Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Brevity: A Flash Fiction Handbook
    Brevity: A Flash Fiction Handbook
    Brevity: A Flash Fiction Handbook
    Ebook133 pages2 hours

    Brevity: A Flash Fiction Handbook

    By David Galef

    4.5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Flash fiction is over in the blink of an eye yet lingers with the reader. In Brevity, David Galef guides creative writing students through this timely literary genre, detailing best techniques, key examples, and provocative prompts that will help aspiring writers pack the most punch in the fewest words.

    Flash fiction, or the short-short,” which encompasses vignettes, prose poems, character sketches, fables, lists, twist stories, surrealism, metafiction, and other forms, has taken off over the past decade in both print and digital publications. Galef traces the genre back to such writers as Colette, Donald Barthelme, and Borges, demonstrating the compression and concision of character, plot, and dialogue that make the perfect miniature. Galef, a writer and longtime creative writing instructor, shows how developing one’s skills in the short-short form can translate to other forms of writing. His diverse selection of stories and engaging exercises and prompts make Brevity a valuable resource for creative writing students and others who want to try their hands at this increasingly popular form.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherColumbia University Press
    Release dateNov 15, 2016
    ISBN9780231543132
    Brevity: A Flash Fiction Handbook

    Read more from David Galef

    Related to Brevity

    Related ebooks

    Composition & Creative Writing For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      A Flash Fiction Roundtable: Short but Never Small

      May 21, 2018

      Prose poetry and vignettes are driven by imagery and emotion whereas flash fiction has an almost desperate need to tell a story before it’s too late. The post A Flash Fiction Roundtable: Short but Never Small appeared first on The Millions.

      13 min read

    • Article

      Movement and Flow

      May 10, 2019

      A FEW YEARS AGO my mother had a phase in which every three or four months something would short in her heart or brain, and she’d slump to the floor. Whatever did this left no trace; we guessed some kind of seizure. By the time I’d find her in the eme

      11 min read

    • Article

      The Writer’s Bookshelf

      Aug 17, 2022

      As you find your path as a writer, there may be no better support than the wisdom of your fellow travelers. Let these twelve recent and forthcoming books by some of contemporary literature’s most insightful and generous luminaries guide you on your w

      4 min read

    • Article

      Recommended Flash Fiction from the Editors of 100 Word Story

      May 3, 2018

      As writers and editors of flash fiction, we love stories that are structured around a story’s gaps, the nuanced caesuras of what’s left out. In fact, the promise of a good flash story—a genre usually defined as being less than 1,000 words—is the way

      7 min read

    • Article

      Twelve Ways to Create Space to Write No Matter Where You Are

      Dec 14, 2022

      1. Turn your mind inside out. One of my favorite discoveries has been dry-erase paint. I fully painted two of my office walls, and it’s where I do my first project outlines. The temporariness of it gives me permission to be messy and the space to con

      3 min read

    • Article

      Writing, Always Writing: On Charles Baxter, Craft, and Aging

      Sep 14, 2020

      The sort of realism that I’ve practiced in the past isn’t adequate to the times we’re in. The post Writing, Always Writing: On Charles Baxter, Craft, and Aging appeared first on The Millions.

      5 min read

    • Article

      What Physics Can Teach Us About Writing Fiction

      Mar 6, 2018

      Sometimes writing fiction feels to me like that oft-used image of a godlike creator: the man pulling the strings of the marionette, orchestrating each fine movement from above the stage. One string might be character, another plot, a third setting, a

      6 min read

    • Article

      Elizabeth Acevedo

      Aug 16, 2021

      Elizabeth Acevedo
      12 min read

    • Article

      Free Writing Contests

      Apr 14, 2021

      FOR those looking to dip a toe into the deep waters of writing contests, it can be difficult to know where to begin. Every year we list hundreds of opportunities in the Grants & Awards section of this magazine, ranging from small local contests offer

      19 min read

    • Article

      Set the Hook With Great Beginnings

      Oct 18, 2021

      As a novice fisher, I’ve only caught a few fish, but I’m already thinking about better ways to hook more. Likewise, as a writer, I think a lot about how to write beginnings that will hook readers. Just as fishing advice abounds, so too does writing a

      4 min read

    • Article

      Creative Nonfiction

      Dec 15, 2020

      EDITOR Lee Gutkind MANAGING EDITOR Hattie Fletcher SENIOR EDITOR Chad Vogler SECTION EDITOR Dinty W. Moore Exploring the Boundaries EDITORIAL INTERNS & FACT CHECKERS Sarah Capdeville Stephanie Dinkmeyer Zoe Fowler READERS Stephanie Bane Becky Bosshar

      1 min read

    • Article

      On Changing Genres

      Feb 15, 2021

      On Changing Genres
      6 min read

    • Article

      Find Your Niche

      Apr 11, 2022

      Find Your Niche
      5 min read

    • Article

      Finding The Writing Contest For You

      Apr 13, 2022

      YOU wrote, rewrote, despaired; washed your hair, dishes, and curtains; binged on Netflix, got back to your desk; revised, gave up, and wrote again. And now you have finally created something you feel ready to send to a contest. But where do you find

      6 min read

    • Article

      Nonfiction Book Proposals

      Oct 13, 2021

      FOR years journalist Chloé Cooper Jones, who was born with a rare congenital disorder called sacral agenesis that affected the development of her hips and legs, had been filling free moments between assignments by writing journal entries on how stran

      8 min read

    • Article

      Bookish

      Feb 26, 2022

      BY MATT BELL Author and writing teacher Matt Bell offers a three-part plan to help aspiring novelists finish a manuscript. First is the exploratory phase of discovery and drafting; the second involves structured outlining and rewriting; then, finally

      1 min read

    • Article

      Writing Prompts and Exercises

      Feb 14, 2018

      Suggested Reading: A Primer for Poets & Readers of Poetry (W. W. Norton, February 2018) by Gregory Orr The author of a dozen books of poetry as well as three books about poetry, including Poetry as Survival (University of Georgia Press, 2002), Orr de

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Time Is Now

      Aug 18, 2021

      Suggested Reading: What About the Baby? Some Thoughts on the Art of Fiction (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, August) by Alice McDermott The author of eight novels, three of which were named Pulitzer Prize finalists, including Charming Billy, which won the

      2 min read

    • Article

      The Time Is Now Writing Prompts and Exercises

      Oct 10, 2018

      Suggested Reading:The Story Cure: A Book Doctor’s Pain-Free Guide to Finishing Your Novel or Memoir (Ten Speed Press, May 2017) by Dinty W. Moore The director of creative writing at Ohio State University and author of a number of books of literary no

      2 min read

    • Article

      Calls For Submissions

      Dec 18, 2021

      Screenplays, plays, novel excerpts, poems, and fiction and nonfiction stories are welcome for consideration in Volney Road Review’s issue 4.2. Submit by Feb. 1. volneyroadreview.com This literary journal seeks poems, essays, flash fiction, art, and h

      1 min read

    • Article

      Submission Calendar

      Dec 14, 2022

      Submission Calendar
      2 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Brevity

    4.5/5

    2 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Brevity - David Galef

      Vignettes

      BY DEFINITION, flash fiction is rendered in miniature. But what happens when you start cutting down on words? What becomes of plot, character development, and thematic depth? Obviously, some of what you can attain in a longer story is going to have to go. Forget the long landscape description or the three scenes showing the grandmother’s slow decay from Parkinson’s. On the other hand, some treatments are particularly suited for the short run. One well-known form is the vignette.

      The vignette started in 15th-century printing as a decorative border of vines around a page, then turned into what the vines enclosed, usually a page with an illustration. We now think of it as an illustrative scene, a literary sketch. The French coined a term for this form, calling it tranche de vie (literally, slice of life), and its ingenuity lies in what any cross-section reveals: the hidden depths of an interior view.

      Picture two eight-year-olds playing croquet: those unwieldy mallets, the lawn sloping unfairly, and one ball headed for the bushes. This vignette, just begun, might be called Game. It shows the seemingly innocent fun had by two small children on a Sunday afternoon, with more than a hint of sibling rivalry. We’ll name the children Ivan and Sandra and make them neighbors. You can hear the smack of mallets on the balls along with some conversation about school. But after the first paragraph, Ivan says something nasty about Sandra’s mother. Sandra responds not by hitting Ivan’s ball with hers but by kicking it. The game escalates from there.

      As you can see, Game isn’t a proper story with a beginning, middle, and end. It’s a moving picture that becomes a sketch or scene, suggesting something beyond. The term sketch is all the more apt when you think of visual art, in which a sketch is the essential lines of a drawing, but not filled in. Here are some guidelines for creating a vignette:

      Focus on a moment. If you start to chronicle any substantial period, stop, and instead deepen the presentation of what’s already there: waiting half an hour for a date to show up, a missed opportunity to help a stranger.

      Develop only as much as you need to register an impression of either a character or an event or even a mood. One trait indicates a sunny personality; a distorted shadow indicates trouble.

      Think in psychological terms. Your sketch has a meaning beyond its mere existence because of what it represents: an old woman who can’t enjoy a summer afternoon, a boss who won’t take no for an answer. Here are five pointers for this kind of treatment:

      1    Don’t merely describe. Follow the action. Dramatize.

      2    Do more with less. One short scene from a day is plenty.

      3    Be representative. This part that you’re illustrating can stand in for a whole life.

      4    Go for evocative, concrete details, not abstractions.

      5    If possible, find a way to give shadows and depth to your sketch. Make it mean more than what it seems on the surface.

      One of the best practitioners of the vignette is the French author Colette, who wrote searching portraits of love and relationships. Take a look at The Other Wife, in which Marc is having lunch with his new wife, Alice, at an elegant restaurant when he spots his previous wife at a nearby table. Yet the focus is mainly on the dynamic between Alice and Marc: he dictates where they sit and what they order; he comments on how much weight Alice is putting on. Any author could go on in this vein, but Colette won’t. She doesn’t need to. She makes her point through gestures, descriptions, and tone. Marc is older than Alice, his thick hair, threaded here and there with white silk. He dominates, yet nonchalantly, as if always used to getting his way. In which case, who is this woman at the other table, who somehow escaped his grasp? The few details are both alluring and enigmatic: The woman in white, whose smooth, lustrous hair reflected the light from the sea in azure patches, was smoking a cigarette with her eyes half closed (translated by Matthew Ward). If this woman, who seems so self-assured, rejected Marc, what does that imply about the prospects for the new marriage? For the first time, Alice entertains doubts about what she’s embarked upon. The end is suggestive rather than conclusive: here is a part to suggest the whole. With good vignettes, that’s all you need. The complete story is printed in Readings.

      EXERCISES

      Think of yesterday as a sequence of events, then choose a common incident, such as lunch, an hour at work, or a car ride. Now describe it, animate it, and dramatize it so that the reader gets a vivid picture of what’s happening, on both an exterior and an interior level. For instance: With a smile, I serve plate after plate of the daily special, spaghetti and meatballs, at Abe’s Diner, but I really hate my job. Or: She hitches a ride home with a coworker, a man she’d like to ask out, but she hasn’t got the nerve. What incident did you choose, what did it show, and why was it significant? How much of the character did you reveal, and in what ways? Did anything change over the course of the event?

      Here are some specific directives: What slice of life, the more ordinary, the better, would you use to show envy at the way your parents treat your brother? How good does your friend think she is at driving versus how inept she really is? Why is that man on the curb accosting passersby by asking the same question over and over?

      READINGS

      DISCUSSION

      One aim of a good vignette is to set down the details so that the reader can predict a bit of the future. What will happen between Marc and his new wife? What could occur to disrupt the pattern? Write a vignette about Marc and a third wife.

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1