As readers of my last blog might remember I’ve been writing a Flash Manifesto (womanifesto? proclamation? pronouncement?) Nah manifesto will have to do. I’ve been doing this because I’m doing a PhD by Creative Practice which will involved writing a novella-in-flash and critical commentary on the use of space, statis and the blank page. But how can I describe all this space and what it’s doing (as well as what novella-in-flash is) if I can’t clearly state what flash fiction is in the first place? Scholarly and narratological investigations into the qualities that make flash a distinct writing form are pretty thin on the ground so I decided to start by stating what I think flash is by: referencing online journals, comps, practitioner guides and my own 10 years worth of experience writing more than 300 published pieces of flash in many shapes and sizes.

Practitioner guides and flash websites haven’t helped all that much because they often describe flash quantitively, and even then can’t agree. Many flash comps ask for flash fiction entries way over 1000 words, some even as much as 2000. I have therefore decided to go with what Smokelong Quarterly and Bath Flash Fiction Competitions say word quantity-wise as they are the best known and most prestigious places to my mind. Also anything above 1000 words just feels too much in the vicinity of short story form to truly be flash fiction. That’s not to say there can’t be flash-like short stories just as there can be short story-esque flash fictions, but the cut off point of 1000 words feels right to me, and this is my flash manifesto – so there it is! I explain why 6 words in my cut-off point in the other direction, further along in this blog, so bear with, it will come. So that’s quantitative description sorted then but what about qualitative charateristics?

Older flash specific expert, how-to guides simply do not agree. The intro to My Very End of the Universe – five novellas-in-flash and a study of the form, says ‘Flash is characterised by, ‘Compression, immediacy and tension…the concision of poetry with the narrative tools of fiction,’ (Beckel and Rooney, 2028, E-reader location 120 of 2025). I can agree with most of that except for immediacy thing because flash fictions, especially longer ones can span narrative eons, but even if I agreed with the whole statement, I’m looking for much, much more. The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction (2009), published when the term ‘flash’ was not yet the default name for short-short fictions, seems to hold the notion, that to try to define flash would somehow constrain and reduce it. The editor says in her introduction entitled, In pursuit of the short, short story. “‘Each drop encases its own separate note, the way each drop engulfs its own blue pearl of light.’ This description of rain, from Stuart Dybek’s story ‘Nighthawks’ is as close to a definition of flash fiction as I can personally offer. A successful flash enchants us, each small story successfully rendered, engulfing us for a brief moment – in a ‘flash’…in its own brand of light or truth. And the effects linger on, sometimes for decades. To offer a more complete, hard-edged definition is virtually impossible. In the end, a flash is just a story in miniature, a work of art carved on a grain of rice.” (Masih, 2008, pp. X1). Randal Brown says in A Pocket Guide to Flash Fiction, ‘There’s no agreed-upon definition, expect perhaps the idea that its very short,’ (Brown, 2012 pp1). Jane Roberts writing in Wales Arts Review in 2015 says ‘…it is futile to attempt to define the exact universal boundaries of flash; these are wide-ranging.’

Expert (and wonderfully talented) practitioners seem to feel my struggle at definition. Tanya Hershman writing in answer to the question, ‘What is flash fiction?’ in Litro Magazine said, ‘Well, I don’t know. Really. I write flash fiction. I read flash fiction. But I can’t say definitively what it is.’ Luisa Valenzuela says, ‘I usually compare a novel to a mammal…the short story to a bird or fish; the micro-story to an insect (iridescent in the best cases).’ Lyrical analogies like this are useful as they give a flavour of the effects of flash on the reader, but, I want to understand and describe the techniques, the nuts and bolts that give rise to these effects. I prefer Ben Myers description, at least as far as micro flash fictions are concerned, ‘A successful flash fiction is a seed, planted in the readers imagination, which once there should grow and flourish.’ A more recent, scholarly article published in January 2024 in New Writing Journal by Shelley Roche-Jacques says this, ‘The idea of flash fiction as a story in miniature is aesthetically pleasing and simple, but it does not quite get to the heart of the form. It is not the case, as Masih’s image suggests, that all the elements of the story exist on the page, shrunk down. I would suggest that different techniques and approaches are used in flash fiction – and that this necessary ‘drive for innovation’ is part of the form’s growing appeal.’ I totally agree with this. Innovation is a key driver in my own flash fiction and lots of flash I love. Maybe this is why that, as a form, it seems to defy definition because it’s always morphing, always pushing boundaries and doing the opposite of what it did last week.

So anyway, not much nearer a description then so in the context of all the aforementioned here is, silent trumpet fanfare/ quiet drumroll (I’m in the graduate research centre at York St John typing this so I need to be a wee bit quiet) – my flash manifesto, which is written, as I said previously from the experience of writing my own flashes (of all lengths from 6-1000 words) from reading shed loads of other flash fictions, from entering (and sometimes winning) loads of comps and from reading the books mentioned above as well as Nancy Stohlman’s, Going Short: An Invitation to Flash Fiction and Michael Loveday’s Unlocking the Novella-in-Flash. So here it is

Jan’s Super-Brief First-Draft Flash Manifesto

1.Flash Fiction is an umbrella term for often formally different fictions of between 6-1000 words that are nearly always experimental in some way in terms of language, poetics, plot construction, genre or character development.

2.Longer flash fictions between 500-1000 words are structurally often short, short stories that either conform to or experiment with Freytag’s pyramid and therefore have: initial exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and a denouement/resolution. As flash is inherently experimental this form may be treated in unusual and unexpected ways but narrative movement is defo part of the mix.

3.Briefer flash fictions below 500 words start to move away from short-story form the shorter they become, building character, plot and narrative momentum using techniques like: subtext; implication; controlled omission; compression; linguistic precision; figures of speech; resonant endings; formal experimentation; titles that reframe and morph; manipulation of white space, pause and stasis; use of charged signifiers and associations that rely on assumed cultural knowledge/ tropes/ memes and symbols; manipulation of implied addressees; use of context to give back story about the nature/ genre of a flash so readers are pre-primed to disseminate particular narrative clues; distinct flash-esque temporal tendencies like writing in the 1^st person present tense so the narrator lives the narrative as the reader reads it; linguistic foregrounding so euphonics as well as how words sit on the page are ‘heard’ and ‘seen’ by readers who don’t so much fall into narratives as knowingly process them and in so-doing become bespoke interpreters; active reader engagement so readers become dynamic participants in the storytelling

4. Mid-sized to micro flashes seem to lend themselves to presenting stories in innovative and untraditional ways such as making them lists, instructions, recipes, crime reports, flow charts (the list is seemingly endless) a technique  recently described as hermit crab flash writing (because hermit crabs borrow their shells.) But this is a term I dislike. As a practitioner of this sort of flash since before the term exited I dislike it because it implies the shape, form and  on-the-page presence of these flashes comes second to their creation but, for me, this was not the case. The words came from the shape, were influenced by the constraints presented by the shape. That is to say, I didn’t fit the flash into the shape, the shape gave birth to the flash.

5.Micro fictions (for me) are flash fictions of 400 words and under, which rely heavily on the above techniques especially subtext and shared cultural knowledge the use of which leaves writers able to leave so much unsaid and readers to become dynamic in the story-telling.

6.Drabbles are flash micros of exactly 100 words which rely more heavily on the above techniques

7.Dribbles are flash micros of exactly 50 words which rely more heavily still on the above techniques

8.Nano fictions are stories of 6-49 words which rely absolutely  on the above techniques. (I don’t believe a story below 6 words has the capability to present a space for narrative movement or imply a context in which narrative movement might happen and so for me, 6 words is the lower cut off point for flash fiction). Here are some prize-winning 6 word nano flashes of my own to show that storytelling can be implied in very few words: ‘New heart, new lungs, same addiction’, ‘Broken heart seeks builder for reconstruction, ‘One marriage, two relationships, three kids’

9.Novellas-in-flash are longer stories formed by sequencing standalone flash fictions that, when presented together, create an overarching narrative or ‘bigger picture’

10.Other ‘in-flash’ story-telling may include short stories ‘in-flash’ and flashes ‘in-flash’ 

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So there you have it. My flashy starting point, which I will add to as I progress on my PhD journey. Yesterday I presented this manifesto at a Celebration of Research at York St John in the form of three slides and 5 minutes waffling on, which wasn’t exactly rocket science compared to some of the other brilliant PhD presentations but I’m really glad I did it because: I met some fab people, attended some useful sessions and signed up for a writing retreat here next week.

I didn’t get a photo of me talking at the event, but the photos at the start of this blog show me and my student accommodation for two sleeps which was lovely this time as it had a double bed, and my half-eaten lunch with the extremely classy York St John napkin. My work was part of the post-grad celebration not because it is of any particular merit yet, but it did lead to quite a lot of creativity. Experimenting with many of the techniques I identified I wrote and subbed several flash fictions and micros, one of which is already shortlisted and which will therefore be published and for which I will get paid, so success of a kind. More deets next time when said flash is actually out in the world.