Recently, a book called Lost Lore and Legends was released by Breaking Rules Publishing Europe, in which five of my drabbles appear. A drabble, for anyone who doesn't know, is a story that's exactly 100 words long, and it's a sort of sub-category of flash fiction (or really short stories). There's no precise word limit on flash fiction as such, but I understand that most people consider it to be under 1000 words. I personally prefer to limit mine to around the 500-700 word mark. You can see my flash fiction series on the right hand side of the page. It's an ongoing project relating to the world in the novel I'm editing.
But why would anyone want to bother reading or writing such a short piece? Surely you want something you can really get your teeth into. Mostly, for me, this is true. But there are benefits to flash fiction, which I will share with you here. Firstly, I'll address this from the writer's point of view, and then from the reader's.
Why bother writing flash fiction?
1. It develops valuable skills.
I stumbled across flash fiction in a writers' group on Facebook. Every Friday, a thread comes up entitled 'Flash Fiction Friday', and the idea is to post a story of 50 words or fewer in the comments section. It was a great bit of fun, and a challenge to squeeze something into such a tight word count. It develops the skill of not using ten words when three will do. This is a skill that we all need as writers. Agents, editors, publishers, and readers don't want authors to waffle. I've found that, since writing flash, I've got a lot better at being concise with my work.
2. It can be a good way to get your work out there without taking too much time away from your main project.
There are a lot of submission opportunities for flash fiction and drabbles in indie presses. They're not all that time consuming, so you don't have to worry about putting your main manuscript on the back burner and, if your work is accepted into these anthologies or websites, it gets your name and your work out there. It makes you an active part of the writing community and it's a good way to publicise yourself.
3. It helps you feel that you've achieved something.
Writing a book can be a real long haul. Writing and many rounds of editing, alongside daily life stuff, can take some of us years. I've found that completing these smaller projects and being published in anthologies has given me a boost each time. It's a bit of light relief from the slow process of finishing a novel.
4. Variety is the spice of life.
This is linked to my last point. When we're working on something big and concentrating on the same story and characters for such a long time, our brains can get clogged up with other ideas that don't fit with the main project. We find ourselves longing to write about something new and exciting to keep things fresh, but we don't want to abandon the piece that we've put so much time and effort into crafting. These small side projects can be a fantastic creative outlet for some of these new ideas and help us not to feel stuck in a rut with our writing.
5. It can grow into something more.
If you have a piece of flash that snowballs into a much bigger idea, there's nothing to stop you from incorporating it into something on a larger scale in future. You could turn a few different flash pieces into a novella in flash, (basically lots of pieces of flash fiction joined together and linked, making chapters of a novella). Or you could take the character(s) from your flash piece and create a bigger story based around them and their world.
6. It can help beat writers' block.
If I can't seem to get the words down on the page for a particular project, I find that writing a piece of flash can get the creative juices flowing. By the time I've finished one piece of flash, my pen is usually in full flow, and away I go with my main project.
Why bother reading flash fiction?
I imagine most of us like nothing better than to really get stuck into a long book, get to know our characters on a deep level, so much so that we feel like we've lost a close friend when we reach the last page. We want to live that character's life, see through their eyes, and feel what's in their hearts. Nothing quite beats that. But flash fiction does have its merits too.
1. Busy lifestyles.
Hands up if you've ever been through a time in your life when you just haven't had much time to read, or you've been so exhausted in your spare time that you can't read the words without your eyes getting heavy. Perhaps we'll manage to read a chapter, but then so much time lapses before we get the chance to read the next that we've lost our thread and have no idea what's going on. I think most of us have been there. For me, it was when I was a new mum. But the avid readers among us really want to get back into books. Flash fiction and other short stories are perfect ways around this. We can read the whole thing in one sitting. (Maybe more than one, depending on the length of the piece and what time we have to spare.)
2. Leaving much to the imagination.
I don't know if it's just me, but I find there's a certain element of fun about filling in the gaps on my own when it comes to flash. There's no room for much detail in a flash fiction piece, so we're often left to surmise a lot of the background and where the story will go next. There often aren't the same details or descriptions when it comes to people and places because the writer has to be so economical with their words, so we can conjure up the imagery in our own minds. This might not be for everyone but, if you're like me, it can be lots of fun.
3. You encounter a wide range of authors and styles.
Whether you're looking at various authors' pieces online or in an anthology, you can read a lot of different styles of work in a much shorter space of time than if you were reading a full novel or novella. It comes back to point four on the list of 'Why bother writing flash fiction?' Variety is the spice of life, and it's so great to see how different writers deal with that word restriction. In a themed anthology especially, it is so interesting to see all the different takes on the same theme.
4. It's easy to follow.
Being short, flash fiction is generally much easier to follow than any other story (as long as it's not horribly written or inaccessible). There isn't space to introduce too many complex ideas into a piece of flash, or to flit back and forth between loads of different scenes. If you've got a short attention span, whether that's a temporary thing to do with life being messy, or something you struggle with all the time, you'll find it very hard to lose the plot when it comes to reading flash.
Personally, I'm always going to prefer a great, juicy novel. I can't deny that. But, for all the reasons listed above, there'll always be a soft spot in my heart for the short piece. Having written flash makes me appreciate it more as a reader. It's just wonderful to see how different people meet the challenge of word count restrictions. If you've yet to try reading flash fiction, especially if you're finding yourself without the time to read a full novel, give it a go. You might just love it.
V.
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