Flash Fiction

Flash fiction is fiction of extreme brevity. While there is no universally-accepted word limit, generally flash fiction is a short story of 1,000–2,000 words. Most flash-fiction pieces run between 250 and 1,000 words. By contrast, traditional short stories are often as long as 3,000 to 10,000 words and can have as many as 17,500 words before being considered novellas or novels. Flash fiction is, however, primarily defined by the intent that it be read at a single short sitting.

Other names for flash fiction include sudden fiction, microfiction, micro-story, postcard fiction, and short short story, though distinctions are sometimes drawn between some of these terms; for example, sometimes 1,000 words is considered the cut-off between "flash fiction" and the slightly longer "sudden fiction".

See also: how it differs from a vignette and other etcs.

Comments

[pittsburghflashfictiongazette]

Flash fiction is meant to capture a moment in time. It is a very short story about a long subject; and the shorter a story is the deeper it must be.

[pittsburghflashfictiongazette]

Flash fiction is not a sketch. In a sketch there is no change. In flash fiction there is change no matter how small that change is.