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Flash fiction

Style of fictional literature or fiction of extreme brevity

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Varieties are sometimes defined by word count, including the six-word story, the 280-character story ("twitterature"), the "dribble" (also known as the "minisaga", 50 words), and the "drabble" (also known as "microfiction", 100 words).

History

Flash fiction has roots going back to prehistory, recorded at origin of writing, including fables and parables, notably Aesop's Fables and Parables of Jesus in the west, and Panchatantra and Jataka tales in India. Later examples include the tales of Nasreddin, and Zen koans such as The Gateless Gate.

In the United States, early forms of flash fiction can be found in the 19th century, notably in the figures of Walt Whitman, Ambrose Bierce, and Kate Chopin.

In the 1920s, flash fiction was referred to as the "short short story" and was associated with Cosmopolitan magazine, and in the 1930s, collected in anthologies such as The American Short Short Story.

Somerset Maugham 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 Michio Tsuzuki (都筑道夫).

In 1986, Jerome Stern at the Florida State University organized the World's Best Short-Short Story Contest for stories of fewer than 250 words. Michael Martone, the first winner, received $100 and a crate of Florida oranges as the prize. The Southeast Review continues the contest but has increased the maximum to 500 words. In 1996, Stern published Micro Fiction: an anthology of really short stories drawn, in part, from the contest.

It was not until 1992, however, that the term "flash fiction" came into use as a category/genre of fiction. It was coined by James Thomas, who together with Denise Thomas and Tom Hazuka edited the 1992 landmark anthology titled Flash Fiction: 72 Very Short Stories, and was introduced by Thomas in his Introduction to that volume. Since then the term has gained wide acceptance as a form, especially in the W. W. Norton Anthologies co-edited by Thomas: Flash Fiction America, Flash Fiction International, Flash Fiction Forward, and Flash Fiction: 72 Very Short Stories. In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, several writers became associated with contemporary flash fiction. Lydia Davis and Diane Williams have been widely discussed for their very short, formally experimental prose. The growing recognition of the form was reflected in initiatives such as Rose Metal Press’s inaugural short-short chapbook contest in the early 2000s, which published Claudia Smith’s The Sky Is a Well and Other Shorts. Other writers associated with the form include Kim Chinquee and Kathy Fish. 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.

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