I've been thinking a lot about flash and microfiction lately, learning by the process of rendering a story down to its core components.
One of my favorite micro-story formats is twitter fiction (sometimes twitfic) -- stories in 140 characters or less. Starting with this tiny space, it's a challenge to fit only the most essential details while still being evocative enough to give the reader as complete a picture as possible, while it still implies some kind of change. In Twitter-based fiction, then, since the character limit is 140 firm, it's often helpful to distill a concept down to the specific point of some change in dynamics or some specific imagery which demonstrates the development of what's gone before in the story and what will come after.
A lot of unique and imaginative stuff specifically hinges on reversal of the reader's expectations or showing them a tiny window into a place which is terrifying or mystifying in a small slice. See: my friend Valerie's recent publication in Trapeze -- a picture of a world that's just ever so slightly off, like the picture frame is tilted slightly before we're pulled out of that world forever.
Trapeze Magazine: August 19th, Valerie Valdes. 
One experiment I did recently during a writing workshop, with author Carrie Cuinn, involved taking a story that I'd started but never finished (which was languishing at around 300 words) and distilling it down into more of a singular moment. It was a concept that interested me: I wanted to write about someone in the situation of being the only survivor of a crash-- on a deserted planet. I wanted this character to be a painter, and I wanted her to express the grief of her hopeless situation through the only language that made sense to her when there was no one left to talk to: her painting.
The problem was, I kept cluttering the thing up with explanations. The whats and wheres and whens and whys were getting in the way of the moment I wanted to express, and stretching the story concept out further than I really wanted to address with this one story. I didn't want to linger on it, but until I was scrambling to come up with something to hand in for class it hadn't occurred to me that the smallest moment of that story was the part that mattered to me, the part I wanted to convey to the reader. It was right then that I got it: for microfiction, you really have to distill a story down to one moment which has a click, a change, an "aha." You have to really fight the impulse to fit in any more story than is necessary to get the gist.
And so this:
Monochrome, 300 words ▼
The painting changed as I moved through the blightland. Hills and vales and canyons, in monochrome.
That was the part I loathed most; the monochrome. The haze of ash muted the voice of the sun in this place at the best of times, permanent, unending. The ash which blanketed the strange plains of this place, I collected in used rad-tube vials as I moved across the plains of this unknown country. The many shades of grey were all that was left with me, and this became part of the artwork, part of the journey.
When we crash-landed here, we still had the beacons, the auxiliary power. Still had hope.
Under the pretense of documentation, my whole world became the shifting landscape as I drifted here.
I made a tiny hill of the ash which made me think of macadam, dabbed a few sacred drops of linseed oil from the pyramidal bottle, the vessel of my salvation.
#
The painting is nothing. The painting is less than nothing and that's why it's all I have left.
#
Anita paced circles around the crash debris the first day when we pried free of the wreckage. Beat a path into that grey earth. The air here was thin, but not insufferable. I dragged the emergency kit from the undercarriage. It was bruised like we were, but serviceable. Warped tent rods fumbled with wobbly inaccuracies, but it was home enough. I tripped the cruiser's distress beacon and recorded the incident report.
#
They weren't coming back for us. The stabilized drives on the cruiser still had enough power to signal home, but nothing was coming back on the two-way. Not even error messages. If the message never made it out, the system would say so. No. Someone was listening but the answer was never.
became this:
Monochrome, 150 words ▼
When we crashed here, we still had beacons, auxiliary power. Still had hope.
Under the pretense of documentation, I painted. My whole world became the shifting landscape as I drifted.
The painting changed as I moved through the blightland. Hills; vales;canyons; monochrome. The haze of ash muted the voice of the sun in this place, permanent, unending. The ash blanketing the strange plains, I collected in vials as I moved across this unknown country. The grey was all that was left with me, and this became the artwork, the journey.
Into a hill of ash which made me think of macadam I dabbed a few sacred drops of linseed oil from the pyramidal vessel of my salvation.
The painting is nothing. The painting is less than nothing and that's why it's all I have left.
They weren't coming back for us. The stabilized drives on the cruiser had power to signal home, but nothing came back on the two-way. Not even error messages. No. Someone was listening but the answer was "Never."
which became this:
Monochrome, 100 words ▼
When we crashed, we still had beacons, auxiliary power. Hope.
My world became the shifting landscape. I drifted. I painted.
The painting changed as I moved through the blightland. Hills, vales, canyons: monochrome.Hazy ash muted the sun. I collected it in vials as I moved across the plains.
The grey was everything. The artwork, the journey.
Hill of ash the color of macadam; sacred drops of linseed oil.
The painting is nothing. Less than nothing. And everything.
They aren't coming back for me. I signaled home: nothing on the two-way. Silence. Someone’s listening, but the silence means never.
I've still got a long ways to go, but I'm liking where I've gotten so far!
Microfiction is a great exercise for writers, but it's also a useful thing for readers and reviewers to practice as well-- namely, the art of reviewing and critiquing microfiction. It's worth mentioning that these types of fiction require a certain mindset to be enjoyable: there's a necessary quality of minimalism, where only the most critical details are filled in by the author. It's the goal for the reader's imagination to do the heavy lifting, and approaching a microfiction story with this mindset means that the reviewer has more to offer than "This piece is really short, so you should definitely consider expanding it!"
When mindfully reviewing microfiction, look for the following features:
* One or more complete images which show some kind of event or dynamic story quality. The shorter the piece is, the more subtle this might be, but in a successful microfiction, the author is using the reader's imagination for leverage-- and it's working.
* In a piece under 300 words, the story should ideally exist in a space where the reader can imagine that something has come before and that something will happen after, even if the story event has a high-octane climactic point in it. The best microfiction, literary or genre, will exist in some world that is believable outside of the context of the story itself.
* Microfiction differs from vignette because it shows the dynamics of a place in time rather than just the place in time itself. It has context, meaning, and has ghosts of all the key components of story wound into it.
northernwrites has another fantastic example of the type of drafting as I did with my story above, so check it out here: one story, four ways:
Check out this story and the stories in this issue's Editor's picks for some great examples of flash and microfiction assembled by fellow Writing.Com members!
Until Next Month,
Take care and Write on!
~jay
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Short Stories: August 21, 2013 Issue [#5848]
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