All Flash and No Genre

I’m putting together a compilation of Flash Fiction pieces for RWA, 2009. Every year during the conference a get-together called Moonlight Madness is held in an effort to raise money for the various chapters.

In preparation, naturally I perused the internet for examples to help explain Flash Fiction to other writer’s. Many of the works I found were horrific in some way, yet the over all feel is that this technique of authorship called Flash Fiction is genre-less.

There are, however, blog-clubs that stick to a general limitation such as 55er’s or 69er’s and one such site collected erotic Flash Fiction, which is in keeping, don’t you think?

But why is the majority dealing with horror?

Is it because the works are so short that by the time you have ascertained the genre, it’s over? Or is it because many of these inventive pieces are done by automatic writing and one cannot dictate what the depths of the mind will deliver?

Well, of course not, but I think it’s fun to imagine that the most courageous among us are from the horror genre. It takes guts to scare the crap out of your audience!

Intrigued, I tried a few pieces unsuitable for table conversation and found it fairly easy (ha ha). I started with a bit of bad news or, as Samuel Goldwyn puts it, an ‘earthquake and escalate to a climax’. It’s probably because a story usually rotates around something that has gone wrong and that makes it easier to cut away the chaff. Without a crisis it’s difficult to know where to begin. And by crisis, I don’t necessarily mean explosions and chase scenes. I mean (for Flash Fiction in particular) one can break a plate or stub a toe and write a miniature piece about it. I suspect that the more mundane it is, the funnier it becomes in the frame of Flash Fiction.

Above all, Flash Fiction is creative. One must find a way to use only the basics and make a fabulous dessert of it. Besides, why bother if it’s going to be a lot of trouble?

I saw a mock newspaper in a film the other day and the headlines are this same sort of Flash Fiction I’ve been going on about:

Satan Escapes From Hell

That’s got it all: it’s flash for sure, tells a story, it’s funny (entertaining) AND horrific. Could even be inspiring…

So no stressing about a genre – let go and see what your depths deliver!

Happy FFing!