{"id":19769,"date":"2024-09-11T13:00:06","date_gmt":"2024-09-11T05:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.i-learner.edu.hk\/?p=19769"},"modified":"2024-09-19T12:54:38","modified_gmt":"2024-09-19T04:54:38","slug":"over-in-a-flash-the-joys-of-flash-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www23.i-learner.com.hk\/studiowebsite\/2024\/09\/over-in-a-flash-the-joys-of-flash-fiction\/","title":{"rendered":"Over In a Flash: The Joys of Flash Fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"

How short can a story be? This question is the literary counterpart to the oft-cited idiom \u2018how long is a piece of string\u2019. Most people will invariably shrug their shoulders and say \u2018it depends\u2019. However, writers aren\u2019t \u2018most people\u2019. They see this question as a challenge.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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The power of flash fiction lies in its brevity. Writing a complete story with a few hundred words or less can be as difficult as writing the next <\/span>War and Peace.\u00a0<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

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Contemporary writers have pushed flash fiction to its limits, stripping back stories to their bare bones. The most famous example of this is a story often (and perhaps erroneously) attributed to Ernest Hemingway, containing only six words: \u2018For sale, baby shoes, never worn.\u2019 It acts as more of a suggestion of a story, hinting at a myriad of backstories, from a lost pregnancy to a failed relationship and refusing to answer any of the questions it raises.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Another example is <\/span>Widow\u2019s First Year <\/span><\/i>by Joyce Carol Oates: \u2018I kept myself alive.\u2019 In class, we consider the impact of titles and students create a new version of the title to shift the perspective. One student memorably switched the narrator from a widow to a pot plant whose owner always forgets to water it.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Flash fiction is particularly effective for students with writers\u2019 block. There is something paradoxically liberating about having constraints on writing. I am always impressed and inspired by my students\u2019 creativity. One of my favourite stories from a student featured a goldfish narrator who forgot the story he was meant to tell.<\/span><\/p>\n

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If flash fiction has taught me anything, I did not even need the previous three hundred words or so to convince you of its importance. In short, my tale for you contains just one word: \u2018Write!\u2019 Eat your heart out, Hemingway.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How short can a story be? This question is the literary counterpart to the oft-cited idiom \u2018how long is a piece of string\u2019. Most people will invariably shrug their shoulders and say \u2018it depends\u2019. However, writers aren\u2019t \u2018most people\u2019. They see this question as a challenge.\u00a0   The power of flash fiction lies in its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":143,"featured_media":18810,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[915],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www23.i-learner.com.hk\/studiowebsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19769"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www23.i-learner.com.hk\/studiowebsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www23.i-learner.com.hk\/studiowebsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www23.i-learner.com.hk\/studiowebsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/143"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www23.i-learner.com.hk\/studiowebsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19769"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www23.i-learner.com.hk\/studiowebsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19769\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19873,"href":"https:\/\/www23.i-learner.com.hk\/studiowebsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19769\/revisions\/19873"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www23.i-learner.com.hk\/studiowebsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www23.i-learner.com.hk\/studiowebsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www23.i-learner.com.hk\/studiowebsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www23.i-learner.com.hk\/studiowebsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}