Flash Fiction

As Flash Fiction, Sudden Fiction or even Fast Fiction, a relatively young literary genre is called, which has its origins in Anglo-American short stories. The name comes from the same flash fiction works collection of authors James Thomas, Denise Thomas and Tom Hazuka, which was published in 1992.

Mark

The special characteristic of flash fiction is its brevity. Although there is no generally fixed word limit, short stories are usually referred to as flash fiction, when a length of 1,000 to 2,000 words is not exceeded. The majority of flash fiction stories has 250-1000 words. Traditional short stories include In contrast, an average of 2,000 to 20,000 words.

Despite the relative brevity of flash fiction stories containing elements of the classic short story: protagonist, conflict, obstacles and complications as well as the solution. However, flash fiction writers are forced by the limited number of words, to treat some of these elements just like highlights and to hint at the storyline. This principle was taken to the extreme by Ernest Hemingway's six -word flash.

Literary origins and development

The roots of flash fiction go back to the fables of Aesop, first major notoriety gained " very short short stories " by Anton Chekhov, O. Henry, Franz Kafka, HP Lovecraft and Ray Bradbury. A regular boom experienced the new genus by the Internet, but also by the publication of many flash fiction stories in literary magazines and newspapers. In addition, published beginning with the first work of the year 1992, many plant collections and write instructions on the subject of Flash Fiction.

Developments

The principle of flash fiction found numerous followers. Many authors tried to drive the flash fiction principle to the extreme and represent complete action sequences in shorter texts. These works are commonly referred to as nano or Fiction Micro Fiction. Large gained fame in this context Hemingway's above-mentioned six -word flash:

" For sale: baby shoes, never worn. "

There are also occasional flash fiction approaches, in which the technical limitation of SMS or Twitter messages are used as a framework for an entire story. In Germany this is read on the Twitter account @ tiny_tales by Florian Meimberg. Another term which makes the de facto limit to a literary context, Postcard Stories is.