short shorts

Flash fiction  {or ficlettes, or sudden fiction, or microfiction, or micro-story, or post-card fiction} also is know as short short stories.  For over twenty years, I've used the nomenclature "short-shorts" to refer to brief stories that are under one thousand words in length.  Most of my short-shorts are usually about 150 to 300 words.  Because short-shorts are so limited in length, often much is left unsaid and implicitly left to the reader's imagination.  Enough clues are present to guide the reader, to flesh it all out, to their abilities.  As an author, I choose each word carefully, so that the impressions, emotions, etc are conveyed in a tightly written piece shorter than most news clippings.

One of the reasons I love to write short-shorts is because even as the author, I see all sorts of scenarios and numerous possibilities for where things are going, where they came from, and oh! the applications; it's all just so rich!  To me, short-shorts are a way of allowing me as the author to present a nugget to the reader for their consumption and pondering.  Hopefully, it will spark some ideas within the reader for consideration.  I think short-shorts are incredibly interactive, allowing the reader to continue a dialog with the story, with themselves, with others.

Aesop's fables, various parables and proverbs (including those of the bible), even quotes can all be classified as short-shorts.  The most powerful short-short in my opinion is Hemingway's six-word poignant piece:

"For sale:  baby shoes, never worn."