"There is more treasure in books than in all the pirate's loot on Treasure Island." - Walt Disney

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Flash Fiction Craze



One genre to skyrocket in popularity in the last five years is Flash Fiction. There is no hard and fast rule on the length limit. Some publications limit the tale to 50 words while others accept as much as 1000.
Other names for flash fiction include sudden fiction, microfiction, micro-story, short short, postcard fiction, prosetry and short short story, though distinctions are sometimes drawn between some of these terms; for example, sometimes one-thousand words is considered the cut-off between "flash fiction" and the slightly longer "sudden fiction".

The term "flash fiction" may have originated from a 1992 anthology of that title. As the editors said in their introduction, their definition of a "flash fiction" was a story that would fit on two facing pages of a typical digest-sized literary magazine.

Some of the flash fiction markets will pay. If you are interested in reading some examples or submitting your own for publication:

Flashquake - Flashquake is a quarterly, web-based publication that publishes poetry, flash fiction and flash non-fiction (memoirs, essays, creative non-fiction, and humor). They pay $5 to $25 per submission accepted.

Postcard Shortspublishes stories of about 250 words. This is as much as you could fit on a postcard. The inspiration for this site comes from Arthur C. Clarke's short story "Quarantine".
Tweet the Meat - Tweet the Meat is a Twitter-only, horror/weird/speculative market. Stories must be no more than 140 characters in total. They pay $1 per accepted story.
For more flash fiction markets, you can visit Duotrope and select flash fiction from their drop down menu.
Good luck, and enjoy your flash fiction writing!

23 comments:

Lisa Ricard Claro said...

Hi Sylvia - I'm so glad you found me. Thanks for following and for your nice comments. I followed you right back here and I'm happy I did. You have a lot of pertinent information on your blog.

Expect to see a lot of me. I love it when I learn something, and you taught me something right from the get-go. I had no idea of all the "flash fiction" terms. Also, the market links--I'll add those to my "paying markets" list! See you again soon.

Linda H. said...

Thanks for the info, Sylvia!

Peter Robert Jordan said...

Hi Sylvia

I popped in to see your challenge and I found all 6 of the first lot very informative. I will definately be popping back to read more.

Thanks

Peter

Nofretiri said...

Just in case, you haven't heard of the most famous flash fiction (AKA 6-word flash) by Hemingway:
"For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

That's short, but the intensity is immense! I've tried that, too, but my little attempts are far from that: 6-Word-Stories by Nofretiri

On the One-Minute-Writer you can also try and train your skills on Flash Fiction, incl. several 6-Word-Saturdays!

Have fun & happy writing!

Karin

P.S. Today I did a little exercise: F for Freewriting! Enjoy!

jan said...

I'm a new follower and I've enjoyed your A to Z posts...all helpful reminders, all good advice.

Laura said...

I love your helpful writing advice. Going to have to come back and read more! A new follower for sure!

Bish Denham said...

This is wonderful to know about! Thanks.

shelly said...

So far, I've been unsuccessful at writing a great flash fiction piece but thank you for the info.

Luana Krause said...

Great topic! I love writing flash...thanks for the links, too.

Allison said...

I love flash fiction, but I usually just read (and submit to) Six Sentences. Thanks for posting those links!

- allison writes

Cherie Reich said...

Flash Fiction was my F word too. Thanks for mentioning those places to send flash. I'll have to check them out.

Anonymous said...

I only got into flash fiction after starting to blog. Those look like a great selection of markets :O)

Al Penwasser said...

I'm really intrigued by this and am going to check it out. Thanks!

K.C. Woolf said...

Great overview, thanks! :-)
I'll definitely be back for more.

Rosaria Williams said...

So glad for your visit at my blog! Always happy to meet fellow writers.

Anonymous said...

I love flash fiction and short stories, in general. Thanks for the info and the links!

Unknown said...

I enjoy a quick story. It is a taste of a writer's style without having to buy the entire cow.

KM Nalle said...

I had no idea that there were companies paying for flash fiction. Too bad I'm not very good at it.

Jen HaHA said...

I hadn't heard of this before. Thanks for sharing! I go through phases with writing stories because I'm not so convinced that I'm any good. If I feel somewhat confident in a story I start, time gets the better of me. Perhaps if I take baby steps and try flash fiction, I may once again find the writer trapped somewhere in this cubical-dwelling, number-crunching, Corporate workerbee named Jen.

Come check out my A-to-Z!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the visit! Flash fiction is my new love, I've always struggled with losing interest and finding new stories but the old ones still weren't out of my system - it's a great way to solve that! :) And I love reading these really short stories, they make you think by all those things they don't say...
- andrea

Lisa said...

Wow - thanks for the heads up on some fun sites.

Lisa

Joseph E. Lerner said...

Furious Fictions (a monthly magazine of short-short stories) #7 is now out.
(http://furiousfictions.com)

The magazine, which specializes in the odd, offbeat, and surreal, is also accepting new stories. E-submissions only (under 750 words). Response time four to six weeks. Deadline for Issue No. 8 | October 2011 is Sept. 15, 2011.

Send (in rtf or txt attachment) to:
Joe Lerner, Editor & Publisher
lernerje@gmail.com

Tess Julia said...

That's an interesting post. I'm just getting started as a writer and I had no idea flash fiction was so popular. Nice to meet you!