if a tale has been told or not. I came to this realisation when I read the short story \u2018Super-Toys Last all Summer Long\u2019 by Brian Aldiss \u2013 which became the bloated and flawed film A.I: Artificial Intelligence <\/i>in 2001. Aldiss\u2019 tale is not short enough to be considered as flash fiction, but it is still surprisingly brief and packs a powerful punch \u2013 which the film takes a long and relatively weak time to deliver. Aldiss chose his words carefully and released just the right amount of information to kick that chill into my spine, and, in turn, my fingers onto the keyboard.<\/span><\/div>\n

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Aldiss showed me that even that most complex of genres \u2013 science fiction (another troublesome term) \u2013 could be delivered in a tiny amount of words for the same, or even greater, affect. But that affect does not come quickly. And here lies another problem with \u2018flash\u2019 \u2013 it implies the writing is quick. Well, compared to a novel, yes your flash fiction is going to be finished first. But that doesn\u2019t mean you should trust your first words any more than you would the first draft of your novel. Flash fictions need gentle massage and brutal violence too; a shed word here, a change of tone there, a restructure of that sentence, a shift in point of view or, sometimes, a complete re-write. Make those words work hard, because they are no less important that the 100,000 words tussling to be free in that epic romance fantasy spy drama you\u2019ve got going on deep in the back of your mind. <\/span><\/div>\n

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But really; it doesn’t matter what we call them. As long as they get people to ink their quills and hammer all night on clunky keyboards in the creation of something beautiful, then their mission is accomplished. And if \u2018flash fiction\u2019 as a term has one thing going for it, its this; it still makes people frown, turn their heads and say \u2018what\u2019s that then?\u2019 And when they discover what it is – and how accessible, exciting and experimental it is – there really is no turning back. <\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I don\u2019t like the term flash fiction. Which seems a bit of an odd thing for me to say since I class myself as a flash fiction writer, I\u2019ve had a book of flash fictions published, I\u2019m part of a writing collective called Flashtag, and this is the official blog for National Flash Fiction Day … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalflashfictionday.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalflashfictionday.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalflashfictionday.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalflashfictionday.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalflashfictionday.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalflashfictionday.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalflashfictionday.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalflashfictionday.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalflashfictionday.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}