Flash Fiction Quotes

Following are some quotes from three outstanding anthologies of flash fiction. I highly recommend any of these three (for those who want to learn more about writing flash fiction or for those who want to read excellent pieces).

Making Shapely Fiction (Jerome Stern, Ed.) W.W. Norton &Co., New York: 1991):

"The shorter the piece of fiction, the less need for a plot. You can write a fine story in which little happens: A man curses his neighbor, a widow quits her mah-jongg group, or an unhappy family goes on a picnic. Simple shapes work better than something fussy and complicated." (Jerome Stern)

From Sudden Stories:The Mammoth Book of Miniscule Fiction. (Dinty W. Moore, Ed.) DuBois, Pennsylvania: Mammoth Press, 2003:

"The jewel of the sudden story is the gap. A lot of words are missing, not because they are extraneous, but because their absence speaks the unspeakable.The writer of the sudden story has to weigh the efficacy of each word. Knowing what to include -- often the details -- and knowing what not to include -- often everything but the details-- that's not a gift. It's a practice that involves trusting the written word more than yourself." (Quote by Lori Ann Stephens)

From Flash Fiction: 72 Very Short Stories. (James Thomas, Denise Thomas & Tom Hazuka, edd.) New York: W.W Norton & Co., Inc., 1992:

"These stories are not tricks, or trills on a flute; rather they are very short stage presentations or musical pieces that play to the full range of human sensibilities--some evoke mood while others provoke the intellect, some introduce us to people we're interested to meet, while others tell us of unusual but understandable phenomena in this world, and some of them do several or all of these things, the things good fiction of any length does." (James Thomas, editor of Flash Fiction)

There are several other fine anthologies/ collections and I'll be talking about these others later on. A few fresh- off- the presses anthologies have found their way to my office, too, so stay tuned.