ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS........................................................................................2 TABLE OF CONTENTS..........................................................................................3 ABSTRACT..........................................................................................................5 ABSTRAKT........................................................................................................... 6 INTRODUCTION...................................................................................................7 1 EVOLUTION OF THE GENRE .............................................................................8 1.1 Origins and Developments.........................................................................8 1.2 The Emergence of the Short-Short Story.................................................11 .....................................................................................................................14 1.3 Flash Fiction?...........................................................................................15 2 THE CONCEPT OF SHORT FICTION.................................................................17 2.1 The Beginning: New Forms and Experiments .........................................17 2.1.1 Edgar Allan Poe.................................................................................17 2.2 Organizing Principles of Short-Short Fiction.............................................20 .....................................................................................................................20 2.2.1 Length ..............................................................................................20 Structure.....................................................................................................22 2.2.3 Theme...............................................................................................24 3 FLASH STRUCTURE ANALYSES.......................................................................25 3.1 Sunday at the ZOO by Stuart Dybek........................................................25 3.2 Snap Judgment by Pamela Painter...........................................................29 3.3 Sleeping by Katharine Weber..................................................................31 4 MEANS OF PUBLISHING..................................................................................34 4.1 Flash Fiction in the Market ......................................................................34 4.1.1 The Rise of the Internet.....................................................................34 4.1.2 Flash Fiction Platforms.......................................................................36

4.1.3 Print Media vs. Electronic Publishing.................................................38 4.2 Flash Fiction Genres................................................................................39 .................................................................................................................. 39 4.3 Competitions...........................................................................................41 CONCLUSION....................................................................................................42 A Sunday at the ZOO by Stuart Dybek .........................................................44 B Snap Judgment by Pamela Painter..............................................................45 C Sleeping by Katharine Weber ....................................................................47 WORKS CITED..................................................................................................49

ABSTRACT
Meno autora; nzov prce. Nzov typu prce. Nzov univerzity. Nzov fakulty. Nzov stavu. Nzov katedry. Meno vedceho diplomovej prce. Mesto: Pedagogick fakulta UK, rok. Poet strn. This thesis proposes a study of a new postmodern prose fiction genre, the short-short story. The postmodern short-short story is seen as an emerging, hybrid genre with characteristics of the narrative language of other prose genres. An historical overview and analysis of short fiction from the nineteenth to twenty-first centuries is followed by revealing generic classifications and boundaries. The characteristic cluster of features is put to discussion; condensation, minimalistic story, surprise endings. Three examples are summarized and analyzed. In the last part, the means of publishing and thus spreading the art of short fiction are in the centre of attention. The study summarises recent trends both in print media and on the internet. Key Words: short-short story, flash fiction, microfiction, short story, structure, narration, character, length, genre, publishing

ABSTRAKT
Meno autora; nzov prce. Nzov typu prce. Nzov univerzity. Nzov fakulty. Nzov stavu. Nzov katedry. Meno vedceho diplomovej prce. Mesto: Pedagogick fakulta UK, rok. Poet strn. Bakalrska prca sa zaober novm postmodernm prozaickm nrom mikropoviedkou. Postmodern mikropoviedku povaujeme za rozvjajci sa, hybridn ner vyuvajci rty a prvky rozprvania inch prozaickch foriem. Prca ponka historick prehad a analzu vvoja mikropoviedky od 19. do 20.storoia, a na zklade historickho vvoja sa poka o hadanie jej pecifk a nrovch charakteristk v druhej asti prce. Skmame zkladn rty a charakteristiky mikropoviedky, ako napr. kondenzcia, minimalizmus deja, prekvapiv zakonenia. Tieto rty neskr aplikujeme priamo na tri prklady mikropoviedok. Na zver je v centre pozornosti spsob renia a publikovanie mikropoviedok. Prca kontatuje sasn trendy renia mikropoviedky v tlai a na internete. Kov slov: mikropoviedka, poviedka, truktra, narcia, rozprvanie, dka, ner, rta, publikovanie

INTRODUCTION

This thesis attempts to describe the genre of flash fiction, to analyse its key features, as well as to point out the differences between this relatively new literary phenomenon and other prose forms. Even though flash fiction is not a completely new word in literature, we still may encounter problems trying to define its characteristics, as it is a postmodern, emerging genre that borrows its techniques from other forms. The goal of this thesis is to track down the roots of the genre and try to determine its boundaries using the historical context as well as the main elements and structure it repeatedly uses. The study starts with an historical overview and analysis of short fiction from the nineteenth to twenty-first centuries. It proposes a consideration of new postmodern prose fiction genre, while it is seen as an emerging, hybrid genre with characteristics of the narrative language of other prose genres. It traces the origins of the genre and the early innovations present at its birth, examines influences of literary experimentation upon the emerging short-short fiction genre. It concentrates mostly on the American tradition. This is followed by the study of its specific generic classifications and boundaries. The characteristic cluster of features is put to discussion: condensation, lack of character development, surprise endings. The aim is to analyse and further develop tools to define the genre. After theoretical overview, three examples are summarised and analysed. In the last part, the means of publishing and thus spreading the art of short fiction are in the centre of the attention. The study summarises recent trends both in print media and on the Internet. It attempts to reveal the function it serves in the society today and to map the new tendencies in development of this short prose fiction genre. The critical analysis concludes by examining several organizing principles of the flash fiction phenomenon as well as the means of spreading and developing the genre.

1 1.1

EVOLUTION OF THE GENRE

Origins and Developments

According to Tara Masih, the editor of The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction, it had been the growth of MBA writing programmes in the 1980s that kicked off the popularity of genre nowadays known as flash fiction (Masih, 2009, p.9). The need for necessary forums for the placement of protgs work appeared a fact that stimulated the growth of literary magazines (Masih, 2009, p.9). The first short-short story anthologies edited by Robert Shapard and James Thomas appeared and set off an unexpected wave of interest in the genre known then as short-short story. One of the first known usages of the term flash fiction in reference to the literary style was the 1992 anthology book Flash Fiction: Seventy-Two Very Short Stories. The change of lifestyle caused by the technological advancement brought many changes in the art domain. As the audience has grown more and more intolerant to the lengthy blocks of text, flash fiction has become more and more popular among the people. Nowadays, huge amounts of people do not have time to spend their days reading a big, thick novel. The trend goes the opposite way towards the shortest form possible. Modern man reads in his free time, but the free time is scarce. While in the past libraries and homes used to be the reading platforms, these days more and more people read in trams or subway, on their way to work. This situation seems more favourable for the shorter forms it is easier to concentrate ones attention on a sketch one can read in five minutes than to keep a track of a book with many characters and complicated plot. It would be mistaken to think that people do not read novels people still read also this form, even on the train but the tendency seems to concentrate more on the easy to digest type of stories. This could lead to a false impression that short art forms like flash fiction and many more are something new, being an invention of our age. This impression, however, is not true. The origin of the flash fiction lays in the short story and the short story originated in the oral tradition. It is related to chants, folklore, fairy tales, fables, and ghost stories. There had been many attempts to define the short story, and the means by which short fiction is

recognized, categorized, and defined are often made in comparison to other forms of fiction. Although there is no definitive list of characteristics for any literary form, many characteristics appear repeatedly when associated with short fiction. These characteristics have become the key elements to understanding of the short story and its evolution. In her introduction to the Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction, the first book Tara Masih mentions as the ancestor of modern flash fiction is a book of Giovanni Boccaccio Decameron. This book consists of short prose stories narrated by men and women escaping the Black Death. While the whole functions the same way as a novel would, each story narrated by another character of the book has a coherent meaning itself. This can be dated to the 14th century. Masih finds another interesting trace in Asia stories in pictures, called miniatures in India and ukiyo-e (or stories of the floating world) in Japan. These were typical for the 17-19 th centuries and later they were often accompanied by a short text. As for the Western short story, there are enough examples. The gradual movement leads towards the written, realistic short prose. In the United States, it is the work of Washington Irving and Edgar Allan Poe. In France, Guy de Maupassant and Colette. In Russia, Chekhovs stories are relevant in this context. Other ones feature such names as Rudyard Kipling or Franz Kafka. Being a translator of Kafkas work to French, Baudelaire himself also started experimenting with the short prose. It is essential to realize the global aspect of the change towards the short story. Without any doubt, industrial revolution was a factor that brought major changes. In the United States, middle and lower classes were becoming more literate, mainly as a result of the movement from rural to urban jobs that required more literacy. Even electricity affected reading the workday got shorter, but leisure time longer. However, American attention span already began to shrink with the huge leaps forward in evolution, transportation, radio and photography, as Masih states (Masih, 2009, p.16). The general quality of life improved and the postal fees dropped during the US Civil War. The print advertising provided a means for magazines to sustain themselves. Therefore, the

editors of magazines had to entertain the masses (Masih, 2009, p.16). Small prose forms in between advertisements were a way to go, and short story grew shorter. The magazines also offered a new chance for women writers. Among the first ones was Louisa May Alcott who started to write anonymously for magazines, taking the advantage of financial and literary opportunity offered. The public enjoyed her melodramatic, sensational stories. Her shortest story with title Happy Women is only three pages long and is Alcotts criticism on the taboo subject of hasty matrimony. Another woman to write short stories for newspaper was Kate Chopin who, being a great admirer of Guy de Maupassant strongly inclined to short forms with surprise endings. Her works The Kiss and The Story of an Hour are both only around 1,000 words, but to this day they appear in many anthologies. The latter one was originally published in Vogue in 1984 as The Dream of an Hour. Only 2-page long text gained more importance and recognition in the 70s when it had been published in Susan Cahills anthology. Chopin did confront the feminist issues realistically and she tried to portray a microcosm of the greater nation by writing about lives of women of Southern Bayou.

10

1.2

The Emergence of the Short-Short Story

The first short-short story published is considered piece written by August Strindberg in 1903. In edition called Sagor, there is a less than 3-page long story called Half a Sheet of Foolscap and it was translated to English in 1902. This story manages to put reminiscences of two years of a mans life in those 3 pages. The true pioneer of short fiction was Ambrose Bierce. His work called An Occurrence at the Owl Creek Bridge (1890) is important for the evolution of the genre not because of its length of 3,804 words, but because of the way it uses the structure and condensation of time, later so typical for the short-shorts. Bierces Civil War experiences were the source of inspiration for abandoning the linear chronology and melodramatic storylines, instead of which he held on to his realistic and economical style. His poetry skills also contributed to his unusual style of writing. During his life he published almost 200 short stories and had a great influence on development of the horror and nowadays dreamlike story. His impact had a wide range and in particular An Occurrence at the Owl Creek Bridge is an inspiration even for the modern literature. Another important figure is William Sidney Porter, better known under his pseudonym O. Henry. During his time to serve in prison, he wrote short stories to support his daughter and he adopted the short endings style used by his contemporary Ambrose Bierce whom he admired greatly. His most well-known shorts are more related to the short-shorts of today concerning the length issue. A Gift of the Magi is 1,800 words long, while The Last Leaf is about 2,400. Judged plot, character and narration, these stories meet the standard of modern flash story as well. His works were received well by the public and many other writers tried to copy his style. At the beginning of the 20 th century, there were numerous guides advising how the form and success of O. Henry could be duplicated. In 1919, a collection of stories named Winesburg, Ohio was published. Their writer was then 40 years old Sherwood Anderson. These small-town stories brought the style started by O. Henry further, being on the one side very realistic and dirty, but also poetic and with deep psychological insight. It is a minimalist prose bringing much attention to the detail that uses rather a twist tie than a twist at the end. The story Paper Pills manages to

11

tell entire history of marriage in small town on 3 pages only, using condensation so typical for later short-short story. He breaks away from the popular O. Henry style and introduces sexuality and physical detail. As a follower of the impressionist movement, he tried to capture the moment and rejected plot stories (Masih, 2009, p.20). Twenties in the United States brought the rise of the short story which was happening on the background of the explosion of the artistic creativity in all genres and classes. Publishing became the second largest industry in New York City, after textiles. Tabloid journalism took off, many new ethnic journals appeared and in 1926, the Book-of-theMonth Club was founded. Some of the most recognized writers were making their mark in the field of literature Francis Scott Fitzgerald, Raymond Chandler, Dorothy Parker, Ezra Pound, and also, Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway was the first writer to shape an entire collection of vignettes, sketches or interchapters (Masih, 2009, p.23). It was written in France and published in Paris in 1924 in a very small print run. The collection In our time featured only 32 pages with 18 short-shorts, some of them just a half page long. This small book was praised by influential writers like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ford Maddox Ford, because it was trying to get across the feeling of the actual life. Many of the aforementioned writers started their own experimental journals or published in them. However, the term short-short story appeared for the first time in mass periodicals. The first time it was officially used was in 1926 in Colliers Weekly, introduced as the greatest innovation in short story since the work of O.Henry (Masih, 2009, p.24). Other publications followed this fashion and the short-short story came to life. In 1929, a first short-short story contest in science-fiction story was organized by the editor Hugo Gernsback. The winner was offered 300 hundred dollars and this time, the length of a short-short was defined as running not more than 1,500 words, yet being able to tell a coherent tale (Masih, 2009, p. 25). To provide a model, Gernsback published his own science-fiction story in the same issue, thus we can consider his Killing Flash to be the first science-fiction. In fact, the genre of science-fiction has its own rich history in the shortshort and it could be considered a genre of its own.

12

In 1932, the first manual to writing a short-short story appeared, published by Walter Alderman. His Writing the Short, Short Story is, however, not particularly helpful for todays reader (Masih, 2009, p.26). Another name that dedicated much of his life to the short-short story is Robert Oberfirst. Together with his brother, they were selling, writing and teaching the short-short from the 1930s to 1950s. He wrote some essays on writing, but it is two chapters of his book that stand out: his own Cutting Sells a Short-Short and writer George Freitags Writing a Vignette. Oberfirsts aim was saleability, but he also tries to understand the structure he makes difference between the character driven and plot driven story with a twist. He also warns that everybody seems to be writing this sort of yarn, for it appears to be the easiest form of fictional compositionIn reality, the short-short is one of the most difficult forms because it must embody all the technique and consummate skill required in the short-story construction (Masih, 2009, p.27) Another guide to writing appeared in 1947 Mildred I. Reids and Delmar E. Bordeauxs Writers: Try Short-Shorts!. Even though it did not reach popularity as Oberfirsts book, it had an insightful introduction and also featured a list of 275 markets for short-shorts on the last pages of the book. The first collections started to appear. In 1948, the first one, edited by Oberfirst was a collection by a single author, featuring 28 short-short stories. Barthold Fles published the same year The Best Short-Short Stories from Colliers. Fles noted that the genre reflected the times and that it is representative of America and of the era in which we live as the subway, the tabloids, and the automat. It is capsule narrative, and it can be read and digested in a hurry. It is the Twentieth Century approach to literature (Masih, 2009, p.30). Following collections were Short-Short Stories edited by William Ransom Wood in 1951, quickly followed by the first annual short-short anthology series of our times Oberfirsts Anthology of Best Short-Short Stories, which had eight volumes printed in 1952-1960. They reprinted prize-winning short-shorts and often included guest essays and shorts. However, as the volumes continued, fewer stories were reprinted and more were commissioned. After the series ended, nothing would appear till 1968s Harvest of Short13

Shorts, a collection from newspapers such as Chicago Tribune selected by Marie de Nervaud. Industrial inventions stymied the short-shorts growth. The television took hold with the public around 1948 and periodicals started to lose their audience and advertisers (Masih, 2009, p.31). Many magazines had to slow or stop their production. The writers no longer could make a living out of writing short-shorts. The 1960s and 1970s brought even more cultural and social changes. Writing became daring, fluid and minimalist, writers started to play with stream-of-consciousness and altered drug states and returned to old forms, such as fables. Many of them followed the path of prose poetry, and to this day, the argument on differences between the prose poem and the short-short continues.

14

1.3

Flash Fiction?

As mentioned in the first subchapter, a short-short story experienced its comeback in the eighties. The first anthology to be published was the Short-Short Stories anthology of 1981, edited by English professors Jack David and John Redfern in Ontario, Canada. According to Tara Masihs introduction to The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Flash Fiction, they looked for stories of no more than 4 pages, narrative in nature, not merely descriptive, and conventional in the sense that voice, characterization, setting and symbol were clearly evident in the form (Masih, 2009, p.34). In fact, this book was a sort of a manual with exercises and study suggestions accompanying the chosen stories, and fort the first time, it identified a canon for short-short story writers like John Updike, Julio Cortzar or Shirley Jackson. Almost in the same time, American writer Irwing Howe and his wife were inspired by the story Swaddling Clothes of Japanese writer Yukia Mishima. They edited Short-Shorts: an Anthology of the Shortest Stories in 1982. It includes works of such writes as Guy de Maupassant, Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov or Franz Kafka. As Masih states in her Introduction, their limit for selection was rather high by todays standards stories published were up to 2,500 words. This book did not reach large audience, but it is important for expanding the canon. It is interesting to see that Howe and his wife chose the same terminology to use as David and Redfern in Canada short-short. However, the flash also appears for the first time: in the introduction, Howe uses it twice, and it also appears on the back jacket copy. Sudden Fiction: American Short-Short Stories is the name of first of many anthologies to appear by two American editors: Robert Shapard and James Thomas. Both were observing literary magazines and have seen the new genre emerging. Their book gathering works by writers of both past and present manages to reach the masses for the first time. Authors featured in this anthology are names nowadays known as the contemporary short story writers; Pamela Painter, Lydia Davis, Jayne Anne Phillips, Ron Carlson, Joyce Carol Oates and many more.

15

The term flash fiction has seen the light of the day officially in 1992 as a title of the anthology published by James Thomas Flash Fiction: 72 Very Short Stories. Defining it (in contrast to longer sudden fiction and shorter microfiction defined by Jerome Stern), he considers a flash to have length between 250-750 words. This term has become one of the more popular terms used to reference short-shorts in the United States. However, it is not the only one used.

16

2 2.1

THE CONCEPT OF SHORT FICTION

The Beginning: New Forms and Experiments

2.1.1 Edgar Allan Poe Edgar Allan Poe was one of the first writers to write down his own theories of short fiction, followed by his thoughts on appropriate lengths for literary genres, namely for poetry and novels. In his perception, impression is the key to literature. Long literary forms cannot be read at one sitting and they disturb the unity of impression (Poe, 1994, p.60); poetry, on the other hand, as a literary form that one can read within an hour, is too brief to produce an
"enduring impression" (Poe, 1994, p.61). While novels are too long to preserve the effect of

totality, poems have the opposite problem. Thus, Poe proposes a short story as the best way to experience literature, and he calls it a tale(Poe, 1994, p.61). In his own words:
extreme brevity will degenerate into epigrammatism; but the sin of extreme length is even more unpardonable" (Poe, 1994, p.61).

Poe stated that ingenious literature is that which leaves an impression. This is a feat that many forms of literature can accomplish, but Poe expanded his demands claiming that the impression must be unified; the reader must be able to experience it at one sitting and the impressionistic qualities of the story cause a sustained effect within the piece. As an author of both poetry and fiction, he began experimenting with fictional forms and he paved the way for other authors. He began "playing with ideas, associations, and language itself not only for satirical purposes but also for the pure joy of creative play" (Levine, 1976, p.18). He explored new methods in his fiction and he often perplexed his reader, but his genius was later recognized and emulated. "The Tell-Tale Heart," a story that exemplifies his experimentation with fiction, was published in 1843.

17

2.1.2 Anton Chekhov

One of the other interesting and important authors concerning the short fiction development was Anton Chekhov. Although he is of Russian origin, his legacy influenced many authors of shorter fictional forms. Therefore, also his contribution to this field should be mentioned here. His work is a real example of the realism of the late nineteenth century, as it combines realistic detail with poetic lyricism. Chekhov's work can be considered as a creation of a new form of fiction with new characteristic features: character as mood rather than realistic depiction, story as minimal sketch instead of "elaborately plotted tale", basic impressionistic view of reality which functions as perspective and point of view (May, 1994, p.199) Chekhov relied on the brief detail and used a lot of symbolism in his stories in order to let the reader to interpret the meaning: "When I write, I reckon entirely upon the reader to add for himself the subjective elements that are lacking in the story (Chekhov, 1994, p.195). This Chekhovian principle is exactly that used nowadays in flash fiction writing strong emphasis on the essentials, putting only the necessary elements in the story and minimalism: To make a face from marble means to remove from the slab everything that is not the face(Chekhov, 1994, p.197). In his short stories, there is only very little exposition or character description, the story being mostly dialogue. However, it is the dialogue in which the meaning, the purpose of the story lays hidden, waiting for the reader to decipher it. According to Chekhov, it is better to say not enough than too much, and sometimes he limits the situation to a point when some might say it becomes void of circumstance. Other critics praise Chekhov's ability to establish impressionism in his stories as well as his freedom from traditional literary conventions (May, 1994, p.199).

18

2.1.3 Ernest Hemingway Many of Hemingway's shorter works are to a certain extent emulating Chekhov, mostly in a way that the stories rely on a seemingly simple, limited situation to suggest "emotional complexities beneath it"(May, 1994, p.204). Therefore, Hemingway's iceberg effect theory could be easily associated with previously stated Chekhovian ideas. Hemingway's theory, printed in Death in the Afternoon, states: If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough will have a feeling of those things as strongly as though the writer had stated them. The dignity of movement of an iceberg is due to only one-eighth of it being above water. (May, 1994, p.192) The iceberg effect theory argues for omission and implication just as Chekhov did for a minimalist story structure. Hemingways short stories often rely on implication through the dialogue, with only minimal detail, as it is for example in one of his famous works Hills like White Elephants. The exposition is again very brief and the reader has to read in between the lines. Each of these authors contributed changes in short fiction by experimenting with the short story form, bringing new shapes to it via implication and alternative story-telling techniques, each in their own way. While Poe used broken voice narrative; Chekhov implied plot rather than explicating traditional plot, and Hemingway's characters are sketches of human beings whose lives imply a greater significance. Their innovations made critics describe the short story as a form that "conceals more than it reveals and leaves much unsaid" (May, 1994, p.214).

19

2.2

Organizing Principles of Short-Short Fiction

2.2.1 Length One of the most interesting disputes regarding flash fiction is linked closely to the word count: Flash fiction allows almost no wasted words, and it has absolutely no space for nonessential messages. Flash fiction writers must consider the implications of every single word and strike anything which does not enhance the overall message. In his essay Titled: the Title, Michael Martone wrote the following: Often, the only defining characteristic of the short-short story is this kind of length, or lack thereof. At the very least, length as a defining characteristic goes a long way, a kind of essential DNA, as close as we get to formula or rules. (Martone, 2009, p.45) Tom Hazuka considers the framework for short-short stories to be about 1,500 words for sudden fiction and 250 words for microfiction, while flash fiction is the middle ground of around 750 words. However, in his 2007 anthology, the limit was only 500 words, while The Rose Metal Press set it to 1000 (Hazuka, 2009, p.32). Tara Masih, the editor of The Rose Metal Press Field Guide mentions in introduction a word count roughly 1-3 pages and 250-1000 words (Masih, 2009, p.11). The question is, if it is possible to establish, identify a genre itself by only the attribute of length. Casto notes that, short-short stories are metamorphosing as myths themselves and thus it is difficult if not impossible to define them (Casto, 2009, p.24) In her opinion, the best are short stories that manage to reveal the hidden, accentuate the subtle, and highlight the seemingly insignificant (Casto, 2009, p.26), but that is just not enough to distinguish a genre of flash fiction from the other, similar forms like prose poetry or journalistic writing. Length is relative and one can not discuss the shortness of something unless it is compared to the length of another piece. Pratt writes, "smallness and bigness can not be inherent properties of anything, they can only occur relative to something else (Pratt, 1994, p.91).

20

She also advises not to characterise genres of literature by length, but rather by aesthetic properties. However, it is very difficult to define flash by any other parameters than length, as flash fiction proves to be very versatile, having no canon or manifest. It does not follow the conventional norms of a traditional short story, but it seems to link in some way on tradition of short story experimentation, relying heavily on implication. It does not demand concrete plot, setting or narrative structure in the true sense of word (exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution). Rather than that, writers attempt to focus on a specific imagery, mood, character sketch or vignette. There is usually some kind of tension, but it may implied or very well-hidden. The issue of length is an appropriate starting point to formulate a definition for the shortshort story, but it should not be the only criteria for its characterisation.

21

Structure

Flash story-telling differs from regular storytelling. While it may use and incorporate means used by other genres, it does so in a way unique for itself. It is very difficult to find a unifying pattern that all flash stories are using. We mentioned before an on-going dispute on differences between flash fiction and prose poetry. Some say that flash fiction differs from prose poetry by having a plot. However, flash fiction story is a sketch, an impressionistic, postmodern experimental form, so the presence of a real plot is arguable. As Tara Masih puts it, to say that flash must contain all the literary elements that a longer story does plot, setting, character, conflict, narration would be argued against by the proponents of experimental flash who lean more toward slice-of-life sketches (Masih, 2009, p.9). She considers flash fiction a story in a miniature, a work of art carved on a grain of rice (Masih, 2009, p.9). An interesting remark is that of Robert Olen Butler who suggest that flash fiction is a temporal form (Butler, 2009, 102), and that is where the difference lies. In his opinion, the flash story does not always have a developed plot, but it needs to have an essence of a plot yearning. In front, there must be a character that has a desire, a character that yearns for something. Complex narrative structure may contain flashbacks, dream sequences, repetition, different characters' point of view, multiple plot lines converging at the end, flash forwards, different time frames, pre-figuring of events that have not yet taken place, circular plotting where we are led back to the beginning, backwards story telling, where the dnouement is shown first and explained through the plot. Flash fiction may use, or may not, any of the above mentioned principles. The difference between a traditional short and a flash story is that a flash has a very limited space for using all of these variations. Masih underlines the necessity of having an effect on the reader, using the structural devices of prose line and paragraph form with the purpose of creating an intense, emotional impact (Masih, 2009, p.9). Even though short-short stories are very specific forms, they are organized. There are several principles to organise a story that we could name; the motif, the scene, and the voice-driven narrative. Each one of them has its characteristic elements.
22

A structure of interwoven motifs, for example, is typical for a story relying on metaphor. This type of flash fiction is episodic in construction and it alternates between scenes or moods. Usually it features a repeating central theme, or dilemma by means of symbolism and/or metaphor (Baldeshwiler, 1976, p.207). If the motif is strong enough, the reader should be able to understand the connection without the author having to explain too much. Other short-shorts are organized by scene. Typically they are labelled vignettes and they focus on a single situation or life event to imply a larger story. Vignettes imply events outside the single situation on which they focus; on the contrary the motif method of organization allows the reader to infer within the story itself. Vignettes are self-contained because the reader does not wonder about a story that is not on the page. All the necessary details allow the reader to infer meaning from the text, but not wonder what happens to the characters or how the situation ends. Another organizing strategy for a flash story is narrative voice. They may be written in either first or second person and accentuate the narrator's voice through strong language, which results in inference of a larger story through what is not said as much as through what is. Voice-driven narratives leave much to inference; they drop clues along the way to indicate the narrator's anger over their demise. Inference is a very important element for creating a well-made flash fiction structure. The reader must infer who the speaker is, the situation, and the subject. The speaker and the chain of directives may be bind together to create a voice-driven story. Short-short fiction is impressionistic in its form, a quality Poe praised, but there are several ways to achieve an impression. All elements within the short-short story have to work toward implication, but some of the elements are not present in a flash fiction story and a reader has to re-create them. Therefore the short-short story is closely related to impressionistic art. Short-short stories leave much to inference; the words offer hints at an inner or metaphorical meaning. When a reader is forced to infer meaning from a text, that text leaves an impression on the reader because he is left to ponder the text long after the act of reading is over. The resulting impression of a short-short story also gives the reader a sense of a larger story hidden somewhere beyond the page, beyond the text he reads. The
23

following characteristics of short-short stories cause the reader to infer information outside of the text; thus inference is the key feature of short-short fiction.

2.2.3 Theme

Elements of form: plot, character, setting, theme, point of view, and style support each other to create a story. A theme is a main idea, moral, or message, of an essay, paragraph, movie, book and fiction story. The message may be about life, society, or human nature anything referring in a way to deeper human experience. Themes often explore timeless and universal ideas and usually they are implied rather than stated explicitly. Along with plot, character, setting, and style, theme is considered one of the fundamental components of fiction. In a short story, even in novel or in some literary works, theme becomes so important because it is the first step to make a literary work. Because flash fiction uses only some elements, fragments of a plot instead of having a clear story, it is even more important for the writer to create a theme that is developed throughout plot. Usually, the writer uses all the above mentioned elements to express the theme according to his own needs and the need of his story. Even flash fiction as a short form necessary has to cover issues and ideas. Stories written for entertainment alone are too based in an idea or position. More serious works may force characters to make difficult moral choices. Mystery and suspense stories show that problems have solutions, even if it may not always seem like that. Writers of flash fiction, however, are facing a difficult task, because to express in a little, limited amount of words makes it harder to show complex, rich ideas. However, through the brilliant usage of quick set-up, twists and tension building, we can find almost any type of theme expressed in flash fiction, no matter the genre. The minimalistic character of short-short story builds on creating the theme inside of a single situation.

24

3 3.1

FLASH STRUCTURE ANALYSES

Sunday at the ZOO by Stuart Dybek

The first story to analyse is going to be a flash fiction by Stuart Dybek Sunday at the ZOO, because of its interesting and very well-made dramatic structure and use of narrative voice. More than that already a name is thought-provoking it gives you the impression of peace, while the story contradicts this. It moves quickly from an initial premise to complications that resonate in irony. The story (attached in the Appendix) is only 293 (including the title) words long and appeared in the original Sudden Fiction anthology, edited by Robert Shapard and James Thomas in 1986. The opening line of the story is simple: We decided to stop drinking and spend Sunday at the zoo. The condensation mentioned as a main characteristic of flash writing is already visible from this very simple sentence. It reveals two things to the reader; first, that the protagonists probably drink and there might be a deeper problem coming up; secondly, that they decided to break their habit. Dybek uses the variation of the habitual to set the narration in motion and he also uses the first person narration. The beginning of the second sentence introduces an immediate tension with simple Everything was going fine UNTIL The contrast is used as a tool of narration. Thats not very profound, I said, everybody who goes to the zoo feels that sometimes. The third sentence reveals a bit of a personality of the narrator himself and also his relationship to his companion. He does not respect womans opinion too much and tends to make fun of her rather than understand her feelings.

25

She responds with anger: Oh, you cruel bastard, she screamed. Im not everybody. which evokes there is some history and subtext behind this simple argument. There is something more personal and deep-seated is at the heart of this heated exchange. The exchange is very dynamic the woman acts immediately in response to what the narrator has said: She bellied over the guardrail and flung herself against the bars of the wolves cage. This action is crazy, and shows us that the woman is desperate for the character to take her seriously and appreciate her, but she is unable to do it any other way, but over-the-top. She does not want to be everybody in his eyes and she needs to attract his attention to this point. This also triggers of the further dramatic action, an action that can not be retraced. Events are put to motion. The wolves in the cage freeze and watch the woman screaming, Eat me! Eat me! This is the actual moment of high tension created by Dybek, and the rest of the story unfolds masterly. The author, conscious of the narrative structure, delays the delivery of the resolution by inserting an exposition to what happened that week in the ZOO. This piece of information may hint the reader where exactly the story is leading to. Just that week, the newspapers had carried an account of how a small girl had an arm gnawed offshed reached in to pet them and one wolf held it while the other ate. It was, in fact, what led us, along with the crowd, relentlessly to the wolves cage. It is a preview of the possible tragedy to happen, or more than that, it reveals an aspect of relationship between the characters, which apparently is drawn to a tragic ending. After slowing down the rhythm of story-telling, it speeds up again by an intervention of the third character a crazy ZOO attendant wrestles the woman and slaps her with a piece of meat for the animals. He demeans her. Basically, we could state that many things work on the basis of contrast between how things seem to be and how they really are. The faade is ironic; it is a bubble to burst. The

26

third person only works as a catalyst to bring the situation to the end. He saves the woman, but the way he does it is degrading. Narrators reaction is a thick black line after the story. The intro to it is a sentence Dybek wrote before the last line: the wolves rush against the bars, their teeth breaking on the metal. Stop abusing that woman, I shouted from the crowd. This seemingly short line is a very sharp point. Not only that the narrator watches all of this circus and does nothing and he pretends not to know his companion, but he also tends to play the good guy by defending the woman in a very impersonal manner. This reveals to the reader his real character and also that he does not care about her, as he said in the beginning: She is not profound. Dybek managed to create a tension between what we know about the character and the story hes trying to tell himself at the very end. The simplified narrative structure of the story goes like this: A strong opening line, a breaking of the habit that puts things in motion. Establishing the tension by a quick, dramatic dialogue exchange. A dramatic action of one of the characters that creates more tension and expectation. A humble exposition with proper timing that reveals some background information relevant to the character. A final catalyst in this case, a third character.

27

An ironic ending in which a character tries to hide behind a faade while the reader knows the truth.

28

3.2

Snap Judgment by Pamela Painter

In the second example, we deal with a different way of establishing the dramatic conflict, even though the theme and narration are very similar. However, there is no obvious dramatic situation; there is only a well-made set-up and a detailed work with words, symbols and nuances. Like the previous flash fiction, it starts with a change of habitual, unusual situation, but this time it provokes the dialogue around which the dramatic situation evolves. Pamela Painter begins her flash story "Snap Judgment" by the sentence Two dead mice have drowned in the toilet. It is the strongest motif of the story and its supremacy is not coincidental, therefore it is quickly mentioned again in the second sentence. This is how the narrator sustains the image throughout the story. Dead mice are an awkward topic of conversation of a couple who have just finished lovemaking. This is how Painter lets us know through the narrator that there is something wrong. The contrasting image of a French toast, bacon or smoked salmon and her softscrambled eggs and chives establishes the conflict. "So I bought traps. Two traps. Three days later, I caught two more. Instead of talking about the food, the couple is talking about the mice and mousetraps. Painter also introduces onomatopoeia with a snap sound of a mousetrap when it kills. There is a subtext to the mousetrap suggesting there is something not quite right about this relationship. The snap works as a motif to start and end the episode story. A line about mousetraps started by the narrator triggers off the dialogue and the real conflict starts. The woman defends the mice. Again, the dialogue is only a subtext to something behind it. The woman manages to take down the narrator with her statistics and he resigns. He knew almost everything but he didn't know this.

29

However, the woman does not stop now. She knows she is winning and she goes on and on until he retreats. The motif of snap appears again. "For every mouse you killsnapyou can be sure there are seven more flitting about your kitchen, nesting in the walls, doing what we're doing. Did." She continues, "A buck mouse can impregnate four doe mice in one day." The woman goes on. At the end, it all resolves the mouse is unstoppable, just as a determined woman is. The final scene loops the story back to the opening scene and reminds us that although things appear resolved they really aren't. He pulled her in close to him, fitted her hips to his. "Snap," they heard from the kitchen. The story creates a never-ending cycle, it is a trap itself. While the couple manages to catch one mouse now, there are many, many more running around their house. While they resolve one (inner) conflict, there sure more are to come. The author uses parallel mice people as an artistic principle and a trap as a motif signalizing a presence of a dead-end situation of the couple.

30

3.3

Sleeping by Katharine Weber

Katharine Webers Sleeping can be found in Vestal Review and Sudden Flash Youth, edited by Christine Perkins-Hazuka, Tom Hazuka, and Mark Budman. This story is interesting for developing the story through the back-story, using small clues to foreshadow what is really happening. The reader gets to realize only at the end about the true nature of the characters. The opening line of the story already sketches the main conflict: She would not have to change a diaper, they said. Through these words, the reader has his first opportunity to find out there is something weird in this seemingly normal story about a young girl Harriet, babysitting for the first time. The rest of the paragraph explains further that Harriet will not have to do anything for the baby while the parents are away at the movies. The word choice is essential in this case and is raising attention towards the mysterious baby: very sound sleeper or absolutely please dont are, in fact, signals that something may not be in order with this child. Here, the tension begins to rise and it builds up towards the end. This night might be different. The next paragraph is devoted to the back-story of our main character, Harriet. She describes her brief, almost no experience with babies. Harriet had never held a baby, except for one brief moment, when she was about six. Again the choice of information is crucial for the reader to understand that things are not in order. It also adds depth to Harriets character and connects her to the present. The story continues: there is a bored babysitter with no baby to care for. The tension rises as Harriet tries to turn the knob on the babys door, which seems locked. Harriet is curious but not enough to go against what the parents warned her before they left. This creates an expectation the reader wants her to go through the door, and, as well as Harriet herself on some level, is starting to question the Winters family. The narrative goes forward with Harriet thinking about what the baby might look like. She remembers how Mr. Winter approached her and asked her to babysit, and she thinks about

31

it. This is interesting, because it freezes the action and the resolution delays while, in the same time, we get more of a back-story to this strange babysitting tale. Weber also uses a sentence that speaks to this story on two different levels: She had never seen him before, and it was flattering that he took her for being capable, as if just being a girl her age automatically qualified her as a babysitter. Harriet, nave as she is, is flattered that she looks responsible enough to take care of a baby and she was the chosen one. On another level, we will find out that Mr. Winter did in fact only choose her because of her age. He only needed someone to play the part, and in fact, any real babysitting skills were not required. Again, the foreshadowing of what is to come leads the reader to the climactic ending. We are brought back to the present, where Harriet is sitting on a couch eating candy. The parents come home and pay her too much money. Weber brings the reader quickly to the resolution of the story with a brief exchange of dialogue. Mr. Winters drives Harriet home and when they reach her house, he says, My wifeYou understand, dont you? Harriet answers Yes, but it takes her time to realize what it is that she understands. As she comes to her realisation, we too understand the truth about the Winters. The narrative is complete and the details that lead up to the ending come flooding back to us to speak volumes about the characters. The narrative structure can be viewed as this: Opening the story with describing an ordinary situation in an unusual way Back-story, as a means to creating another layer and causing tension

32

Inserting details into the story from the present moment that are changing The back-story meaning, and also work as a catalyst of the story Second back-story within the protagonists mind, bringing more tension Brief dialogue exchange at the end makes the reader aware of how things really are. The back-story, details, and foreshadowing builds to a sudden, but not unexpected ending.

33

MEANS OF PUBLISHING

4.1

Flash Fiction in the Market

4.1.1 The Rise of the Internet We can only speculate how and why flash fiction has risen to prominence perhaps it is as simple as decreased attention span and the rise of online literary magazines (Leslie, 2009, p.7). Access to the Internet has impacted the awareness of flash fiction, with websites and zines being devoted entirely to the style. With the advent of the Internet, editors are looking for shorter works, more easily read on a computer screen. While in the eighties, works of flash fiction could be published only in magazines, newspaper or anthologies, the possibilities are getting greater. With the rise of the Internet, writers have found that online readers prefer shorter passages and a quick conveyance of ideas in our increasingly instantaneous society. The brevity of flash fiction is particularly well suited to the Internet where new websites dedicated to the genre are appearing all the time. Anne Greenawalt of Women on Writing Blog notes: "With the popularity of services that allow readers to download written material on subscription to mobile phones and hand held devices, flash fiction writers have a realistic chance of placing work (Dop, 2008, online). The Internet made it easier for publishers to publish online instead of doing it in more expensive, print form. As an example of a successful web-zine, we could name Flash Fiction Online. It launched in 2007 and delivers a new issue every month. The subscribers receive the fiction free of charge and its owner, Jake Freivald, uses RSS feeds and e-mail to keep in touch them and to alert them to special editions. He is also starting podcasts to deliver audio versions of the work. Flash Fiction Online has about 900 subscribers, gets about 30,000 page views a month and has 6,000 unique readers monthly (Pratt, 2009, online). Freivald points out that the brief the brief nature of flash fiction makes it "Webready", as it is long enough to tell the story, but not so long that people get tired of looking at the computer screen.
34

According to the article How Technology is Changing What We Read (Pratt, 2009, online), the low cost of Internet publishing isn't the only enticement for Freivald and others. Going hand and hand with that is the relative ease with which people are starting their own "presses." Freivald notes that there are many applications available today that are low-cost and simple enough for less technically adept literati. He points out that a flash fiction story can fit on a blog post, so writers or other publishers could easily use blogging programs to put their materials out there for public consumption. They also could use content management software to manage their material (Pratt, 2009, online). Flash fiction seems to be spreading also in the form of e-books through Amazon, as it small word count allows a story to fit easily on a screen of a small e-book reader or even a phone.

35

4.1.2 Flash Fiction Platforms It is said that blogs offer great possibilities for any aspiring flash fiction writer. There is a high range of amateur, DIY blogs, blogs that publish other peoples work on regular basis or specialised websites; genre websites, women websites, websites dedicated to flash fiction criticism and analysis. Apart from this, there are a lot of magazines or E-zines which publish short fiction in print, electronic or even audio form. For fiction writers, there are many places to go to look for potential markets. Duotrope.com offers a database of about 4,300 publications at present. It is a great place to research fiction publications of interest. Users can search using different criteria, such as genre, pay scale, or media. Each listing contains detailed information about that publication. Duotrope's Digest also provides a possibility for writers to track their submissions online. It allows an aspiring writer to create a free account and to keep track of where he sent which stories, and whether or not he received a response. A writer can track his rejections and acceptances, while this data is used to help calculate an average response time for the different publications. This way it is possible to see a real, user-reported average response time and the rate of acceptance. Ralan.com is another big online database of fiction markets. The website is divided into many different sections, including non-paying markets, anthologies, contests, and humour markets. Markets that pay contributors are divided up into three different categories by pay rate. It features a list of book and e-book publishers, and also a list of dead markets magazines or journals that are no longer published, for one reason or another. In addition, Ralan also provides brief submission guidelines, as well as contact information and a link to the publications website. New markets and updates are added daily, and there is a possibility to sign up for the Ralan Market e-newsletter. StoryPilot.com is another searchable database of publishers. The site's search engine is easy to customise. Search results can be limited to a specific genre (science fiction, fantasy,

36

dark fantasy, or horror), a specific pay range (for either fiction or poetry), or by desired story length. It also features an option what details to show in the results.

37

4.1.3 Print Media vs. Electronic Publishing Another issue closely connected to the rise of the Internet and digital technologies is the advent of books in electronic form. Nowadays, the people are getting more and more used to read text off the computer screen, portable e-book readers, even mobile phones. This is a key factor influencing the way flash fiction gets published and how it sells. At the moment, Duotropes database contains listings for 53 anthologies publishers. While 40 of those are going to be printed in a regular way, only 25 of them will not have their electronic version. Apart from that, there are 28 electronically published publications. Even though print still has its supremacy by publishing 40 anthologies, everything changes if we focus on the flash fiction market as a whole and take into consideration all its publications. When we take a look at all the flash fiction publishers, the supremacy of electronic media is more evident; while there are 544 publishers for print, only 295 of those publish print only. The number of subjects publishing electronically is much higher almost 984 publishers. The reasons to choose to publish electronically are simple; it is far more affordable for the publishers, it reduces the costs immensely and in the same time, the distribution of works might be easier online and might reach more people. Even though there are still 40 publishers publishing the old fashioned way, the research shows that many of them publish also electronically. It seems that nowadays, print and alectronic ways are alternatives, but it is probably a question of time for the electronic market to take over in the future. Audio publications are still a minor phenomenon, but they are on the rise also at the moment, Duotrope database features 33 audio publishers, many of them specialised on audio publications only.

38

4.2

Flash Fiction Genres

Another interesting issue concerning the flash fiction market is what kind of genres (or subgenres) are popular, where is the biggest flash fiction fan-base and which ones are the most published ones. This chapter also attempts to track down which ones are getting more or less desired on the market. For the research, we used a Duotrope.com research engine. To make a comparison with close past, we used the flash fiction genre statistics table made by William Highsmith of flashfictiononline.com in 2010.

Genre All genres Experimental Fantasy Science Fiction Mainstream Horror Cross Genre/Slipstream Mystery Magical Realism/Surrealism Crime/Suspense Erotica Action/Adventure Romance Western

2010 1158 267 176 169 382 162 119 57 123 40 23 30 16 9

2012 1069 250 197 193 192 139 82 59 53 39 37 32 23 11

39

As we can see in the table, the biggest growth over the past two years was in the field of science-fiction and fantasy flash fiction, while the mainstream demand has dropped down with nearly 50 percent. The genres reporting steadily lower demand report in most cases almost the same numbers of publishers, with exception of erotic flash fiction which went up, having 14 new publishers on the market. Another interesting change is the dramatic drop in publishing genres like surrealism, magic realism, slipstream and cross genres. All of these categories report significant drop in amount of publishers looking for this style of flash stories. However, even with the slight drop in the market of this genre, the biggest amount of publishers are still looking for experimental flash fiction, which can show us the very core of this genre itself which lies in experimenting, finding new forms and shapes using the obstruction of maximum 750-1000 words.

40

4.3

Competitions

As every literary form does, flash fiction also has its competitions which usually are defined by genre or by word count. Duotrope.com lists 15 active competitions; Ralan.com features 23 at the moment. One can see the emerging dominance of electronic media in the field of flash fiction of 15 active competitions on Duotrope; three are published by print, while only one of them will be published only by print. Other contests not listed on their tool engines can be discovered easily via google.com. Creative writing contests and competitions can provide a big step up for writers. Many of contests offer motivating cash prizes or getting the authors work published. Pearl Luke, founder of be-a-better-writer.com, provides, besides advice for new writers, a monthly listing of creative writing contests which offer big cash prizes. For example, 16 contests with prizes ranging from 300 to 2000 US dollars are listed as having deadline in August 2012 (Luke, 2012, online).

41

CONCLUSION
If the limits and boundaries of flash fiction still seem blurred, that is also a characteristic of postmodernism, within which this new genre emerged. The flash fiction is a hybrid genre which presents characteristics from the short story, journalism, and the lyric poem. It is a literary piece consisting wholly or partially of motifs or techniques borrowed from one or more sources. As noted before, the only real limit seems to be length. One may say the length of a short-short story is a mere starting point in determining what constitutes a short-short story and that a method by which an author tells his story is much more relevant than how many pages the words comprise. However, it is very complicated to create any standards that fit all forms of flash fiction at the moment. Contemporary genres such as the short-short story which are, in fact, in constant mutation, will never fit a generic identity classification, except for a cluster of features mentioned in this thesis. The contemporary short-short with its whole complex of stylistic features, open beginnings and ends, still finds a form of its own even if will always be a hybrid form. We have mentioned its brevity, open beginnings and ends, hybridism with multifaceted sources of influences, and finally its evoking of a single moment or single situation, an impressionistic trait, standing out in flash fictions. Their form is never static but always subject to changes. Short fiction has been always in development. Among the innovations that characterise the short-short story are those features that characterise postmodern fiction: the focus on reality as a fictional construct, character as mood; a form minimally developed; atmosphere with a mixture of a familiar setting with strange psychic projections. Overall, the short-short story is unconventional and formally experimental. It is always condensed, making use of colloquial language. The characters are not well-developed within the confines of space but are used as tools to move the plot along. The descriptions of the setting are limited to the strictly necessary. Black humour or irony is a tone and effect often achieved. Basically, stories of 250 to 750 words are different not only because of their brevity and lack of space to fully develop a plot and characterization, but seem to evoke a single idea or

42

moment, have a reversal, usually comic, in which the initial circumstances of the plot are reversed at the end. In all three randomly chosen example works analysed in this study, we can see the abovementioned features in narrative construction of a flash story. All three of them feature a setup situation when something seems to be out of order. They work with subtext and in some extent, they all use a back-story as a hint or a suggestion of what will happen next. Dialogue plays an important role in describing the characters or revealing the subtext to the reader. Another interesting thing is work with foreshadowing what will happen, using the catalyst, and, most importantly, the rise of the tension adding up to a surprising ending, which might be a simple twist, ironic or bitter revelation about a character or how things really are. Flash fiction was brought to popularity by anthologies, but it seems that its future lies in internet and electronic media as its length fits perfectly the new fast lifestyle and its technologies. Editors are looking for shorter works, more easily read on a computer screen as online readers prefer shorter passages and a quick conveyance of ideas due to lack of time for reading a thick novella. They may download written material on subscription to ereaders, mobile phones and other hand held devices. Access to the Internet has impacted the awareness of flash fiction, with websites and zines being devoted entirely to the style. The situation in this case seems to be favourable for further development of the genre, discovering new ways of narration, experimenting and possibly getting even shorter in length. This study has attempted an overall description of this emerging genre in prose fiction by summarizing and citing critical positions, organizing ideas, and suggesting connections.

43

APPENDIX

Sunday at the ZOO by Stuart Dybek

We decided to stop drinking and spend Sunday at the zoo. It was going nicely until

she worked herself up over the observation that it was a horrible thing to cage the animals. Thats not very profound, I said, everybody who goes to the zoo feels that sometime. Oh, you cruel bastard, she screamed, Im not everybody! She bellied over the guardrail and flung herself against the bars of the wolves cage. Three wolves had been circling and as soon as she touched the bars they froze, fur bristling along their spines. She had her arms stuck in between the bars up to her shoulders and as much of her face as she could wedge in yelling, Eat me! Eat me! to the wolves. Just that week the newspapers had carried an account of how a small girl had an arm gnawed off shed reach in to pet them and one wolf held it while the other ate. It was, in fact, what had led us, along with the crowd, relentlessly to the wolves cage. But the wolves held their ground, snarling, stiff-legged. An attendant came running down the aisle between the fence and cages and grabbed her by the hair and throat, wrestling her back. She locked her arms around the bars and he kept slapping her face with a thick, purplish slab of meat he must have been feeding to one of the animals. Ill give you, Eat me, Eat me, he grinned, kicking her down. At that instant all three wolves rushed against the bars so that they shook, and you could hear their teeth breaking on the metal. Their bloodied snouts jabbed through, snapping at air. Stop abusing that woman, I shouted from the crowd.

44

Snap Judgment by Pamela Painter

Two mice had drowned in the toilet. Two mice drowned in the toilet, he told her, then immediately he wondered what made him mention or even think of that? They were flat on their backs in his bed after making love. Languorously drying separately. It was the middle of the day. Ordinarily after sex he would be thinking of French toast, bacon, or smoked salmon and her soft-scrambled eggs with chives. The Times. So I bought traps. Two traps. Three days later, I caught two more. The traps were those that snap. Snap. He explained the virtue of snap versus poison or glue boards. Glue boards were cruel, poison also. She pulled the covers up to her shoulders. What do you have against mice? she asked. Mouse turds in my skillets, and they gnaw the electric wiring and burn the house down. They carry disease. Im up to number nine, he said. You? she said, you! He felt her turn on her side to study him, the mouse murderer. You know, she said. There are statisticsratios of mice caught to those still, so to speak, roaming free. In your house. He knew almost everything but he didnt know this. For every mouse you killsnapyou can be sure there are seven more flitting about your kitchen, nesting in the walls, doing what were doing. Did. She lifted the covers to peek at their mutually satisfied selves. Then she continued, A buck mouse can impregnate four doe mice in one day, then each doe has four kitsyoure doing the math rightand that happens every third week. Sixty-three mice. Youre telling me that at minimum I still have sixty-three mice in my house? Not all the same age, of course, she said. He imagined nightly forays for food, scrabbling in his beloved iron skillets, nibbles out of his soap. Was she pulling his leg? Telling one of her tales? She barely knew anything. Doe mice? he asked. How do you Whatever. Yeah, sure. Right now theyre probably listening to us. They heard everything we did. They probably watched. We probably turned them on, she said. So of course quite a few are pregnant, he said. Then he turned to her to see if hed passed muster.

45

Right, she said, smiling, as if he were catching on. Oh, fun. Done. He pulled her in close to him, fitted her hips to his. Cozy, warm. From the kitchen, together, they heard Snap.

46

Sleeping by Katharine Weber

She would not have to change a diaper, they said. In fact, she would not have to do anything at all. Mrs.Winter said that Charles would not wake while she and Mr. Winter were out at the movies. He was a very sound sleeper, she said. No need to have a bottle for him or anything. Before the Winters left they said absolutely please not to look in on the sleeping baby because the door squeaked too loudly. Harriet had never held a baby, except for one brief moment, when she was about six, when Mrs. Antler next door had surprisingly bestowed on her the tight little bundle that was their new baby, Andrea. Harriet had sat very still and her arms had begun to ache from the tension by the time Mrs. Antler took back her baby. Andy was now a plump seven-yearold, older than Harriet had been when she held her that day. After two hours of reading all of the boring mail piled neatly on a desk in the bedroom and looking through a depressing wedding album filled with photographs of dressed-up people in desperate need of orthodonture (Harriet had just ended two years in braces and was very conscious of malocclusion issues) while flipping channels on their television, Harriet turned the knob on the baby's door very tentatively, but it seemed locked. She didnt dare turn the knob with more pressure because what if she made a noise and woke him and he started to cry? She stood outside the door and tried to hear the sound of a baby breathing but she couldnt hear anything through the door but the sound of the occasional car that passed by on the street outside. She wondered what Charles looked like. She wasnt even sure how old he was. Why had she agreed to baby-sit when Mr. Winter approached her at the swim club? She had never seen him before, and it was flattering that he took her for being capable, as if just being a girl her age automatically qualified her as a baby-sitter. By the time the Winters came home, Harriet had eaten most of the M&M's in the glass bowl on their coffee table: first all the blue ones, then the red ones, then all the green ones, and so on, leaving, in the end, only the yellow.

47

They gave her too much money and didnt ask her about anything. Mrs. Winter seemed to be waiting for her to leave before checking on the baby. Mr. Winter drove her home in silence. When they reached her house he said, My wife. He hesitated, then he said, You understand, don't you? and Harriet answered Yes without looking at him or being sure what they were talking about although she did really know what he was telling her and then she got out of his car and watched him drive away.

48

WORKS CITED

1. Allen, Roberta. Fast Fiction. Cincinnati: Story Press, 1997. 2. Baldeshwiler, Eileen. "The Lyric Short Story: The Sketch of a History". In: Short-

Story Theories. Ed. Charles E. May. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1976. 202-213.
3. Bellamy, Joe David. Toward a New Form. In: Sudden Fiction. Salt Lake City:

Peregrine Smith, 1986. 238-247.

4. Casto, Pamelyn. Flashes on the Meridian: Dazzled by Flash Fiction.

http://www.heelstone.com/meridian/meansarticle1.html
5. Casto, Pamelyn. The Myth-ing Link (Or, Linking Up to Myth). In: The Rose

Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction. Ed. Masih, Tara. Brookline, MA: Rose Metal Press, 2009. p. 2430.
6. Chekhov, Anton. The Short Story. In: The New Short Story Theories. Ed. Charles

E. May, 195-98. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1994. 197-199.

7. Delbanco, Nicholas. The Sincerest Form. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2004. 8. Dop, Louise. How to Write Flash Fiction.

http://muffin.wow-womenonwriting.com/2008/08/how-to-write-flash-fiction.html
9. Flashquake: An Online Journal of Flash Fiction.

http://www.flashquake.org/
10. Gurley, Jason. Flash What? A Quick Look at Flash Fiction.

http://www.writing-world.com/fiction/flash.shtml
11. Hazuka, Tom. Flash Fiction from Embryo to a (Very Short) Adult. In: The Rose

Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction. Ed. Masih, Tara. Brookline, MA: Rose Metal Press, 2009. 3135.
12. Howitt-Dring, H. (2011), Making micro meanings: reading and writing

microfiction, Short Fiction in Theory and Practice 1: 1, 4758, doi: 10.1386/fict.1.1.47_1.

13. Knott, William C. The Craft of Fiction. Reston, Virginia: Reston Publishing, 1973.

14. Layton, OH: Gibbes M. Smith, 1986. -----. Sudden Fiction Continued. New York: W.W. Norton, 1996. -----. Sudden Fiction International: 60 Short-Short Stories. New York: W.W.Norton,1989.

49

15. Leslie, Nathan. That V Word. In: The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing

Flash Fiction. Ed. Masih, Tara. Brookline, MA: Rose Metal Press, 2009. p. 715. 16. Levine, Stuart. "The New Image of Poe." Introduction. The Short Fiction of Edgar Allan Poe. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1976. 18-19.
17. LHeureux, John, et al. The Tradition. Sudden Fiction. Salt Lake City: Peregrine

Smith, 1986. 227-237.

18. Martone, Michael. "Titled: the Title. In: The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to

Writing Flash Fiction. Ed. Masih, Tara. Brookline, MA: Rose Metal Press, 2009. p. 4553.
19. Masih, Tara, ed. The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction.

Brookline, MA: Rose Metal Press, 2009.

20. May, Charles E. "Chekhov and the Modern Short Story. In: The New Short Story

Theories. Ed. Charles E. May. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1994. 199217.
21. Merklee, W. H. Short-Shorts Introduction.

http://www.merklee.com/shorts/shortintro.htm
22. Moss, Steve. The Worlds Shortest Stories. Philadelphia: Running Press, 1995. 23. Nemesio, Aldo. The Comparative Method and the Study of Literature. West

Lafayette: Purdue UP, 1999. CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 1.1. http://docs.lib.purdue.edu/clcweb/vol1/iss1/1
24. Nogueira Guimares, Jos Flvio. The Short-Short Story: a New Literary Genre.

Facultade de Letras, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, 2010.

25. Poe, Edgar Allan. "Poe on Short Fiction. In: The New Short Story Theories. Ed.

Charles E. May. Ohio: Athens University Press, 1994, 59-72.

26. Pratt, Mary K. How Technology is changing what we read.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/164355/how_technology_is_changing_what_we_r ead.html
27. Pratt, Mary Louise. "The Short Story: The Long and the Short of It. In: The New

Short Story Theories. Ed. Charles May. Athens: Ohio UP, 1994. 91-113.
28. Shapard, Robert and James Thomas, eds. Sudden Fiction: American Short-Short

Stories. 1986.
29. Stern, Jerome. Micro Fiction. New York: W.W. Norton, 1996. 30. Thomas, James, Denise Thomas and Tom Hazuka, eds. Flash Fiction: 72 Very

Short Stories. New York: W.W. Norton, 1992.

50

31. Thomas, James and Robert Shapard, eds. Flash Fiction Forward: 80 Very Short

Stories. New York: W.W. Norton, 2006.

32. Thomas, G. W. Writing Flash Fiction.

http://www.fictionfactor.com/guests/flashfiction.html
33. White, Kelli Joyce. Succinct Fiction: An Exploration of the Short-Short Story with

a Collection of Original Short-Short stories. Department of Social Sciences, Emporia State University, 2003.
34. Willis, Meredith Sue. Blazing Pencils. New York: Teachers & Writers

Collaborative, 1990.
35. Writing Flash Fiction Using a Bubble Diagram.

http://meme.essortment.com/microfictionsh_rlub.htm
36. http://www.be-a-better-writer.com/creative-writing-contests.html 37. http://www.duotrope.com 38. http://www.flashfictiononline.com/news/labels/publishing.html 39. http://www.ralan.com 40. http://www.storypilot.com

51