We’re all thrilled when one of our tiny tales gets accepted in a literary journal, but what about the ginormous world of readers outside of our relatively small enclave? None of my friends (most voracious readers) had heard of flash before I started sharing my work with them. And these are bright people. How to expand the audience for our genre is something I think about a lot. We live in a sound-bite society. People like to read. They want to read, but will often forego the commitment of a novel for a quick flip through a magazine: Women’s World, More, Elle, Shape, Esquire — you name it and it should have a flash section.
Let’s brainstorm and see what inroads we can make in the coming new year.
And Happy New Year you amazing, talented, generous, sexy, fabulous, awesome ladies! -Jayne
January 4, 2016 at 4:45 PM
Same here re: ppl not hearing of flash/knowing what it is. And I think flash is so accessible and not intimidating when it comes to time! 🙂 If someone opens a book and sees that a story is a page long, they may breathe a little easier…be willing to give it a try. Having a little section of flash in a magazine where the other work is (usually) longer is a really great idea. I know some ppl may feel “unfulfilled” when they read flash…like they’re not getting deep enough or getting to know the characters enough, but then I think THEY AIN’T READING THE RIGHT FLASH (yet.) 🙂
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January 8, 2016 at 8:43 PM
Leesa, your comment “And I think flash is so accessible and not intimidating when it comes to time!” brings up another point. Much flash (too much) that I read is not so accessible to a mainstream reader (one who doesn’t follow the literary journals). It can get pretty obscure. I’m often left wondering what the hell that was about, or going “meh…” because it left me feeling empty. This doesn’t serve our genre well in terms of expanding readership. It’s wonderful to have a piece excepted by a journal and a thrill to receive compliments from our peers, but if that’s our only audience, it seems a bit incestuous. I don’t think anyone needs to “write down” to a mainstream audience, but one has to give thought to who they are writing for. In my humble opinion, every piece of writing needs to leave the reader entertained, enlightened or inspired. A writer who doesn’t consider their reader is doing little more than masturbating onto the page.
A great thing about flash is, as you say, it’s not intimidating when it comes to time. I have a collection I was going to sub-title “Tiny Tales for the Time Challenged.” There’s a broader audience out there. I know it. Reaching them is the challenge and I’m thrilled we’re having this discussion.
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January 9, 2016 at 7:45 PM
I’m jumping in here because one of the biggest mythologies (I think) is that flash is popular because readers are lazy or don’t have time. If that were the case, then poetry would be the best-selling-est genre ever or that people would be drawn to short films over long ones, etc. No, I believe that flash creates a different kind of story, and entirely different reading experience AND an entirely different reader.
That said, I love to take flash books on the train with me.
As far as mainstream, I’m all for that (and it WILL happen, it’s just a matter of time) BUT I do caution to be careful what you ask for lest you get it, if you know what I mean. When big publishing starts dictating what flash looks like, we may long for these days. That’s why I think it needs to be really solid before they get their grubby hands on it.
I had an agent interested in my last flash fiction manuscript and I currently have an agent interested in my new one, so I’m right now having these crossover conversations and asking myself these exact questions. For instance, a 100-page flash collection “behaves” on the bookshelf more like a poetry book. Mainstream publishing looks at writing with a business minded sensibility. I think it’s important to not let them define (and take over) what we are doing. It’s a delicate dance of control and exposure, here. We don’t want to kill the flower in the process…
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January 9, 2016 at 8:36 PM
I hadn’t thought of a book of flash behaving on the bookshelf like a poetry book, but that makes a lot of sense. I was thinking more in terms of mainstream magazines than publishing houses. Any publication that includes fiction should also be receptive to flash. Making those inroads is something I’d like to see because a large segment of the general population has no inkling about flash at all. I think about my own group of friends — all well-educated, smart, voracious readers — whose first exposure to flash has been through my work. There’s something wrong with that. We’re not doing a good enough job at promoting what we do. Maybe this forum will be a step in that direction. Just having this dialogue is a start.
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January 19, 2016 at 5:15 AM
We need to get some decommissioned tampon machines, collaborate with painters who will paint them, hang them up in fern bars and other likely spots and stock them with scrolls of flash.
French story vending machines
http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/french-short-stories-vending-machine
Little Free libraries
http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2015/10/public-collection-libraries/?utm_source=feedly&utm_medium=webfeeds
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