Saturday, June 21, 2014
Friday, June 20, 2014
Contemporary Flash Fiction: Examples
1. Francine Prose, "Pumpkins"
2. Dan O'Brien, "Crossing Spider Creek": http://the-awesomest-blog.blogspot.com/2007/10/crossing-spider-creek-and-alternate.html
3. Allen Woodman, "Wallet"
4. Bruce Eason, "The Appalachian Trail"
5. Russell Edson, "Dinner Time": http://fictiondaze.blogspot.com/2004/06/dinner-time.html
6. Rod Kessler, "How to Touch a Bleeding Dog"
7. Jamaica Kincaid, "Girl": http://cristianaziraldo.altervista.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Girl-Jamaica-Kincaid.pdf
8. Larry Fondation, "Deportation at Breakfast"
9. Carolyn Forche, "The Colonel"
10. Ellen Hunnicutt, "Blackberries"
11. & 12. Michael Oppenheimer, "The Paring Knife" and Jerome Stern, "Morning News" (scroll down)
2. Dan O'Brien, "Crossing Spider Creek": http://the-awesomest-blog.blogspot.com/2007/10/crossing-spider-creek-and-alternate.html
3. Allen Woodman, "Wallet"
4. Bruce Eason, "The Appalachian Trail"
5. Russell Edson, "Dinner Time": http://fictiondaze.blogspot.com/2004/06/dinner-time.html
6. Rod Kessler, "How to Touch a Bleeding Dog"
7. Jamaica Kincaid, "Girl": http://cristianaziraldo.altervista.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Girl-Jamaica-Kincaid.pdf
8. Larry Fondation, "Deportation at Breakfast"
9. Carolyn Forche, "The Colonel"
10. Ellen Hunnicutt, "Blackberries"
11. & 12. Michael Oppenheimer, "The Paring Knife" and Jerome Stern, "Morning News" (scroll down)
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Types of Short-shorts or Flash Fictions
Seven Classic Examples of Short-Shorts:
Octavio Paz, "The Blue Bouquet"
Heinrich Boll, "The Laugher"
Luisa Valenzuela, "The Censors"
Katherine Anne Porter, "Magic"
Yukio Mishima, "Swaddling Clothes"
Franz Kafka, "First Sorrow"
Franz Kafka, "A Message from the Emperor"
Joao Guimaraes Rosa, "The Third Bank of the River'
Leo Tolstoy, "The Three Hermits"
The Vignette
The first thing you can do with a very short story is tell a vignette, a single event that means something to you and may mean something to others. I think of the vignette as a brief, continuous occurrence with a beginning, middle, and end, like Allen Woodman's "Wallet." While Woodman's story looks a lot like a joke, or at least 'a funny story', Jerome Stern's "Morning News"--just as brief and certainly not without humor--takes us to a more serious emotional plane with the vignette. What we know of Stern's life may lead us to believe this a treatment of personal experience.
A stranger and more serious event with wider consequences is depicted in Carolyn Forche's "The Colonel." The writer means for this moment to have larger significance than a funny story or a light take on a serious topic. The grotesque detail of the jar of ears forces us to consider man's inhumanity to man in general and the cruelty of the regime in El Salvador in the mid to late seventies in specific. Just as grotesque and further into the strange or surreal, Russell Edson's "Dinner Time" engages in wild hyperbole for its own sake; you must decide what the event means, if anything.
These short-shorts, or flash fictions, show us the range possible within the scope of the vignette. Other fine examples of the vignette are Bruce Eason's "The Appalachian Trail," Jerome Stern's "Morning News," and Roberta Fernandez's "Wrong Channel."
Vignette, Stage Two: with Memory
We see a further complication of the vignette when memory intervenes to give meaning to the ending of the story. A good example would be Michael Oppenheimer's "The Paring Knife," in which the discovery of a paring knife beneath the refrigerator leads the narrator to recall an emotional experience in his relationship with the woman he loves, as he calls her. We return to the present for the conclusion of the story.
Other fine examples are Joyce Carol Oates' "August Evening" and Mary Morris's "Haircut."
Single Idea, thematic development, list
The next stage in our consideration of short-short fiction should be the story that develops the narrative with a single recurring idea or image is at least as important as plot--a list, if you will. In "The One Sitting There," Joanna Wos develops the idea things we throw away. This has a little of the energy of Tim O'Brien's longer story "The Things They Carried," in which the recurring idea of the things soldiers in Vietnam carried with them becomes thematic, and where theme is as important as the details of plot--creating a narrative with the properties of a list.
In "Offerings," Marlene Buono lists the apologies her speaker receives during her day; Henirich Boll's "The Laugher" develops a list that progresses as narrative and takes us further into the portrait of a man and his way of life, and perhaps his attitude toward life.
Complex, Associative, Subversive Narration
It may be that the compactness of short-short fiction encourages writers to intensify the action of traditional narrative with peculiar details or events that have the effect of speeding plot or creating a stronger impact in a shorter space. In fact, distortion of reality has become a natural part of certain flash fictions that may have the effect of surprising or subverting our expectations of classic narration.
Larry Fondation's "Deportation at Breakfast," is a memorable story that begins in a common enough way but ends in a place we could not have imagined, a journey that takes us into the larger existential condition of the main character and ourselves. Yet, throughout the story, we remain with a single character in a single unified place; events develop chronologically, but the story has impact because of its unpredictable outcome.
In "Pumpkins," by Francine Prose," we also have no idea where the story will end up when we start reading, yet here we move from place to place, from character to character, as we follow the logic of the connections between the serial events that constitutes the story. It is the logical connections, however tenuous, that keep these events from being a list. Further, Prose does something else we can learn from, which we have seen in the other flash fictions discussed here: she creates vivid details that strike our imaginations with a power that makes them memorable; as we come away from the piece, we have these images remaining to think about.
In "The Blue Bouquet," by Octavio Paz, we find nothing too wildly out of natural experience in the narrative of a traveler who takes a room in a strange town and then walks late at night because he can't sleep. Even the vivid characterization of the traveler and the idea that he will have a unique experience on his nocturnal journey may seem like traditional narration, but the odd and perhaps symbolic nature of the experience takes this story into the realm of a near-fantastic dream.
Octavio Paz, "The Blue Bouquet"
Heinrich Boll, "The Laugher"
Luisa Valenzuela, "The Censors"
Katherine Anne Porter, "Magic"
Yukio Mishima, "Swaddling Clothes"
Franz Kafka, "First Sorrow"
Franz Kafka, "A Message from the Emperor"
Joao Guimaraes Rosa, "The Third Bank of the River'
Leo Tolstoy, "The Three Hermits"
The Vignette
The first thing you can do with a very short story is tell a vignette, a single event that means something to you and may mean something to others. I think of the vignette as a brief, continuous occurrence with a beginning, middle, and end, like Allen Woodman's "Wallet." While Woodman's story looks a lot like a joke, or at least 'a funny story', Jerome Stern's "Morning News"--just as brief and certainly not without humor--takes us to a more serious emotional plane with the vignette. What we know of Stern's life may lead us to believe this a treatment of personal experience.
A stranger and more serious event with wider consequences is depicted in Carolyn Forche's "The Colonel." The writer means for this moment to have larger significance than a funny story or a light take on a serious topic. The grotesque detail of the jar of ears forces us to consider man's inhumanity to man in general and the cruelty of the regime in El Salvador in the mid to late seventies in specific. Just as grotesque and further into the strange or surreal, Russell Edson's "Dinner Time" engages in wild hyperbole for its own sake; you must decide what the event means, if anything.
These short-shorts, or flash fictions, show us the range possible within the scope of the vignette. Other fine examples of the vignette are Bruce Eason's "The Appalachian Trail," Jerome Stern's "Morning News," and Roberta Fernandez's "Wrong Channel."
Vignette, Stage Two: with Memory
We see a further complication of the vignette when memory intervenes to give meaning to the ending of the story. A good example would be Michael Oppenheimer's "The Paring Knife," in which the discovery of a paring knife beneath the refrigerator leads the narrator to recall an emotional experience in his relationship with the woman he loves, as he calls her. We return to the present for the conclusion of the story.
Other fine examples are Joyce Carol Oates' "August Evening" and Mary Morris's "Haircut."
Single Idea, thematic development, list
The next stage in our consideration of short-short fiction should be the story that develops the narrative with a single recurring idea or image is at least as important as plot--a list, if you will. In "The One Sitting There," Joanna Wos develops the idea things we throw away. This has a little of the energy of Tim O'Brien's longer story "The Things They Carried," in which the recurring idea of the things soldiers in Vietnam carried with them becomes thematic, and where theme is as important as the details of plot--creating a narrative with the properties of a list.
In "Offerings," Marlene Buono lists the apologies her speaker receives during her day; Henirich Boll's "The Laugher" develops a list that progresses as narrative and takes us further into the portrait of a man and his way of life, and perhaps his attitude toward life.
Complex, Associative, Subversive Narration
It may be that the compactness of short-short fiction encourages writers to intensify the action of traditional narrative with peculiar details or events that have the effect of speeding plot or creating a stronger impact in a shorter space. In fact, distortion of reality has become a natural part of certain flash fictions that may have the effect of surprising or subverting our expectations of classic narration.
Larry Fondation's "Deportation at Breakfast," is a memorable story that begins in a common enough way but ends in a place we could not have imagined, a journey that takes us into the larger existential condition of the main character and ourselves. Yet, throughout the story, we remain with a single character in a single unified place; events develop chronologically, but the story has impact because of its unpredictable outcome.
In "Pumpkins," by Francine Prose," we also have no idea where the story will end up when we start reading, yet here we move from place to place, from character to character, as we follow the logic of the connections between the serial events that constitutes the story. It is the logical connections, however tenuous, that keep these events from being a list. Further, Prose does something else we can learn from, which we have seen in the other flash fictions discussed here: she creates vivid details that strike our imaginations with a power that makes them memorable; as we come away from the piece, we have these images remaining to think about.
In "The Blue Bouquet," by Octavio Paz, we find nothing too wildly out of natural experience in the narrative of a traveler who takes a room in a strange town and then walks late at night because he can't sleep. Even the vivid characterization of the traveler and the idea that he will have a unique experience on his nocturnal journey may seem like traditional narration, but the odd and perhaps symbolic nature of the experience takes this story into the realm of a near-fantastic dream.
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