Flash fiction is a fictional work of extreme brevity that still offers character and plot development. Identified varieties, many of them defined by

word count The word count is the number of words in a document or passage of text. Word counting may be needed when a text is required to stay within certain numbers of words. This may particularly be the case in academia, legal proceedings, journalism and ad ...

, include the six-word story; the 280-character story (also known as " twitterature"); the "dribble" (also known as the " minisaga," 50 words); the "

drabble A drabble is a short work of fiction of precisely one hundred words in length."Winners ...

" (also known as "microfiction," 100 words); "sudden fiction" (750 words); "flash fiction" (1,000 words); and "microstory".

Christopher Kasparek Christopher Kasparek (born 1945) is a Scottish-born writer of Polish descent who has translated works by numerous authors, including Ignacy Krasicki, Bolesław Prus, Florian Znaniecki, Władysław Tatarkiewicz, Marian Rejewski, and Władysł ...

, "Two Micro-Stories by

Bolesław Prus Aleksander Głowacki (20 August 1847 – 19 May 1912), better known by his pen name Bolesław Prus (), was a Polish novelist, a leading figure in the history of Polish literature and philosophy, as well as a distinctive voice in world li ...

," ''

The Polish Review ''The Polish Review'' is an English-language academic journal published quarterly in New York City by the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America. ''The Polish Review'' was established in 1956. Editors-in-chief The following persons hav ...

'', 1995, no. 1, pp. 99-103. Some commentators have suggested that flash fiction possesses a unique literary quality in its ability to hint at or imply a larger story.

History

Flash fiction has roots going back to prehistory, recorded at origin of writing, including

fable Fable is a literary genre: a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized, and that illustrates or leads to a particular mor ...

s and

parable A parable is a succinct, didactic story, in prose or verse, that illustrates one or more instructive lessons or principles. It differs from a fable in that fables employ animals, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature as characters, ...

s, notably ''

Aesop's Fables Aesop's Fables, or the Aesopica, is a collection of fables credited to Aesop, a slave and storyteller believed to have lived in ancient Greece between 620 and 564 BCE. Of diverse origins, the stories associated with his name have descended t ...

'' in the west, and

Panchatantra The ''Panchatantra'' ( IAST: Pañcatantra, ISO: Pañcatantra, sa, पञ्चतन्त्र, "Five Treatises") is an ancient Indian collection of interrelated animal fables in Sanskrit verse and prose, arranged within a frame stor ...

and

Jataka tales The Jātakas (meaning "Birth Story", "related to a birth") are a voluminous body of literature native to India which mainly concern the previous births of Gautama Buddha in both human and animal form. According to Peter Skilling, this genre is ...

in India. Later examples include the tales of

Nasreddin Nasreddin () or Nasreddin Hodja (other variants include: Mullah Nasreddin Hooja, Nasruddin Hodja, Mullah Nasruddin, Mullah Nasriddin, Khoja Nasriddin) (1208-1285) is a character in the folklore of the Muslim world from Arabia to Central As ...

, and

Zen Zen ( zh, t=禪, p=Chán; ja, text= 禅, translit=zen; ko, text=선, translit=Seon; vi, text=Thiền) is a school of Mahayana Buddhism that originated in China during the Tang dynasty, known as the Chan School (''Chánzong'' 禪宗), and ...

koan A (; , ; ko, 화두, ; vi, công án) is a story, dialogue, question, or statement which is used in Zen practice to provoke the "great doubt" and to practice or test a student's progress in Zen. Etymology The Japanese term is the Sino-J ...

s such as ''

The Gateless Gate ''The Gateless Barrier'' (Mandarin: 無門關 ''Wúménguān''; Japanese: 無門関 ''Mumonkan''), sometimes translated as ''The Gateless Gate'', is a collection of 48 Chan (Zen) koans compiled in the early 13th century by the Chinese Zen master ...

''. In the United States, early forms of flash fiction can be found in the 19th century, notably in the figures of

Walt Whitman Walter Whitman (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among ...

Ambrose Bierce Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce (June 24, 1842 – ) was an American short story writer, journalist, poet, and American Civil War veteran. His book '' The Devil's Dictionary'' was named as one of "The 100 Greatest Masterpieces of American Literature" by ...

, and

Kate Chopin Kate Chopin (, also ; born Katherine O'Flaherty; February 8, 1850 – August 22, 1904) was an American author of short stories and novels based in Louisiana. She is considered by scholars to have been a forerunner of American 20th-century femini ...

. In the 1920s flash fiction was referred to as the "short short story" and was associated with ''

Cosmopolitan Cosmopolitan may refer to: Food and drink * Cosmopolitan (cocktail), also known as a "Cosmo" History * Rootless cosmopolitan, a Soviet derogatory epithet during Joseph Stalin's anti-Semitic campaign of 1949–1953 Hotels and resorts * Cosmopoli ...

'' magazine; and in the 1930s, collected in anthologies such as ''The American Short Short Story''.

Somerset Maugham William Somerset Maugham ( ; 25 January 1874 – 16 December 1965) was an English writer, known for his plays, novels and short stories. Born in Paris, where he spent his first ten years, Maugham was schooled in England and went to a German un ...

was a notable proponent, with his ''Cosmopolitans: Very Short Stories'' (1936) being an early collection. In Japan, flash fiction was popularized in the post-war period particularly by . In 2020 The Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin established the first curated collection of flash fiction artifacts in the United States.

Authors

Practitioners have included Saadi of Shiraz ("

Gulistan of Sa'di ''Gulistān'' ( fa, گُلِستان, Golestān, The Flower Garden; ), sometimes spelled Golestan, is a landmark of Persian literature, perhaps its single most influential work of prose. Written in 1258 CE, it is one of two major works of the ...

"),

Anton Chekhov Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (; 29 January 1860Old Style date 17 January. – 15 July 1904Old Style date 2 July.) was a Russian playwright and short-story writer who is considered to be one of the greatest writers of all time. His career a ...

O. Henry William Sydney Porter (September 11, 1862 – June 5, 1910), better known by his pen name O. Henry, was an American writer known primarily for his short stories, though he also wrote poetry and non-fiction. His works include " The Gift of the ...

Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It ty ...

, H.P. Lovecraft,

Yasunari Kawabata was a Japanese novelist and short story writer whose spare, lyrical, subtly shaded prose works won him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1968, the first Japanese author to receive the award. His works have enjoyed broad international appeal a ...

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fic ...

Julio Cortázar Julio Florencio Cortázar (26 August 1914 – 12 February 1984; ) was an Argentine, nationalized French novelist, short story writer, essayist, and translator. Known as one of the founders of the Latin American Boom, Cortázar influenced an ...

Daniil Kharms Daniil Ivanovich Kharms (russian: Дании́л Ива́нович Хармс; – 2 February 1942) was an early Soviet-era Russian avant-gardist and absurdist poet, writer and dramatist. Early years Kharms was born as Daniil Yuvach ...

Arthur C. Clarke Sir Arthur Charles Clarke (16 December 191719 March 2008) was an English science-fiction writer, science writer, futurist, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host. He co-wrote the screenplay for the 1968 film '' 2001: A Spac ...

Richard Brautigan Richard Gary Brautigan (January 30, 1935 – c. September 16, 1984) was an American novelist, poet, and short story writer. A prolific writer, he wrote throughout his life and published ten novels, two collections of short stories, and four bo ...

Ray Bradbury Ray Douglas Bradbury (; August 22, 1920June 5, 2012) was an American author and screenwriter. One of the most celebrated 20th-century American writers, he worked in a variety of modes, including fantasy, science fiction, horror, mystery fictio ...

, Kurt Vonnegut Jr.,

Fredric Brown Fredric Brown (October 29, 1906 – March 11, 1972) was an American science fiction, fantasy, and mystery writer.D. J. McReynolds, "The Short Fiction of Fredric Brown" in Frank N. Magill, (ed.) ''Survey of Science Fiction Literature'', Vol. 4 ...

, John Cage,

Philip K. Dick Philip Kindred Dick (December 16, 1928March 2, 1982), often referred to by his initials PKD, was an American science fiction writer. He wrote 44 novels and about 121 short stories, most of which appeared in science fiction magazines during his ...

and

Robert Sheckley Robert Sheckley (July 16, 1928 – December 9, 2005) was an American writer. First published in the science-fiction magazines of the 1950s, his many quick-witted stories and novels were famously unpredictable, absurdist, and broadly comical. ...

. Hemingway also wrote 18 pieces of flash fiction that were included in his first short-story collection, ''

In Our Time In Our Time may refer to: * ''In Our Time'' (1944 film), a film starring Ida Lupino and Paul Henreid * ''In Our Time'' (1982 film), a Taiwanese anthology film featuring director Edward Yang; considered the beginning of the "New Taiwan Cinema" * ''In ...

'' (1925). It is disputed whether (to win a bet), as alleged, he also wrote the flash fiction " For Sale, Baby Shoes, Never Worn". Also notable are the 62 "short-shorts" which comprise ''Severance,'' the thematic collection by

Robert Olen Butler Robert Olen Butler (born January 20, 1945) is an American fiction writer. His short-story collection ''A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain'' was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1993. Early life Butler was born in Granite City, Illin ...

in which each story describes the remaining 90 seconds of conscious awareness within human heads which have been decapitated. English-speaking writers well known for their published flash fiction include

Lydia Davis Lydia Davis (born July 15, 1947) is an American short story writer, novelist, essayist, and translator from French and other languages, who often writes short (one or two pages long) short stories. Davis has produced several new translations of ...

David Gaffney David Gaffney is a British writer well known for his flash fiction. His work has appeared in such publications as ''Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine'', '' Bad Idea'', and ''Ambit''. He was the 2015 flash-fiction judge for th ...

, Robert Scotellaro, and Nancy Stohlman, and online include

Sherrie Flick Sherrie Flick is an American fiction writer whose work has appeared in ''Prairie Schooner'', ''North American Review'', ''Quarterly West'', ''Puerto del Sol'', ''Weave Magazine'', ''Quick Fiction'', Lit Hub, and other literary magazines. Flick is ...

, Bruce Holland Rogers,

Steve Almond Steve Almond (born October 27, 1966) is an American short-story writer, essayist and author of ten books, three of which are self-published. Life Almond was raised in Palo Alto, California, graduated from Henry M. Gunn High School and received ...

, Barbara Henning,

Grant Faulkner Grant Faulkner is an American writer, the executive director of National Novel Writing Month(NaNoWriMo), the co-founder of the online literary journal ''100 Word Story'', and the co-host of the podcast Write-minded. Biography Grant Faulkne ...

. Spanish-speaking literature has many authors of microstories, including

Augusto Monterroso Augusto Monterroso Bonilla (December 21, 1921 - February 7, 2003) was a Honduran writer who adopted Guatemalan nationality, known for the ironical and humorous style of his short stories. He is considered an important figure in the Latin Americ ...

El Dinosaurio ''El dinosaurio'' (The dinosaur) is a flash fiction written by the Honduras-born Guatemalan writer Augusto Monterroso, published as a part of the book ''Obras completas (y otros cuentos)'', in 1959. It is considered one of the shortest stories i ...

") and

Luis Felipe Lomelí Luis Felipe Gómez Lomelí (January 10, 1975) is a Mexican writer and poet. He is best known for his flash fiction work " El emigrante" (The Migrant – 2005) and for the collection ''Todos santos de California'' (All Saints of California – 20 ...

(" El Emigrante"). Their microstories are some of the shortest ever written in that language. In Spain, authors of ''microrrelatos'' (very short fictions) have included

Andrés Neuman Andrés Neuman (born January 28, 1977) is a Spanish-Argentine writer, poet, translator, columnist and blogger. The son of Argentine émigré musicians, he was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, to a mother of French and Spanish descent and a fa ...

Ramón Gómez de la Serna Ramón Gómez de la Serna y Puig (3 July 1888 in Madrid – 13 January 1963 in Buenos Aires) was a Spanish writer, dramatist and avant-garde agitator. He strongly influenced surrealist film maker Luis Buñuel. Ramón Gómez de la Serna was esp ...

, José Jiménez Lozano,

Javier Tomeo Javier Tomeo (9 September 1932 – 22 June 2013) was a Spanish (Aragon Aragon ( , ; Spanish and an, Aragón ; ca, Aragó ) is an autonomous community in Spain, coextensive with the medieval Kingdom of Aragon. In northeastern Spain, the Ar ...

José María Merino José María Merino is a Spanish novelist born in A Coruña, Galicia on 5 March 1941. He is the father of two daughters, María and Ana, both of them university professors. ( Ana Merino is also a poet.) He lived for several years in León and cu ...

, Juan José Millás, and

Óscar Esquivias Óscar Esquivias (born 28 June 1972 in Burgos, Castile and León, Spain) is a Spanish short-story writer, poet and novelist. Biography He studied at the University of Burgos. He was director of the literature magazine ''Calamar, revista de cr ...

. In his collection ''La mitad del diablo'' (Páginas de Espuma, 2006), Juan Pedro Aparicio included the one-word story Luis XIV, which in its entirety reads: "Yo" ("I"). In Argentina, notable contemporary contributors to the genre have included

Marco Denevi Marco Denevi (May 12, 1922 – December 12, 1998) was an Argentine author of novels and short stories, as well as a lawyer and journalist. His work is characterized by its originality and depth, as well as a criticism of human incompetence. His ...

Luisa Valenzuela Luisa Valenzuela Levinson (born 26 November 1938) is a post-'Boom' novelist and short story writer. Her writing is characterized by an experimental style which questions hierarchical social structures from a feminist perspective. She may be bes ...

, and Ana María Shua. The Italian writer

Italo Calvino Italo Calvino (, also , ;. RAI (circa 1970), retrieved 25 October 2012. 15 October 1923 – 19 September 1985) was an Italian writer and journalist. His best known works include the '' Our Ancestors'' trilogy (1952–1959), the ''Cosmicomi ...

consciously searched for a short narrative form, drawing inspiration from Argentine writers

Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo (; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, as well as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known b ...

and

Adolfo Bioy Casares Adolfo Bioy Casares (; 15 September 1914 – 8 March 1999) was an Argentine fiction writer, journalist, diarist, and translator. He was a friend and frequent collaborator with his fellow countryman Jorge Luis Borges. He is the author of the Fan ...

and finding that Monterroso's was "the most perfect he could find"; "El dinosaurio", in turn, possibly inspired his "The Dinosaurs". German-language authors of ''Kürzestgeschichten,'' influenced by brief narratives penned by

Bertolt Brecht Eugen Berthold Friedrich Brecht (10 February 1898 – 14 August 1956), known professionally as Bertolt Brecht, was a German theatre practitioner, playwright, and poet. Coming of age during the Weimar Republic, he had his first successes as a ...

and

, have included

Peter Bichsel Peter Bichsel (born 24 March 1935) is a popular Swiss writer and journalist representing modern German literature. He was a member of the Gruppe Olten. Bichsel was born 1935 in Lucerne, Switzerland, the son of manual labourers. Shortly after ...

Heimito von Doderer Franz Carl Heimito, Ritter von Doderer; known as Heimito von Doderer (5 September 1896 23 December 1966) was an Austrian writer. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature five times. Family Heimito von Doderer was born in Weidlinga ...

Günter Kunert Günter Kunert (; 6 March 1929 – 21 September 2019) was a German writer. Based in East Berlin, he published poetry from 1947, supported by Bertold Brecht. After he had signed a petition against the deprivation of the citizenship of Wolf Biermann ...

, and Helmut Heißenbüttel. The

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walte ...

-speaking world has produced a number of microstory authors, including the

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfre ...

-winning Egyptian author

Naguib Mahfouz Naguib Mahfouz Abdelaziz Ibrahim Ahmed Al-Basha ( arz, نجيب محفوظ عبد العزيز ابراهيم احمد الباشا, ; 11 December 1911 – 30 August 2006) was an Egyptian writer who won the 1988 Nobel Prize in Literature. M ...

, whose book ''Echoes of an Autobiography'' is composed mainly of such stories. Other flash fiction writers in Arabic include Zakaria Tamer, Haidar Haidar, and

Laila al-Othman Laila al-Othman (sometimes Laylā al-'Uthmān) is a Kuwaiti writer, novelist, short story writer, and a famous fictionist who was born into a prominent Kuwaiti family in 1943, and only 22 years later she made her writing debut in a local newspaper ...

. In the Russian-speaking world the best known flash fiction author is Linor Goralik. In the southwestern

Indian state India is a federal union comprising 28 states and 8 union territories, with a total of 36 entities. The states and union territories are further subdivided into districts and smaller administrative divisions. History Pre-indep ...

Kerala Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South C ...

PK Parakkadavu is known for his many microstories in the Malayalam language.

Journals

A number of print journals dedicate themselves to flash fiction. These include ''Flash: The International Short-Short Story Magazine''.

Internet

Access to the Internet has enhanced an awareness of flash fiction, with online journals being devoted entirely to the style. ''SmokeLong Quarterly'', founded by Dave Clapper in 2003, is "dedicated to bringing the best flash fiction to the web ... whether written by widely published authors or those new to the craft." Other online flash fiction journals include ''wigleaf'', ''Flash Fiction Online'' and ''Flash Fiction Magazine''. In a CNN article on the subject, the author remarked that the "democratization of communication offered by the Internet has made positive in-roads" in the specific area of flash fiction, and directly influenced the style's popularity. The form is popular, with most online literary journals now publishing flash fiction. In the summer of 2017, ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issue ...

'' began running a series of flash fiction stories online every summer.

Notes

Bibliography

, "Two Micro-Stories by

," ''

'', 1995, no. 1, pp. 99–103. *

Zygmunt Szweykowski Zygmunt Szweykowski (7 April 1894 in Krośniewice – 11 February 1978 in Poznań) was a historian of Polish literature who specialized in 19th-century Polish prose. Life In 1932-39, Szweykowski held a professorship at the Free Polish University ( ...

, ''Twórczość Bolesława Prusa'' (The Art of

), 2nd ed., Warsaw,

Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy The State Publishing Institute PIW ( pl, Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, PIW) is a Polish publishing house founded in Warsaw by the Polish state after World War II, in 1946. ''PIW'' specializes in literature, history, philosophy, and the social s ...

, 1972.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Flash Fiction Fiction Fiction forms Short story types English-language literary awards Flash Fiction awards Literary terminology no:Lynfiksjon