…Quick rant about flash fiction:
For those of you not up with the kids flash fiction is the term used for very short-short stories – usually less than 100 words. Several websites extol their virtues and claim them to be the perfect medium for today’s high-pressure, constantly on the go, credit crunch world.
I disagree, believing instead that there has never been more need to stop, take a deep breath, sit down and get lost within the pages of a good book. To put it in context ‘now’ is the 100th word in this blog – barely enough to establish my annoyance, let alone character and plot.
www.txtlit.co.uk/ has further exacerbated me by encouraging people to submit their prose in text-speak!
The reason for all of the above is that, having lovingly honed 8 short stories of 2-5000 words, I now find that half of submissions are for flash-fiction writers.
Now, I’m not one to stand in the way of innovation. Indeed, I love seeing old ideas using new formats. For example – a few years back someone published a Cockney version of the Bible which I particularly enjoyed (‘Jesus got into a right ole bother wiv the Romans’ and ‘some numpty’s only gone and got himself possessed by the devil’ etc), but flash-fiction strikes me as marketing without the product – ‘Couldn’t be bothered to write a book – here’s a pamphlet.’
As I typed this blog I had in mind the image of a retired sergeant major with oiled hair and a monstrous moustache, sitting by a roaring hearth, nursing a sherry against his portly stomach and bellowing his disgust at the decline of the empire whilst reading a broadsheet. Perhaps my rant will meet with equal obscurity given enough time (Note: In a flash fiction story that last paragraph would’ve read ‘old bloke complains by fire.’
That’s better…
Martin Cororan 