Flash Fiction Sunday Edition

This flash fiction story aptly shows how voice and description can weave together to create an original and strange mood. The lasting image from the final moment of this humorously and disturbingly erotic scene is one that I’ll carry with me for awhile.

This flash piece is best described in the author’s own words: ‘There may be a difference between flash fiction and prose poems, but I believe the researchers still haven’t found the genes that differentiate them.’

What I love about this flash fiction piece is its lively and rebellious energy despite the dark and ominous setup. A story like this would make a perfect writing prompt.

Only in flash fiction can one get away with a story like this, capturing a vivid scene both internally and externally while effortlessly stringing the reader along until the very last sentence.

The details of this story are so precise and beautifully written, from the flowers to the stones to the unicorns, I love it all.

Deliciously funny! John Wiswell creates an outstanding first encounter with an alien species that involves eating ice cream.

A beautifully written, yet tragic story that I can’t get out of my head. If you own a dog and have kids, it’ll give you chills.

The disconnected-suicidal nature of the main character just pulls you in. Also, the writing flows and perfectly compliments the character’s thoughts.

This piece skillfully demonstrates how to movingly pull off writing about lost and/or unrequited love in only a couple hundred words . The narrator’s attention to sensory detail, coupled with his love for language itself, effectively plants this memory into the reader’s consciousness.

I love this flash piece for all its grounded, vivid detail of abstract, conceptual fears. Though I’m not generally interested in ghost stories or stories that involve demons, this snippet evokes the very real and mystifying power of grief.

Alice Walker is a literary giant whose writing and activism have influenced culture at some of the highest levels. I was delighted to happen upon a piece of short fiction by her, which, upon reading, artfully presents all the benchmarks of the more contemporary category that we now call flash fiction.

I just recently discovered the online flash fiction journal Apocrypha and Abstractions, which tends to publish flash fiction that is more obscure and surreal. This piece encompasses both the obscure and the surreal, throwing in just the right amount of humor for a memorable flash experience.

What I love about this story is the layering of convincing, detailed imagery, amidst obscure, surprising action and unexpected and original character development.

This piece works on multiple levels: It’s smart, humorous, disturbing, gross, and sad. It’s also refreshing to read a story about older characters whose sexuality, however dysfunctional in this case, isn’t outright dismissed or ignored.

Full of color, strangeness, and irony, this piece surprised me in the best ways.

This flash piece is an excellent example of how just the right amount narration, dialog, and action can perfectly blend together to display a complex and dynamic family portrait featuring multiple characters that are both present and absent

I was smitten with this story after the third sentence. What I didn’t realize, until finishing the first paragraph, was that this story is an emotionally tough, well-crafted example of the power of flash to not only entertain but enlighten and educate as well.

What I love about this story is the layering of convincing, detailed imagery, amidst obscure, surprising action and unexpected character development.

This piece works on multiple levels: It’s smart, humorous, disturbing, gross, and sad. It’s also refreshing to read a story about older characters whose sexuality, however dysfunctional in this case, isn’t outright dismissed or ignored.

Full of color, strangeness, and irony, this piece surprised me in the best ways.

I’m normally skeptical of stories full of abstractions rather than concrete action, but this piece shows me just how fluid the flash fiction genre can be. Poetic in nature, this reads as a meditation on a moment—in a tiny space—and all the emotional intensity it contains.

This is one of those pieces that does that thing I love but is difficult to pull off in flash fiction: It presents a concrete, grounded scene happening within a much larger context. Hyer expertly shows us only what we need to see, and we’re left both satisfied yet aching for more.

Just when I think I have something figured out—in this case, flash fiction—I’ll find an anomaly that, for lack of a better expression, punches me in the face. This is one of those ‘wait, you can do that?’ kinds of pieces. It’s a story, it’s a poem, it’s historical, it’s personal, it’s just what you think it is and isn’t all at the same time.

Snapshot portraits are perfect for flash fiction, especially when they highlight the strange and borderline heartbreaking idiosyncratic tendencies of a character like Cool Steve.

In general, good horror is hard to come by. Then again, I consider myself a newbie to the sub-genre of flash horror; I’m sure there’s a lot out there I have yet to discover. This little flash of horror works for me; it’s grounded in concrete, detailed action, provides just the right amount of context, and left me tingling and grossed out.

This is perhaps one of the most exquisite pieces of flash I’ve encountered. Considering its eloquent mixture of earthly and mythical elements, I am reminded of Gabriel Garcia Marquez or Tony Morrison.

Like my experience with flash horror, I am new to reading flash fantasy. As perfectly executed in this example, I find that grounded, descriptive scenes that show me the world the author has created, interspersed with contextual details, works best.

This is one of those stories that I sense is perfect for flash and flash alone; any longer, and it would lose its charm.