bwheadshot2There seems to be a notion among some writers that flash fiction is just too darned short. Non-writers don’t share this opinion — that is, if they even think about flash fiction at all — to them the shorter the piece, the easier it must have been to write. Writers know better. It becomes pretty obvious to anyone even attempting flash that its hard word-count ceiling creates a different set of challenges than the average short story. Many writers, therefore, give flash fiction a wide berth — it’s just too much of a headache to get everything done in less than a 1,000 words.

Me, I’m relieved that flash has a ceiling. That’s what makes it fun, a snack, something I can have complete control over as a writer.

But there is more to it than that. In imposing sharp limits on a story’s size, flash fiction liberates the writer by forcing certain kinds of behaviors. You cannot write an effective piece of flash that is bloated or rambling — though I believe a good writer could suggest those very things with clever prose. You cannot have sprawling plots, or a large cast of characters, or multiple points of climax. You cannot spend words to no effect.

It’s the difference between the sport of fencing, and an actual sword fight. You’d be liable to see more technique and control in a fencing match precisely because it is limited, because it has rules that govern movement, striking, duration, and so on. Not so a free-form dual with the same weapons, in which a whole host of variables from screaming and spitting and sand-throwing, to hurling one’s blade and hiding up a tree, or, just maybe, to cheating by showing up with a gun, could lead to utter chaos. The second situation is the harder situation to control (and, in my example, clearly the more dangerous), and it is also the situation in which one can cheat.

You cannot cheat with flash — at least, ‘cheating’ in the form of going over the word limit would render one’s flash fiction piece into something else, and would most likely get you rejected from markets specifically looking for flash. But not being able to use words numbered 1,001 to infinity means you never have to worry about them — they don’t exist in the world of flash.

To use another example, imagine a situation in which you were hired as a landscaper. You’ve got to create a full-blown paradise behind someone’s house, complete with garden, little ponds, strategically placed trees and hills, maybe a gazebo — you get the idea. So, you’re led to see the vacant field where you’ve got to do the work and it’s big enough to function as a landing strip for a DC-10. Sure, you can do it, it’s a question of time. But, will you end up with a unified garden, or a lot of little patches of paradise all over the place? Will you have to bring in colossal trees and engineer dramatic slopes and defiles to balance the sheer size of the plot, or will just putting a lot more little stuff in there get the job done?

Of course, the same job on a plot one tenth or one one-hundredth the size of our landing strip will be much, much simpler. That is not to say that the work will be easy — indeed, you won’t have as much space and freedom to include everything you like within your tiny yard — but you will gain a sharper focus for knowing you cannot plant or dig beyond the sturdy little fences ringing you in. And, when the two jobs are done, both may turn out to be magnificent, but only in the small garden will the appreciative viewer be able to step back, and take in the entirety of the composition at a glance.

This is not to say that one form is better than the other, only that each offer different challenges and rewards. Flash may seem to some writers who have not really given it a try to be too constricting, too limiting. But it’s these very limits that make it great — flash’s rules encourage the kind of sharp focus and tight control that make writing, and writers themselves, better.

Bill Ward is, most probably, a figment of his own imagination. His flash has appeared at Every Day Fiction, Murky Depths, and the anthologies Dead Souls and Northern Haunts, as well as The Best of Every Day Fiction 2008. He blogs about all things genre at www.billwardwriter.com.