There. I said it. I am not and never will be a handbag. It feels good to get that off my chest. My leathery, buckled chest.
In recent weeks, a debate has been raging about flash fiction. Well, not raging. Bubbling. Actually, not even that. A debate has been sitting stagnant, gathering algae, about flash fiction. No-one's really arguing. But there have been some interesting points raised about the form. And as a member of a flash fiction writing group, I probably ought to throw in my clubcardsworth.
Flash fiction is very short story writing. David Gaffney calls it "sawn-off tales", Tania Hershman calls it "short shorts" among other things, while the Bridport Prize calls it "a style of fictional literature of extreme brevity" but only because I think they copied the Wikipedia article or vice versa. Consensus seems to be: stories that are 1,000 words or far fewer in length, possibly, probably, perhaps.
This is the length in which my stories tend to fall, but I find it interesting that I feel pulled away from the 'flash fiction' tag. I'm not the only member of the Flashtag writing collective to feel this: David Hartley worries that the term "implies a certain unimportance" while Benjamin Judge professes his hate for the term.
What's going on? Are my fellow flashers putting their writing macs away? Where does that leave me? Am I flash?
I probably need to turn to one chappie who has pushed flash fiction more than anyone over the past year: National Flash Fiction Day's Calum Kerr. Calum used to be a regular on the Manchester scene before another city stole him from us. He says "a flash-fiction should be written in a single burst, one period of constant writing in which the story is both started and finished." He recognises there are numerous definitions, but suggests on his publisher Cinder House's website that:
"...there should be no ideas in the writer’s mind before he or she sits down... the whole thing should emerge from a prompt unseen before the first moment of writing... the prompt should be allowed into the brain and the story should flow without planning or preparation. This is probably the closest thing to a true definition of flash that I can find."This raises a quandary for me. It's the polar opposite of how I write. I need to have a clear view of certain parts of a story before I write the first word.
Take my story Norway. The idea of two people suffering a relationship break-down while lying prostrate in a hole seems flashy: a snapshot moment with little back story. Yet the idea percolated for six months before I put pen to paper, and it certainly wasn't written in one sitting. But its word length defines it as flash.
That close-to-true definition of flash leaves me with one conclusion. I cannot be a flash fiction writer. Assuming, of course, that is also your definition, possibly, probably, perhaps.
What good is a definition anyway? I have spent my life fighting labels. What few reviews I have received for my work I have not read beyond a cursory glance. Not because I am above it all, but because I am a little fragile and that molten core within me, that burning pool of creative fire, is easily pissed on. I react badly to compliments as well as criticism. And so, to some extent, to label me a flash fiction writer is as irrelevent as calling me a poet or a ballet dancer or a brick wall or a handbag. I am none of those. I am just me.
And so maybe I have never been flash. I think our event this Friday is called a Short Short Story Slam and not a Flash Fiction Fisticuff Fight for a reason. Maybe there is no reason and this whole post has been a waste of time. I should have thought about it before I sat down to write. Wait... hold on... this blog post is flash and I didn't even realise. I'd better stop before I hit the 1,000-word mark.
Long may flash fiction continue. And handbags. I just may be using both less from now on: or at the very least, checking the label before I do.
