Flash Fiction Chronicles

Most professional writers agree that standard manuscript format means double line spacing, one-inch margins and Courier typeface (because each letter takes up the same space on a line).

The other standard that seems to be settling in is that maximum length for flash fiction is one thousand words.

If we use those two standards, we arrive at a manuscript length for flash fiction of four to five pages. Maybe six, if there are a lot of short paragraphs and plenty of white space.

You would think that any experienced writer could knock that out over a weekend and still have time for Sunday morning brunch. You would be wrong.

Working as a slush reader over the past four months for Every Day Fiction has shown me how many writers, who think they can write flash, just don’t have a clue.

Wading through the slush, we see bits and pieces of stories. Anecdotes. Aphorisms. But only one in ten is a complete story and one in twenty or thirty is a good complete story.

Yes, you say, but many of those submissions are from writers still learning the craft. Maybe, but the sad truth is that even experienced writers struggle with flash. Many experienced writers can’t write anything less than novel length.

Best-selling novelist James Michener is supposed to have said, “In six pages I can’t even say hello.” He has lots of company.

Since last June, I’ve written fifty pieces of flash fiction, about one a week. Some I’m still polishing. Some I have retired; I call them dead soldiers. Twenty four have been accepted for publication, most of which have appeared in print.

And here are some notions about flash I have developed over the past year; no hard and fast rules or standards, just notions that work for me:

• Keep character count low; no more than three. The story feels crowded if there are more.
• Don’t give any character a name or description unless you want readers to pay attention to the character. Readers have different expectations after being introduced to Millie Roberts, the red-head at the register, than to the check-out clerk. And it’s fewer words.
• Make every word says just what you want it to say. I know you’ve heard this one before but you can’t hear it too many times. You have a thousand words and precision cuts to the heart of a thing with speed and clarity.
• Slash most adjectives and ALL adverbs. Be ruthless. You can smother a noun in modifiers, cut the courage right out of it, and any verb that needs modifiers can be replaced by a stronger verb. Ran rapidly and scrambled mean the same thing and scrambled sounds exciting.
• Write about our world. You must explain special rules for a fantasy world and that chews up word count. It can be done, Every Day Fiction has presented some marvelous fantasy flash, but it’s difficult to pull off and should be set aside unless there is no other way to tell the tale.
• Focus on small events. One man battling a nest of hornets he stumbles upon in his backyard is no less dramatic, has no less conflict, than a score of soldiers engaged in jungle combat.
• Be aware of word count every second you write. People say, “I can always come back when I’m done and trim it down.” Maybe so, but many can’t. It’s easier to keep track of the ticking meter along the way.
• For God’s sake, edit. Submitting a first draft is lazy. You can scrub the life out of a story, of course, but nothing is so brilliant that it can’t benefit from a bit of polish.

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K. C. Ball is a retired newspaper reporter and media relations coordinator. She grew up in Ohio, with her nose in a book, and she now lives in Seattle, a stone’s throw from Puget Sound.

Her flash fiction has appeared on-line at Every Day Fiction, Boston Literary Magazine, Fear & Trembling, Residential Aliens, Every Day Weirdness, Flashshot and Moon Drenched Fables, as well as in print in Murky Depths and the 2008 Best of Every Day Fiction anthology. Her longer stories have also appeared in on-line and print magazines.

K. C. is a staff reader for Every Day Fiction and a Finalist in the 1st Quarter 2009 Writers of the Future competition. She blogs about writing at A Moving Line and about whatever may strike her fancy at Now Playing in Seattle.

1.

I’m just sitting here on this futon and staring for hours out the window, so turn to one of the many quotations of the 1^st century Greek philosopher/statesman/dramatist Seneca (I was forced to memorize these as a child, as punishment for my relentless shoplifting). This one seems to address flash fiction: “To enjoy the present, without need for amusement and anxious dependence upon a construct—failing, rising, change—but to rest satisfied with The Spark, the flung knife of conflict, the eye contact and thrill in the after-burn quivering of the pelvis, the sound of river over stone, or car tire over an adulterous companion, the image of skin against white cotton curve, the image of a car antennae bending in the wind (or even clenched hand—snap!), which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The significant moments of mankind can be caught in etched stone, like a broken windshield, or legal summons. A quality story has seven dimensions, as you know. That souvenir Graceland coffee mug is my property. A wise man respects the Spark of Life, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not. I tried, Sarah!”

That may not be the exact quote; I’m paraphrasing here.

What the? A squirrel missing a front paw keeps trying to rifle my birdfeeder. You have to respect its perseverance, though I have greased the birdfeeder pole with sun block. The squirrel leaps up, grips with his three limbs, slides back down. Again. I bet he smells like coconut by now

2.

Find a story, a sparkle. A boy-crazed ruse. I mean essence. There are many ways. Here’s one of my little tricks (feel free to try this yourself, or use in the classroom): I drink a pint of schnapps (to open the doors of perception) and go people-watching at the world’s largest daycare/rehab center, Wal-Mart. Observe the ill and obese, the trodden and tired and pissed off and screaming and slouchy. Straight out of Bobbie Anne Mason, or maybe Chekhov (a fine flash fiction writer in his day). I stagger along, noting down a story for everyone. Pay attention, and everything hatches open like a chrysalis. This is your job as artist, to capture, to glow and craze.  See that little girl with a head like a canned ham? She has a sister who will form her own line of grooming products for dogs. She’ll probably run off with a salesman named Drew. On a sleeting Tuesday in November. Unfortunately, she will be eaten by a chow. That rotund woman over by the toilet paper works at the Mercedes plant. She cleans the robots that make the SUVS. Her dream is to save up enough money to purchase her very own SUV, a sickly bright yellow one (a superficial goal in my opinion). That will never happen because one day she overheats and explodes into confetti. See that ugly dude with a body like a tire iron? He resembles my brother. Wait, it is my brother.

“What are doing here?” I ask him. “I thought you were moving to Alaska.”

“Alaska?” he says. “No. That was just a figure of speech. The idea being that I was spiritually dead and shallow, and thought maybe a regional change might lead to a psychological improvement. It was all metaphorical. I’m not moving anywhere. I’m too scared to truly grow. How’s the separation going?”

“I don’t want to discuss the separation,” I tell him. Let’s move on.

3.

I wrote this next part while on Xanax and beer. (Long story, but I self-medicated early one morning. I thought I had a flight to catch and am terrified of flying. Ends up I missed the flight by a week or so, so now I just sat in my empty bedroom with this massive Xanax/Budweiser buzz. Sort of floating. Sort of single cloud.) So anyway, I opened Word and wrote this about flash fiction: Find something antediluvian. Find something fashionable. Visit a dentist’s office and record the amount of time you spend in the office waiting. Go to Russell Edson’s house (he lives in Cincinnati) and feed his dog, by hand. Wow, OK, throw in the word resonant. Listen, the man riding the motorcycle we will now call biker. That woman on the bike? Cyclist. Observe the making of their love. The child is an enigma. Don’t blame the TV, which I mean as the mirror. Put down the revolver-shopping and write. Nothing is happening? That’s OK. Most of the good stuff ends up off the page.

4.

Some things so small to be actually large.  Haiku or hydrogen atom, for example. Or take a phrase, an ordinary nothing phrase, three letters short (or long? Now you understand me): I do. These words can change your everyday reality from existential dread and alienation to a shared value and love of life. The exact inverse is likewise possible.

Throw in the term evoke an emotion. Oh hell, go ahead, let’s all say compression. Finally, add the only word in the English language with the letter sequence UFA. Rinse and repeat, repeat and rinse.

5.

Dad called and asked if I needed to borrow money. I screamed No, no, what I need is a story so moving no one will skip even a single word. That’s what I need, dad!! Jesus.

Close your eyes and press your index finger to the page, any word of your draft. Open your eyes. Why does that word matter?

(answer or delete)

6.

Treat an adverb the same you would a fruit bat in full daylight.

7.

When I was a child I ate pepperoni pizza for 41 days straight. On the 42^nd day I swore I’d never eat another slice of pepperoni for the rest of my life. That was 25 years ago. My point is to have more than one type of sentence. Length, arrangement, flow—change up something on the page.

I just noticed a water stain on my ceiling in the shape of a city burning. It looks like Memphis, either ancient Egypt, or Tennessee. Odd.

What exactly is a statesman? You know, Seneca was a big fan of self-restraint and personal discipline, but also really enjoyed having sex with married women. I’m just talking ancient history here. Factoids, glitters, questions of the mind—scatter them throughout your flash like thrown sapphires. Jerome Stern (fiction critic, flash master) labeled these as “intrigants.” Have a few.

8.

Leap for the pole.

Grapple, grip, flail your amputated heart and soul.

Slide right back down

Fall…

9.

You ever seen a squirrel exhibit self pity? Me neither. Best thing to do now is stop reading. Stop waiting on the phone to ring. Or for the bourbon and fried onions to stun you into sleep. Wake! Then wake up. Then manufacture.

(And so on.)

Sean Lovelace reads, writes, publishes flash and other fiction. In Diagram, Crazyhorse, wherever. His collection “How Some People Like Their Eggs” won the Third Annual Short Short Chapbook contest at Rose Metal Press, and will arrive in summer 2009. He teaches at Ball State University, but you can find him on the river, or in front of a platter of nachos.  Sean blogs at http://seanlovelace.com/.

Editor’s note: Sean’s story “Notes from Matrimony, # 9″, by the way, was selected as one of Wigleaf’s Top 50 (very) Short Fiction List.  Read it here: “Notes from Matrimony, # 9.”