In Defence of Flash Fiction

Don’t diss the flash!

Alanah Andrews
The Writing Cooperative

By Alanah Andrews (Image Source)

“A thousand words isn’t a story — it’s a greeting card.”

Cue eye-roll. I was browsing through potential short story competitions to enter when I stumbled across the above comment by a fellow writer (who was obviously NOT going to enter this ridiculously short competition because they write super important 100,000 word novels instead of fickle flash fiction).

Although I could have kept scrolling, instead I snorted, made a chai latte and sat down to write this post.

Bigger = Better, right? (Image Source).

Now aside from the obvious over-exaggeration (what sort of giant greeting card are you reading if it’s a thousand words long) I have heard similar sentiments espoused by writers in a variety of formats. You see, there’s a problem in our writing community where length seems to indicate quality.

That’s right, the dick-measuring antics we have to put up with in regular society seem to have crossed into the world of writing as well.

My novella is 40,000 words long.

Well mine is 80,000 words.

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