FlashFiction.Net

Flash Fiction Narrative Analysis: Susan Jackson Rodgers's "That Reminds Me," II

2012-05-25T10:00:00Z

[Editor's Note: We are grateful to Lee Martin's article "Stuart Dybek's 'Sunday at the Zoo': A Class in Narrative Structure," an article that served as our own model for the structure of the narrative analysis essay of short short fiction.]

Susan Jackson Rodgers' story "That Reminds Me" uses a simple idea as the basis for the narrative—that memories lead naturally onto each other and sometimes refer back to themselves. This brief paper analyzes the structure of this poetic story. How does Rodgers accomplish what she accomplishes? How does her narrative work? At the end of the article I've put together a "how to" list, in the hopes that other writers may find Rodgers' narrative structure useful in writing a story of their own.

The story begins in a kitchen where the narrator is "slicing carrots for minestrone." This action triggers a cascade of memories that ramble through Gerry, her current boyfriend; Rick, her ex-boyfriend; Gerry's imagined future wife (not the narrator); the narrator's anger at Gerry's imagined betrayal; and back again to the kitchen and the carrots.

The excellent last sentence—"everything is like this, one [thought] leading to the next. The carrots are just the beginning"—reveals the circular structure of the narrative and helps hammer home the theme, that thinking about past loves leads one nowhere.

If I were to try to reproduce the structure of this story I would do the following:

Think of a distinct action, such as slicing carrots, upon which to base the chain of memories,

Allow this action to initiate a memory cascade. If you wish, as in this story, the memories may be based on an imagined misconception (that Gerry does not think their relationship will last),

Allow each memory to lead onto other memories that reveal something about the narrator (for example, the narrator's memories of Rick hint that she was more in love with Rick than Gerry).

If possible, allow the chain of memories to become self-referential. In this story, the narrator is physically cutting carrots and reminiscing and at the same time she is remembering about cutting carrots and reminiscing. It's self-referential and circular.
End the story by tying back, in as subtle a way as possible, the circularity of the chain of memories.

I think the word "subtle" above is important. From experience, I can tell you that this type of self-referentiality can turn out "hokey" (I have a drawer full of "hokey" stories to prove that).

I hope this artcle elucidates some of the way Rodgers' story works narratively. Try the structure out for yourself. If it doesn't work, there's always the drawer and a new fresh piece of paper.

FF.Net Author's Note

Thomas Jay Rush is the owner of a small internet-based software company, a fact he chooses to ignore, focusing instead on writing short fiction, creative non-fiction, and poetry. Jay lives with his family in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania.

Flash Fiction Narrative Analysis: "That Reminds Me" by Susan Jackson Rodgers

2012-05-24T10:00:00Z

A flash narrative can be built around any idea, even something as simple as slicing carrots. This development of a narrative, complete with complex consequences but without intense action, is accomplished in "That Reminds Me" by Susan Jackson Rodgers, published in Quick Fiction 11. As writers, we can learn about the formation of a narrative through this unique example.

As the story opens, the narrator cuts carrots in her kitchen to prepare soup. But she is not really thinking about the physical act of cutting carrots, an activity so routine that it does not require any concentration at all. Instead, her mind is left to wander, create links between her free-falling thoughts, and assign meaning to her memories: "The carrots are just the beginning."

She is struck by the fact that she slices her carrots on a diagonal, which reminds her of her former boyfriend who she taught to slice carrots on the diagonal too. So a story that starts from a single mundane act, without a cause-and-effect series of events, can blossom into a narrative.

The narrator flows from one thought to the next in a stream-of-consciousness style. Slicing carrots leads to the narrator's relationship with Gerry, which leads to her relationship with Rick and his rocking Chinese cleaver, which leads to Rick and Gerry's friendship, which leads back to slicing carrots. This forward momentum creates a plot for the story. Because cutting carrots is, of course, not an actual plot. But it's also not what the story is really about.

Despite the inevitable change within the narrator's intimate relationships, permanence is promised through the consistently used diagonal style of cutting carrots: "there will always be a time when I will once again slice a carrot, and you will come back to me." Rodgers uses the story's narrative structure to develop the theme. The circular structure, created by beginning and ending with the carrots, emulates the cyclical but changing nature of relationships and life in general, an idea central to the story. Also, the action underneath the carrot slicing, the inevitable demise of one intimate relationship and the eventual replacement with another, is also indicative of a cycle.

"That Reminds Me" is an especially interesting example of narrative structure because it employs the following techniques:

One lone action, seemingly without consequence, can set off the cause-and-effect chain of events required for a narrative.

The plot, which lies beneath the story's outward action, is supplied through the narrator's free associations.

The circular structure of the narrative supports the story's theme.

Flash Reprint: Susan Jackson Rodgers's "That Reminds Me"

2012-05-23T10:00:00Z

[Editor's Note: Each Wednesday, FF.Net will feature a reprint of our favorite flashes that originally appeared in print.]

That Reminds Me

by Susan Jackson Rodgers

I'm in the kitchen, slicing carrots for minestrone, and the way I chop them—on the diagonal, so that the carrot becomes a neat row of oval disc—reminds me of Gerry, who used to watch me prepare carrots this way. He took to slicing carrots this way, too, and he said to me, "Now whenever I slice carrots on the diagonal, I'll think of you." And I knew he meant: after we're over. He meant, "When we're no longer together and I am doing the carrots for someone else's salad or stew—for my new girlfriend or wife—the slicing of the carrots will bring you back to me, and in this way I will not forget you. Or if I do, for a period of days or weeks, there will always be a time when I will once again slice a carrot, and you will come back to me."

When he said, and implied, all this, I laughed and said, "That's funny, because when I slice carrots this way, I think of Rick" (my boyfriend before Gerry). I learned to slice carrots on the diagonal from him, so whenever I slice carrots I remember Rick's Chinese cleaver rocking back and forth against the wooden board—he'd worked as a cook before going to law school—and how he tied a bandanna kamikaze style around his forehead to keep the hair out of his eyes. He played Robert Cray or Stevie Ray Vaughan on the stereo, and we danced in the kitchen while vegetables simmered, and we drank. Gin in the summer, scotch in the winter. "So now," I told Gerry, "whenever I slice carrots, I'll think of you thinking of me, and I'll think of Rick, and I'll also just be in my kitchen of the moment slicing carrots." And he laughed too and said now he'd have to think of me and Rick, who is someone he used to be friends with, and he'd also have to think of me thinking of Rick and thinking of him.

But I wonder now if he does. If he remembers what I said about Rick teaching me the whole carrot on the diagonal thing, if he remembers that while I was chopping carrots to make dinner for him, I was thinking of Rick, and not of him. I wonder if he thinks about the carrots at all, or even chops carrots, or when he does maybe he just slices them in the old way, the way he used to before we met. Sometimes I do the carrots that way too, just so I can avoid this whole chain of thoughts, though of course I can't really avoid it because thinking about avoiding it is really the same as thinking about it, and everything is like this, one leading to the next. The carrots are just the beginning.

Published in Quick Fiction #11.
Reprinted in the forthcoming Ex-Boyfriend on Aisle 6.
Appears with permission of the author, © Susan Jackson Rodgers.

Susan Jackson Rodgers is the author of The Trouble With You Is and Other Stories (Mid-List Press, 2004) and the forthcoming story collection, Ex-Boyfriend on Aisle 6 (Press 53). Her fiction has appeared in journals such as New England Review, North American Review, Glimmer Train, Quick Fiction and Prairie Schooner. She is a past recipient of two Kansas Arts Commission Fellowships and two Pushcart Prize Special Mentions. She lives in Corvallis, Oregon with her husband and three children, and teaches literature and creative writing at Oregon State University.

Flash Fiction Craft: An Exercise in Trust

2012-05-22T10:00:00Z

Fitting a story or character change into a space 1000 words or less can be daunting. The writer begins to ask himself questions like, "Can I really fit all this?" and "Is the reader going to understand A if I don't fully explain B?" As primarily a long-form fiction writer, I've found writing flash to be an exercise in trust. Here are some points to consider while trying to fit all that imaginary goodness from your head into that tiny block of space on a page.

Trust yourself as a writer. Perhaps the most obvious point to consider, but cannot be left unsaid. As writers, of course we have a love/hate relationship with our creative ventures. Is this good enough? Is that too cliché? What if they don't like it? What if I actually really suck? Hey, I'm kind of good, at least I'm better than that guy. I know better than to use that metaphor. As hard as this task might be, we must trust in what we're doing. Yes, it might seem crazy at times, but if you don't trust in yourself as a writer, you're not going anywhere in this line of work. For example, I'm currently trying break my habit to over-write. I found that if I stop myself from writing that clarifying sentence after that poignant image, I can avoid over-writing. If you feel like it's "too much," then it probably is. Trust your gut.

Trust the reader. In high school, we're taught to assume that the reader knows nothing. Rules that have been drilled into us from our educational upbringings can be hard to break. But listen: if you're writing literary work, you've got to trust readers. For example, if they're reading this journal or that blog in particular, then they're probably intelligent enough to understand the subtleties and undertones of your story without your over-explanation. Erase the reader-knows-nothing mentality and replace it with respect and trust. We don't always think about readers while we are writing, and that's okay, but when we're editing, we should keep in mind what they will probably understand or won't understand.

Trust in the weight of a single word or image. As most of us know, a single word or image can resonate loudly if employed correctly—especially in flash. And since flash has limited space, we must choose the word or image that is going to weigh the most in a reader's mind. If a word count is breathing down your neck, pick the word or image that conjures the most emotion or thought. For example, say you're writing a story about the end of a friendship or relationship and at the end of the piece, the main character leaves a location and shuts the door. Leave it at that. Don't feel the need to sum up what just happened or what life lesson could be learned, or "He shut the door, the door to their friendship." Clearly, very bad and obvious, but you get the idea.

Trusting is hard, and so is writing flash. Next time you sit down to write a flash, imagine the words forming into open arms, waiting to catch you. Will you take a step back to catch yourself? Or will you let the words you've chosen cushion your fall?

FF.Net Author's Note

Nichole Beard is a graduate of Rosemont College's MFA in Creative Writing program. She received her BA in Integrative Arts from Penn State University where she published articles for a student-run arts & culture journal. She is currently working on her first novel.

Flash Interview: Uniquely Crafting the Craft, a Few Writing Questions for Joanne Merriam

2012-05-21T10:00:00Z

by Cathy Colborn

Joanne Merriam is a Nova Scotian living in Nashville. Her fiction has appeared in many journals, including 55 Word Stories, The Fiddlehead, Nanoism, Pank, Per Contra and Southern Gothic. She is also the editor of Twitter magazine 7x20 and ebook small press Upper Rubber Boot Books. You can find her at joannemerriam.com.

Many times new writers cannot find someone to relate within the interview section of online or print journals. So I am putting this question out there: Do stories that involve some unique subject like "dealing with the aftermath of a transplant" or "letting your blood to coexist with dark creatures" grab your attention? Then Joanne Merriam may be the perfect author to help you along on your writing journey. I was lucky enough to score this interview with her about craft, and I don't know about you, but I'm taking more notes than usual.

First of all, thanks for agreeing to do this interview. I noticed in your bio it mentioned something about Academic Otolaryngologists. After reading "Facial Deficits" (Pank, print) and "Sundowning," I had a hint that you knew something about medical procedures. It was all very detailed. Does this profession sneak into your writing often? It is great to write what you know.

I'm not an otolaryngologist; I currently work with academic otolaryngologists (I'm the academic assistant for four head and neck surgeons, and administer their fellowship program). Before I wrote "Facial Deficits," our department had a visiting speaker in from the Cleveland Clinic who had been involved in one of the first facial allotransplantations done in the States, and I happened to be assigned to escort him from one meeting to the next, and spent our walk asking about that surgery and his impressions; I was also able to get one of our facial plastics doctors to look at a draft of the story, and spoke very informally with a couple of other doctors about their experiences with patients with extreme facial deficits. Of course, any mistakes were still mine, but it was very helpful to have that expertise to draw from.

But yes, wherever I'm working tends to sneak into my writing. I spent a lot of time temping, so I could write for longer periods of time, when I still lived in Canada and didn't have to worry about health insurance, and then again for awhile when my husband was in law school, and those experiences snuck into a lot of stories; for instance "Swan Song" arose from a job I had sorting Medicare claim forms, and "Ring Around the Coffeepot" from a coworker who kept trying to make me get his coffee for him. (I'm happy to report that "Toy Boy" did not arise from any stints as a felon.)

The medical details in "Sundowning" were derived from experience in a different direction. My grandfather, who died a few years ago, had Alzheimer's, and one of my grandmothers still has it. I did quite a bit of research to make sure I was getting details right, but most of the details really arose out of anecdotes my mother told me about caring for her father. I think it was helpful to have an understanding of what living with Alzheimer's is like for both the person and their family, beyond the cold realities present in the medical research; that caregiving, without relief, even for those we love, can become oppressive. Short answer? It's helpful to ground what you write, no matter how fantastic, in lived experience.

"Facial Deficits" has a great narrative structure. I say this because you start the story with a taboo of a taboo, a statement on how "patients undergoing radical transplants purposely reject their new parts because they feel "foreign." It really hooks the reader and forces the characters you create to push the change of your protagonist (but not without making us feel the residual tension almost for good). Do you have any advice for writers struggling to make it all come together, who may have a unique subject but can't get "that ending" quite right?

Funny enough, I actually started with the beginning and ending and struggled with the middle for "Facial Deficits." Middles tend to be my problem more than endings. I look at the basic outline of a story (not that I do a formal outline) to see which bits are unconvincing or just flat out missing, and I pluck away at it until it feels right. A lot of it is instinct, which I realize isn't a helpful answer. I should say it feels like instinct, but it's based on reading a lot. I probably read two or three books a week, and I try not to get so caught up in the

With so many different formats to write flash and poetry out in the publishing world today, do you ever feel like you have to rework a piece just to "finally get it out there?"

No. I often rework my writing, of course. Most writing lives and dies by its revisions. But I don't make changes to my work solely to make it more saleable. Luckily, in practice, making a piece more saleable generally makes it better writing too, so it's not much of a dilemma. I do write specifically for specific markets sometimes, but that's a matter of knowing their tastes and guidelines going in, not of weakening or warping the work to sell it.

What advice do you have for those who are new and unestablished and want more than anything to get published?

I was that writer, and I sent out a lot of horrible writing, which I'm relieved was never published. I would tell them to stop being so impatient. Unless they're a genius (and very few of us are geniuses), they're going to need to write a lot, for years, before their work is good enough for public consumption. I would also say, respect your future self enough not to rush your work out before it's ready.

I just started Upper Rubber Boot Books in 2011, and I receive a lot of bad submissions. I don't mind it, because it's part of the job, but I do mind when people send things that aren't remotely related to what I publish, or who argue with me about my rejection (often those are the same people). So, if you do think your work is ready, my advice would be to be both focused and polite when you submit it.

There's a quote I keep seeing, I think by Ira Glass, to the effect that creative people have taste before they have ability, and that we have to learn how to create well enough to satisfy our own sense of taste, and a lot of people quit before they ever get there because it takes so long. That's been my experience too. It took me a decade, maybe longer, to write something that was worth foisting upon the public. I still struggle with it. Ultimately I think learning about publishing and submission etiquette and all that is, while helpful, kind of a distraction from the real work of putting aside your ego and just making the writing better.

I don't want this interview to make it look like "getting published is all that matters" to us. Do you feel it is beneficial to write everyday? Do you think it is important to have your own quiet place to write?

I'm sure it would be beneficial to write every day and to have a quiet place to write, but it's been rare in my life to have either of those things, and I think it's important to be able to keep working in sub-optimum conditions.

I can make space in my schedule for writing regularly, but not daily. I notice that I write better when I have been writing recently, and I strive to write as often as I can, but other responsibilities have a way of intruding. As for noise, I like it, but not too much. I tend to play music while I write. Total silence makes me twitchy.

I think what you're driving at is what sort of environment and schedule is optimum for writers. That probably depends on the writer, of course, but having a space where you can keep your notes without anybody disturbing them, and where you can write comfortably, are likely universal positives. I don't need a quiet space, but I do need to be able to sit so my back doesn't get sore, and so I'm warm enough.

This question is for our readers that haven't yet experienced your work. Imagine I am the next publisher you really want to work with. How would you describe in a few words the emotions you wish to come across in your next great flash or poetry collection?

Hmm. This is a hard question for me, because I don't think in terms of emotions. I suppose I want readers to feel energized by my work.

Finally, Stephen King says, "[For me] good description usually consists of well-chosen details that will stand for everything else." What are your thoughts on that statement?

It's true. Little details can make a story come to life when they're right, or can bring the reader abruptly out of the story when they're wrong. I do enjoy some lush description in the context of longer works, but even then it's getting the details right that matters. Writing this way, with an eye to detail, is also a way of trusting the reader, of saying, "You're smart, and I don't have to lead you by the hand." I want to thank you again for giving us this interview. I'm sure your advice will help many writers get the courage to maybe draw from experience, be patient in the revision process, and work towards the great ending that their unique protagonists deserve.

FF.Net Author's Note

Cathy Colborn is a MFA student at Rosemont College. She was published by Outrider Press, Ripple Zine, and Writers' Bloc and created a small online zine called Philly Flash Inferno. She loves sketching and painting graphic art with a psychedelic spin and recently had her work published in Pirene's Anthology benefiting Japan: Sunrise from Blue Thunder. Cathy has studied ekphrasis for ten years and created her own chapbooks: Recycled Shoes and Stoned in Paris. On the weekends she loves preparing for the zombie apocalypse and baking cupcakes (but not at the same time).

Flash Fiction Narrative Analysis: Pamela Painter's "Snap Judgment"

2012-05-17T16:00:00Z

Two dead mice have drowned in the toilet is how Pamela Painter begins her flash story "Snap Judgment" published in Quick Fiction 11. That this scene is quickly mentioned again in the second sentence allows the narrator to accomplish sustaining this image throughout the story, no matter the outcome.

Dead mice are the topic of conversation of a couple who have just finished lovemaking. Something is going on here and the narrator lets us know. Ordinarily after sex he would be thinking of French toast, bacon or smoked salmon and her soft-scrambled eggs and chives. Here is the conflict. Things aren't as they normally are.

They're talking mice and mousetraps when they should be talking food. "So I bought traps. Two traps. Three days later, I caught two more."

Then the narrator introduces a little bit of onomatopoeia with a Snap! The sound you hear when the mousetrap gets the kill. The reader hears this sound loud and clear and so does the girlfriend. There is much wrong in this relationship shrouded in the subtext of the best mousetrap. He explains the virtue of snap versus poison or glue boards. Glue boards were cruel, poison also.

We now see and hear the conflict conclusively when the girlfriend comes into focus. She pulled the covers up to her shoulders. "What do you have against mice?" she asked. It's fascinating that the first words of the protagonist are defensive and mousy, even as she tries to defend mice.

But she is engaged in the fight and takes him down as she rolls off statistics. He's on the floor. He knew almost everything but he didn't know this. She knows she's winning and doesn't let up: hammers him until he retreats. "For every mouse you kill—snap—you can be sure there are seven more flitting about your kitchen, nesting in the walls, doing what we're doing. Did." She continues, "A buck mouse can impregnate four doe mice in one day."

He says, "You're telling me that at minimum I still have sixty-three mice still in my house?" And she lets up, a little, but not really, when she lets him know the sixty-three mice will not all be the same age.

By story's end the conflict is resolved. No mousetrap can beat the formidable reproductive skills of the house mouse or for that matter a determined woman. He pulled her in close to him, fitted her hips to his. "Snap," they heard from the kitchen.

This final scene nicely loops the story back to the opening scene and reminds us that although things appear resolved they really aren't.

FF.Net Author's Note

Lorna Brown Gordon is a poet living and working in the Philadelphia area. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of Pittsburgh. She is currently trying to master narrative fiction.

Reprint Wednesday: Pamela Painter's "Snap Judgment"

2012-05-16T05:00:00Z

[Editor's Note: Each Wednesday, FF.Net will feature a reprint of our favorite flashes that originally appeared in print]

Snap Judgment

by Pamela Painter

Two mice had drowned in the toilet. "Two mice drowned in the toilet," he told her, then immediately he wondered what made him mention or even think of that? They were flat on their backs in his bed after making love. Languorously drying separately. It was the middle of the day. Ordinarily after sex he would be thinking of French toast, bacon, or smoked salmon and her soft-scrambled eggs with chives. The Times. "So I bought traps. Two traps. Three days later, I caught two more." The traps were those that snap. "Snap." He explained the virtue of snap versus poison or glue boards. Glue boards were cruel, poison also.

She pulled the covers up to her shoulders. "What do you have against mice?" she asked.

"Mouse turds in my skillets, and they gnaw the electric wiring and burn the house down. They carry disease. I'm up to number nine," he said.

"You?" she said, "you!" He felt her turn on her side to study him, the mouse murderer. "You know," she said. "There are statistics—ratios of mice caught to those still, so to speak, roaming free. In your house."

He knew almost everything but he didn't know this.

"For every mouse you kill—snap—you can be sure there are seven more flitting about your kitchen, nesting in the walls, doing what we're doing. Did." She lifted the covers to peek at their mutually satisfied selves. Then she continued, "A buck mouse can impregnate four doe mice in one day, then each doe has four kits—you're doing the math right—and that happens every third week."

"Sixty-three mice. You're telling me that at minimum I still have sixty-three mice in my house?"

"Not all the same age, of course," she said.

He imagined nightly forays for food, scrabbling in his beloved iron skillets, nibbles out of his soap. Was she pulling his leg? Telling one of her tales? She barely knew anything. "Doe mice?" he asked. "How do you—"

"Whatever. Yeah, sure. Right now they're probably listening to us. They heard everything we did. They probably watched. We probably turned them on," she said.

"So of course quite a few are pregnant," he said. Then he turned to her to see if he'd passed muster.

"Right," she said, smiling, as if he were catching on. "Oh, fun. Done."

He pulled her in close to him, fitted her hips to his. Cozy, warm.

From the kitchen, together, they heard "Snap."

Published in Quick Fiction
Reprinted in Wouldn't You Like to Know

Appears with permission of the author, © Pamela Painter

Flash Craft: Point of View

2012-05-15T10:47:53Z

Every work of fiction has a point-of-view (POV) whether the writer is aware of it or not. Learning to control it is a sign of a writer's progression in his craft. POV answers the question Where are the reader's eyes while she's reading your story? The writer may use POV to elicit certain responses from the reader. For example, the writer may wish for the reader to see the events directly (first person), the writer may wish to explicitly tell the reader what they are experiencing (second person), or the writer may wish for the reader to watch the action from a distance (third person). This article is too short to fully cover this very deep subject; therefore, I will simply note each type of POV, show an example or two, and touch on the strengths and weaknesses of each.

First Person Singular

Example: Adcox, James Tadd. "Four Disconnected Truths About My Father." Smokelong Quarterly, Issue 27, December 20, 2009.

This example shows an important strength of first person singular; that is, it allows the reader to experience the story first hand, from inside the narrator's mind. The emotional pain the narrator feels in these four "disconnected truths" comes through clearly. While reading the piece, the reader is literally voicing the words "I," "me," "mine." The reader is, in a sense, directly experiencing the story. This POV is great for an emotionally charged subject such as this.

First Person Plural

Example: Beard, Nikki. "Lacking in Civil-ization." from a Flash Fiction Workshop.

The words "I/me/mine" characterize the first person singular. Another first person POV is called first person plural in which the words "we," "us," and "ours" are used. I found an excellent example of this POV in the piece written by my classmate, mentioned above.

In this piece, the narrator describes weekends during which she and her sibling spent time in a "lonely house in the middle of a field," "on our toes, with lowered voices, [as] he slept." (Italics mine.) The story is about a divorced, abusive, father and two children who spend weekends with him.

The use of the first person plural works very well in this piece as the reader encounters what appears to be the older of the two siblings recounting the tale. In the same way an older sibling might stand between an abusive father and a younger sibling, the narrator stands between us—the readers—and the younger sibling. We can visualize the younger, silent sibling, hovering behind the narrator, as she wraps her arm around her back protecting him from the abuse. We hear his unspeaking voice in the words "we," "us," and "our." I think it's extremely effective. I don't know a better way to express the feeling of a joint experience than the first person plural.

Second Person Singular

Examples: Schofield, Dennis. The Second Person: A Point of View?, and Heffron, Jack, The Writer's Idea Book

In the second person singular, the writer uses the word "you" in order to address the reader directly. For example, a piece might say, "You went to the store…you got cigarettes."

The Schofield paper, referenced above, describes four different types of second person singular: (1) the "you" as the narrator's own self; (2) the "you" as another character in the story; (3) the "you" as the reader, and (4) the "you" as an amorphous unspecified entity.

Jack Heffron's prompt book contains the prompt: "Write a piece using second-person, as if you were writing a script for an instructional video." I tried this prompt and the piece I wrote turned out to be one of my favorites. In addition to being a great way to "hand-hold" your reader (basically the writer is instructing the reader directly in what's happening in the story), the second person is a refreshing change of pace. It's enjoyable and challenging to move away from the familiar first or third person writing styles.

Second Person Plural

Another second person POV is called the second person plural, in which "you" refers to a group (possibly of other characters in the story or perhaps a group of readers). There's a further type called the colloquial or regional second person plural, where the "you" becomes "youse" (Midwest), "yins" (Pittsburgh), "you'all" (Southern), etc. depending on the region of the country the writer desires to emulate.

Third Person Singular

The third person singular POV comes in many forms, including the close or limited third person and the omniscient third person. I won't discuss the omniscient third person in this paper because it seems to me to be somewhat old-fashioned. Most of the books I've read on writing fiction warn the writer to avoid the third person omniscient. I will stay away from it as well.

Close Third Person Singular

Example: "On Holiday:, by Marti Booker, Vestal Review, Issue 5, April 2001

In the close third person, the POV remains inside the mind of a single character. In this way, the close third person is similar to the first person, in fact, a quick and dirty way to write close third person is to write the piece in first person, and then convert the words "I" to a character's name, the word "my" to the word "his," and so on.

For example: "I went to the store to get my cigarettes" becomes "George went to the store to get his cigarettes."

Of course, it is much more difficult than that, but one gets the idea. When writing in the first person, the writer should avoid jumping from the POV character into the mind of other characters. Starting in first person and switching to third person helps preserve this idea of "remaining in a single head."

When I first started writing fiction, the close third person was a difficult concept for me to understand (along with everything else). "Head-hopping," which refers to this tendency to switch back and forth between the thoughts of various characters, came naturally as a beginning writer.

Even published writers fall prey to "head hopping." The example mentioned above was published in a prestigious online journal. The writer writes in the first paragraph, "Jamie…watched the twice-reflected lights twinkle" The word "watched" here is close third person from Jamie's perspective. Two paragraphs later the writers says, "Samantha scowled at him.….A line of tourists strolled past, reeking of cologne." To me this is clearly from Samantha's perspective. Samantha smells the cologne. A few paragraphs later the writer says, "[Jamie] had taken everything out of their joint account already. Silly bitch." We are clearly back in Jamie's head. Jamie is thinking the words "Stupid bitch." We've head hopped.

Violating the close third person is not the kiss of death (the piece was published after all), but it's probably best avoided. "Head hopping" has the tendency to confuse the reader.

Close Third Person, Multiple

Example: Egan, Jennifer. A Visit from the Goon Squad.

Another point-of-view is close third person, multiple POV. This is the same as close third person, in the sense that the author stays inside a given character's experience, but in the multiple point of view the viewpoint character may shift if the exchange is handled clearly (for example by a chapter or section break).

A perfect example of this type of POV is Jennifer Egan's book A Visit From the Goon Squad. The book is a powerful study of POV. Each chapter is written tightly from a single character's point-of-view. Some chapters are first person, some second person, some third-person limited, but every chapter sticks meticulously with the character it starts with.

This POV may not be very useful to a flash fiction writer—not enough room—but in a collection or a chapbook, it might be interesting. If you haven't read this wonderful book, you should.

Conclusion

For me, the concept of point-of-view has been one of the most difficult aspects of writing fiction I've had to come to terms with. I kind of get it, and the more I study it the more I understand. First and second person are simple. Recognizing and avoiding the tendency to slip into and out of various character's perspectives under the third person POV has been much more difficult.

I'm getting there though. It's just another item I've added the long, and growing, list of things I have to learn. But that's a good thing; the simple act of adding things to that list is one of the most enjoyable things about learning how to be a fiction writer.

FF.Net Author's Note

Interview: Amy L. Clark discusses Metallic Origami, Wanting, and Flash Fiction

2012-05-14T16:00:00Z

by Tori Bond

Amy L. Clark is assistant professor of English and the Interim Director of the Writing Program at Regis College, and professor of writing and critical thinking with Bard College's Clemente Course Boston. She is also the founding member and chair of the board of directors of the charitable organization The Endowment for Unexceptional Humans. She has had fiction and nonfiction published in literary journals and anthologies, including Hobart, Juked, Quick Fiction, Action Yes Quarterly, McSweeneys Internet Tendency, and The American Book Review, and Best of the Web, and her chapbook Wanting is available as part of the book A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness (Rose Metal Press). Her online home is www.overtimewriting.com. Amy has always wanted to be a rocket surgeon.

What attracts you to writing flash fiction?

I had never heard of flash fiction until I took I graduate course in it, and when I did end up in the class, I was initially pretty skeptical of the form. But the class was taught by the wonderful Pamela Painter, and she always does an amazing job of pulling brilliant little stories out of people. Once I got used to the form, I came to love a couple things about it. First, the stories are so short that, as a writer, it is freeing—I don't have to pour years of time and effort into a short short the way I would a novel, which means that I'm always open to radical revision of a piece of flash fiction, or even, when one fails, to scraping it altogether, throwing it away, and starting something new. Secondly, I have come to really love the economy of the form. In a piece of flash fiction, the story has to be told, and the character has to be developed, using just a few, key details and turns of phrase. I think that really appeals to my (probably overdeveloped) wish for order: for signs and symbols in the world and in our character to mean something, and to mean only one, seemingly inevitable thing. That impulse is not something I'm always proud of in life, but when I'm writing flash fiction, it's helpful and enjoyable.

I find it interesting that you write both short short fiction and novel length fiction. How does your writing process differ when writing short versus long? Are you able to work on both at the same time, or do you alternate, focusing on one project at a time?

For a long time, I wrote mostly traditional-length short stories. Flash fiction enabled me to focus my language and my details, and was an easy transition from regular short stories. I didn't attempt a novel for a long time, and when I did, that was the transition that was really hard. The first novel I wrote ended up, after the first major draft, at only around 150 pages, and more alarmingly, the pacing was completely wrong. I re-wrote the entire novel, focusing on the fact that I could slow down and develop the characters and forward movement over many pages and chapters, and that details carried a different amount of weight in a novel than they do in a short story. It was hugely gratifying when I felt like I sort of figured out how to do that.

In your story "Quarters," you perform "metallic origami," transforming a quarter into the thing the protagonist deeply longs for most, her lover. This is achieved in one paragraph. How do you make such large moves in such a small space?

Actually, the quarters become the hand of a man who repels and frightens and fascinates the protagonist, and only after all that, turns her on. I think making a move like that—from, in this case, a very specific physical object to a large, amorphous feeling—happens through asking readers to equate things in surprising ways. We spend our whole lives looking at things and ideas and going, "what is this? What is it like?" and in a moment like the one in "Quarters" I'm really asking readers to think: "what if it's like this totally different thing?" When it works, it's because the metaphor or the crazy leap in the mind of the character somehow seems intuitive to readers, because they have made similar crazy leaps or can understand how others do.

Your stories illuminate the unexplainable in relationships, in unique and surprising ways. How do you think about surprise or newness when you write?

That makes it sound like I'm doing something right! Thanks! I'm not sure I consciously think about surprise or novelty when I'm writing. In fact, one of the things I'm always warning students against is the surprise ending that can sometimes read like a trick or the end of a joke. I like bad jokes a lot, but literary stories are supposed to do something different, something more. I would guess that a lot of what reads like "newness" in my short shorts is really just the way my actual, skewed brain works. I do try to create characters who see the world a little differently, and that hopeful comes across as interesting and fresh but still grounded in basic human truths. I know a lot of different kinds of people, and in my life, I'm usually more interested in the ways that, for all our differences, we are more alike than we are strange to each other. But in fiction, that gets reversed: it's what makes characters just a little bit "other" that is often so compelling to me.

Wanting what can't be had seems to be a common theme in many of your stories. Do you start knowing what your character most want, or do you discover this during the writing process?

The title of my collection in A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness comes from the double meaning of "Wanting." It can mean "desiring," of course, but also "lacking." It was also my little homage to one of my all-time favorite writers, Grace Paley, whose "Wants" has one of the best lines ever written about human relationships and plumbing. I'm fairly old-school when it comes to developing stories, and I still think that what a character wants, and what she is willing to do to get it, creates the best tension in a piece. So, even when I don't start a story knowing what my character wants, I try to figure it out before I get too far into anything, otherwise I feel like the piece loses focus, loses its humanity, and I lose interest in it. Anyway, it's not hard to assign a desire to a character; we all want so much all the time, and as a writer, you just take your pick.

When I attempt to write flash fiction, I fall back to my long fiction habits and then panic when I get to 1000 words and an ending is nowhere in sight. What do you feel an ending needs to achieve in flash fiction and how do you arrive at a satisfying ending for your stories?

In my opinion, the end of a flash fiction piece should work this way: if you read the first paragraph of the story and then skipped to the last line, it would be utterly unexpected and bewildering. But somewhere in the last couple paragraphs of the flash piece, there is a change. Because it's flash fiction, that change pivots on a single sentence. And after reading that sentence, the ending of the piece should now feel inevitable, like it is the only possible ending for this story. I also think that the end of any kind of story has to make a connection with the world or the reader. This is probably extraordinarily old-fashioned of me (or maybe impossibly new-fangled, what the hell do I know?), but I really believe that fiction should help us make sense of the world, and that fiction also has a job to do in the world. Good, nuanced characters help readers get to know, and get to be, people they otherwise would never have had the opportunity to meet. And this helps us develop empathy. And empathy is the fundamental component in a just world. So I do think that the end of any kind of fiction needs to make this connection, to show readers Oh! This is what that was about! and then to get them to think about that about—how there are similar things or people or desires in their own lives, and how to move through the world now that we have met these new people and seen these new things and thought these new thoughts. I suppose that's kind of a lot to ask of an ending, and I'm positive mine don't always succeed, but that's sort of my model.

FF.Net Author's Note

Tori Bond is an MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) candidate at Rosemont College. She graduated from Rutgers with a degree in English and holds an Associate's degree in computer science. She identifies herself as a novelist, freelance writer, mom, and failed housewife with a flash fiction habit.

Flash Focus: We Sneak a Peek at Eric Bosse's Magnificent Mistakes

2012-01-10T11:00:00Z

Book Description: In Magnificent Mistakes the world shifts and turns otherworldly in a series of short stories and flash fictions. Readers will find these nineteen stories beautifully strange and evocative, notes Kathy Fish, author of Together We Can Bury It and Wild Life, who provided comments for the book cover. Inhabited by oddballs, lovers, ghosts, and runaways, the world Bosse creates is full of the unexpected, of chance encounters, and the vast and moving struggles of misfiring hearts. The book features an imaginative cover by George Migash that has echoes in the interior format.

[Editor's Note: Below is a reprint from Bosse's collection, a reprint that gives a hint of the wonder and surprise that haunt this collection from beginning to end].

HOUSE OF GHOSTS
The blue Victorian at 1145 White Street shifts in its foundation, creaks, and settles in for the night. The boys are bundled into their beds. My wife, too, has gone to sleep. I'm alone in the kitchen, steeping chamomile tea, coughing phlegm into the lines of my palms. Toast crumbs on the table shiver when I exhale. The refrigerator groans. The candle pops. The back door swings open, and the ghost of my father's lover stands there in the moonlight. I offer him tea. He accepts and smiles as if death were an exquisite pleasure. I pour hot water into a World's Best Mom mug and tell him it's been five days since the night my wife called me David. I was kissing her breast, and I saw her lips as she whispered it: Oh, David. Her eyes bloomed with the horror of her mistake. Her cheeks turned pink then a pale green.
David, I asked. Who is David?
My father's lover's ghost takes his tea with honey and sips with his pinkie extended. I ask if my father was passionate in bed.
The ghost's gaze trails toward the knife block and the spice rack. He sets down his tea and beckons me to follow. We walk to the back porch. The boards squeak beneath my feet but not his.
Outside, in the yard, everything is gray?--?the moon, the stars, the decrepit fence. And other silver ghosts are there. My grandfather, in a powder-blue polyester coverall suit, plucks cherries from a branch of my wife's apple tree. My childhood dog Farrell?--?half mutt, half beagle?--?naps at my feet. My high school football coach, Butch Stuemke, stands with his arms wrapped around the keg of his chest, watching me, waiting for me to throw a block or catch a pass, to do something, anything.
My father's lover's ghost puts a hand on my shoulder and presses me to take a seat on the steps. He sits behind me, cradles me, and whispers that I am brave to go on living. I rest my head in his lap, and for the first time in five nights I drift toward sleep. Did he ever talk about me? I ask.
Oh, all the time, the ghost says. He never stopped. You were the most lovable kid in the world. You were his cupid, his darling boy, his perfect little cherub.
I shut my eyes. Something moves in the grass. The ghost strokes my hair. I keep wondering if it will rain.

"House of Ghosts" was originally published in Salt Flats Annual, and appears here with the permission of the author.
_______________

Eric Bosse is a fiction writer, poet, essayist, recovering journalist, and occasional film-maker. His stories have appeared in The Sun, Mississippi Review, Zoetrope, Exquisite Corpse, Wigleaf, and Night Train, among other journals. His poems and essays rarely appear, but those dark years as a newspaper arts critic still haunt his nightmares. Ravenna Press published his story collection, Magnificent Mistakes, in the fall of 2011. Eric lives in Norman with his family and teaches writing at the University of Oklahoma.

Flash Collection: Stripped Twists Gender Expectations

2012-01-09T14:23:23Z

Book Description from PS Books: Stripped is a collection with a twist. Yes, the fiction contained herein includes works from some of the best-known names in flash fiction as well as the work of emerging writers, but the bylines have been removed so you can't tell who wrote what. What's more, the stories hinge largely on gender roles—but with the authors' identities stripped from their stories, editor Nicole Monaghan has created a bit of a guessing game. Did a woman, for example, write that piece about ambivalence toward motherhood? Or was it a man? More to the point, does it really matter? Or is there something bigger going on when men and women stretch their minds and imagine what it might be like to be the other? Authors include Meg Tuite, Michelle Reale, Myfanwy Collins, Tara L. Masih, Marc Schuster, Michael Martone, Nathan Alling Long, and Curtis Smith.

Available at Amazon.

2011 OED New Word Flash Prompt

2012-01-06T14:38:17Z

We can't put a wrap on the new dictionary words for 2011 without paying homage to the official keeper of the mother tongue, the Oxford English Dictionary (or, to those in the know, the OED). The OED adds an average of 4,000 words every year. FlashFiction.net has whittled the list down to about ten prompt-friendly selections.

Your mission: Write a flash using at least five of the following words (a few are texting acronyms, so we're counting them as one list entry).

brain candy n. Broadly appealing, undemanding entertainment which is not intellectually stimulating. OED already has eye-candy and ear candy. [1968]

earworm n A catchy tune or piece of music which persistently stays in a person's mind, esp. to the point of irritation. [1991; earlier senses, meaning 'an earwig' and 'a counsellor who gives advice in secret' date to 1598 and before 1670 respectively]

muffin top n. 1. The top of a muffin; spec part which rises above the rim of the tin or cup during baking; (now also) a type of muffin intended to resemble this, baked in a specially designed tin with shallow depressions. 2. slang. A roll of flesh which hangs visibly over a person's (esp. a woman's) tight-fitting waistband.

OMG [OMG int. (andn.) and adj.]: 'Oh my God' (or sometimes 'gosh', 'goodness', etc.).

LOL [LOL int. and n./2]: 'laughing out loud'

FYI phr., adj., and n. For your information (typically preceding or following an explanatory statement).

tinfoil hat n. A hat made from tinfoil. a As worn at a party, celebration, etc. b With allusion to the belief that such a hat protects the wearer from mind control, surveillance, or similar types of threat.

over-accessorized adj. Chiefly Fashion. Having too many accessories, provided with accessories which are too ostentatious; characterized by overuse of accessories.

zero emission n (also zero emissions) Emission of no or very few pollutants; frequently attributive or as adjective, especially in zero-emission vehicle. [1971] n. (also zero emissions) Emission of no or very few pollutants; frequently attributive or as adjective, especially in zero-emission vehicle. [1971]

urb n. An urban area, a city. Frequently contrasted with suburb. [1952] couch surfing n. 1. The action or habit of engaging in sedentary activities, esp. watching television. 2. The action or practice of sleeping overnight on a couch (or in similar makeshift accommodations) as a houseguest, esp. in a series of homes (often as a substitute for permanent housing).

auto-complete n. A software feature that uses text already entered in a given field to predict or generate the characters the user is likely to enter next; familiar to anyone who has used predictive text or search boxes on websites. [First recorded in 1992].

(Sources: http://www.oed.com/public/whatsnew/whats-new and http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/8168472/Oxford-English-Dictionary-how-the-words-are-chosen.html)

About the Author

Rich Grohowski graduated from Kutztown University with degrees in English and Geography, two things for which no one wants to pay you money. So, naturally, he's hoping to hit the big bucks in flash fiction. Along with recently finishing his Teaching Certification at Immaculata University, he is an MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) candidate at Rosemont College. His non-fiction writing about food, culture, real estate, and interesting personal histories (pretty much anything, really) has appeared in magazines, newspapers, and even a couple of books.

For further reading, check out FlashFiction.Net's suggested readings of flash fiction and prose poetry collections, anthologies, and craft books, by clicking here.

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Flash Review: Sudden Flash Youth

2011-12-22T11:22:43Z

My midlife crisis has been nothing like I imagined. No sport cars, life-defying stunts, any desire to be anywhere else but at home. Instead, nostalgia clings to everything. There's a realization that the past doesn't exist and an equal desire to make it be present.
In the midst of knowing the impossibility of recovery and yearning for the means to recover all that's been lost, I picked up Sudden Flash Youth (Persea Books, 2011), a collection of 65 short-short stories edited by Christine Perkins-Hazuka, Tom Hazuka, and Mark Budman. How I love these stories! And the short-short, a form that demands stories end as soon as they've begun, feels like the perfect container. Faced with the freshness and suddenness of youth, the world seems unable to do anything but to call on all its forces—war, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, neighbors, bullies, teachers, priests, dysfunction, death, time—to make it go away, in a flash.

As a reader, I bring so much archetypal experience to the idea of youth that I felt as if I'd be confronted in this collection, again and again, by what I already knew. Not so.

First, there's the wonder of the language. Remember those stars all of us looked up to? Here that night-world becomes "embers of the cigarettes they passed between them" (Shapard, p. 5); "dark as the space between stars" (Bausch, p. 21); "the star-crowded sky" (Bedard, p. 59); "the neighbors' house…dark and quiet and…plunked down there under the stars" (Andersen, p. 172). Each story brings its own vision to youth, its own recreation of that world we've all inhabited.

It's all there—summers, little brothers and sisters, chalk, notes, the twins, avatars, babies, basketball, parents and their loves, new and old cars, windows and Doors, bracelets, storms, winters, school, ADD, dreams, truths and lies, crushes, dolls, presents, BB guns, rats, dogs, cats, and of course frozen pheasants—but it's rendered anew, so that the stories evoke both the wonder of the strange and the ache of recollection.

In "Nothing Gold Can Stay," Frost writes, "So Eden sank to grief, / So dawn goes down to day." I think his point is that it is that quality of the world—its inability to stay— that makes things golden. That "golden" quality exists throughout these 65 stories, and I surprised myself with how many times I ended up crying, cracking up, or some version of both.

Many of the stories end where you might imagine stories with young protagonists to end, with that sense of knowing and unknowing:

I understood… (Shapard, p. 5)
I already knew… (Kearney, p. 8)
I'll know what to say (Painter, p. 9)
You understand, don't you? (Weber, p. 20)
Because you know. (Konisberg, p. 32)
…you finally understand why… (Eggers, p. 34)
…learning the social skills… (Carlson, p. 37)
…anyone in the world who knows… (Mazer, p. 41)
Suddenly I understood… (Soares, p. 53)
I knew she was… (Brandeis, p. 61)
He knew [she] couldn't… (Bacho, p. 75)
"I know," she whispered… (Hamburger, p. 86)
And you know… (Levis, p. 91)
I still didn't know… (Alvarado, p. 101)
For he did know… (Teicher, p. 105)
…and I did not know… (Wolpe, p. 125)
…everything I know… (Fanning, p. 141)
And this, she knows… (Kolosov, p. 151)
I knew it then… (Andersen, p. 173)

Of course, there's that tragic sense to such knowing; as each piece ends, one can hear the Edenic gates clicking forever shut. However, set against that feeling, for me, was the remarkable ability of each author to translate "youth" into something both emotionally resonant and infinitely hopeful. One imagines, thousands of years from now, childhoods still being collected and recollected. One imagines, set against Layden's "You. Don't. Matter" (p. 183) another voice, a kind of mantra against the dark: I am young, I am young, I am young (Beal, p. 17).

So, in short-short, I strongly recommend this collection. It's available here. I hope you end up loving it as much as I do.

Mad About Flash: Some Snappy Answers to a Stupid Question

2011-12-20T11:00:00Z

Al Jaffee's Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions for some odd reason seems to be a highlight of my childhood. Here's an Al Jaffee original, revised (of course), and not nearly as good.

View image

Top Ten List: Flash is For the Fearless? Did I Write That? I'm Afraid So

2011-12-19T12:00:00Z

At some point, in writing about flash fiction, I wrote that flash is for the fearless. Considering that I am not the least bit fearless and I write flash, I imagine there is a syllogism out there that proves I have committed some kind of logical fallacy:

All fish can swim.
I can swim.
Therefore, I am a fish.

Actually, all I remember about logic in college is repeatedly hitting my head with the textbook. I find, though, that I'm not alone in talking about how courageous fiction writers are. And I think really? So here's a top ten list of reasons we might not be as courageous as we sometimes think we might be.

When the talk about my story (if indeed anyone is ever talking about my story) gets too close to the heart of things, I can always yell in frustration, "You idiots! It's fiction!"

Rather than confront who is really at the heart of my fears, I sit at a desk making fictional characters go through a series of challenging obstacles. And even that fills me with dread.

I could go into battle (i.e., write) or I could go to a conference to hear others talk about their battles (i.e., writing). Like those romantic knights who leave their desks to search for the Grail, I often choose elsewhere, perhaps not realizing that it is the Grail search itself that has made home a wasteland.

Carpal tunnel syndrome. Paper cuts. Clove cigarettes. The personal suffering I risk for my art!

In submitting, I take the chance of having one or more strangers send me a note that says,"Dear Author, We decided to pass on this piece. We wish you the best of luck in placing it. And please fill out the enclosed contest, lifetime subscription, and charity donation forms." And yet, in spite of such personal rejection, I endure!

Every word counts! That's a lot of pressure for us sensitive writerly types.

It's one thing when the Atlantic or Tin House rejects you. It's another when You Write We Publish It Journal of Flash says that your flash didn't quite fit as part of an emerging mix.

If indeed anxiety is caused by an inability to tolerate uncertainty, then one might argue that I write for as long as I can tolerate the not-knowing, and that, one might argue, isn't very long at all.

Is it prose poetry? A story? Instead of deciding, I call it a piece. How's that for going out on a limb of commitment?

I am much braver knowing I have that safety pill of Xanax in my pocket.

For further reading, check out FlashFiction.Net's suggested readings of flash fiction and prose poetry collections, anthologies, and craft books, by clicking here.

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