How did you
first come to writing flash fiction? What is it about the form that resonates?
My first flash-fiction stories were ideas for longer stories. I tend to write down scraps of ideas as they come to me and try to flesh them out later, when I have time to devote to them. I struggled for a while to work that first couple of stories into something bigger – adding characters, tacking on scenes, and so on – until I realized that the scrap said everything that needed saying about the idea. So I refined the wording a little (the nice thing about flash fiction is that, given the small number of words involved, you can really agonize over every … single … one) and then called them finished.
I found that I feel the same sense of accomplishment having finished a 10-word story as I do when I finish a 1,000-word story. I get the same sense of having conveyed a complete idea as eloquently as I can, which is what it’s all about for me.
Flash fiction also resonates with my short attention span.
How does a short story begin?
It begins with that scrap of an idea – usually something that occurs to me while I’m going about the rest of my day. As an example, my story “Kid Commitment Proves Them Wrong” (published in the first issue of Talking About Strawberries All of the Time) began with me watching a boxing match and being struck by the very specific use of the word “commit” in that context – referring to an offensive move that makes you vulnerable defensively – and how that relates to the more common, romantic definition of “commit.” The story was born when I applied my overall penchant for writing about losers instead of winners, and I imagined someone with commitment issues in both spheres.
You post flash fictions regularly on Twitter. How has Twitter changed the way you think about writing?
I honestly believe that Twitter hasn’t changed the way I think about writing. I find artificial limitations to be productive – or maybe I should say that I find the lack of limitations to be paralyzing. I suffer greatly from the tyranny of the blank page. If I think about turning one of those idea scraps into a long-form piece I can sit there and toy with it forever and never be happy. Whereas if I challenge myself to convey that idea in 140 characters (I’m still getting used to 280 – it still feels like a luxury I shouldn’t count on) I find it easier to create something that feels complete. Twitter is a tool that imposes that limitation, but I’ve done it before in other ways. Before writing on Twitter I started my ongoing zine series The Last Thumbnail Picture Show, which has a relatively strict format imposed by the medium – I use 4x6 photo prints as the covers and print on regular letter-size paper, which means that the whole thing can be a maximum of 16 pages long; otherwise the staples can’t get all the way through the paper when I’m binding. That’s all very physical and analog compared to the digital limitations imposed by Twitter, but the concept’s the same. And I also work as a journalist, meaning I have an external force (my editor) imposing limitations (word counts) on my writing there.
That said, Twitter is more complicated than a text box with a word count, so I feel I should constantly question its shaping effect – any technology has a tendency to shape us in ways we can’t easily see. But that in itself is a fun idea to play with as a writer – language is a technology, and so the writer’s selection of language as the technology to convey an idea has its own shaping effects. Referring back to “Kid Commitment,” that story doesn’t work as a painting, and indeed it doesn’t even necessarily work in a language other than English – the same connotations don’t attach.
Have you a daily schedule by which you work, or are you working to fit this in between other activities?
Definitely the latter. I work when I can squeeze it in. This restriction also tends to push me towards flash fiction – I talk about scraps of ideas as the starting point for a lot of stories, but they also often occur on more literal scraps of paper. I’ve written whole stories on the backs of envelopes while I’m at work, on napkins while waiting for friends at restaurants – one time, this is actually true, I had an idea for a story but I didn’t have a pen with me, so I actually scratched it out with my fingernail on the back of a receipt – one of those thermal-paper ones that turn black with friction. With this as my “process” – which is an awfully grand way to describe scribbling on napkins – it’s not too surprising that my stories end up pretty short as well. That said, at other periods of my life I’ve built longer periods into my schedule for writing, and I still end up with a lot of very short stories. They’re just what I like to write.
What are your favourite print or online literary journals?
Other than Talking Strawberries All of the Time (and I’m not just saying that – it really is filled with some of my favourite writers and the best writing I’ve seen in a while), I’m very into Little Fiction journal right now. Also, the Feathertale Review, and its companion website Feathertale.com, is consistently delightful. And of course above/ground press in Ottawa – it’s not a journal, but you can subscribe to receive packages of poetry chapbooks and broadsides in the mail, so it functions like a journal in terms of providing a near-constant stream of great writing to your brain.
Who are some of the writers you are reading lately that most excite you?
I feel like now’s not a great time to ask me that because at the moment I’m obsessed with reading a lot of embarrassing junk that won’t enhance my profile as a serious person – I’m currently burying myself in a pile of Len Deighton’s spy novels and British cozy mysteries. I can tell myself that this is research, because a lot of what I do is lampooning old-timey thrillers, but really, they’re just a hoot to read.
But I should admit to something (else) here: I suffer from a bit of an insecurity problem. It manifests in different ways in all aspects of my life, but in my writing life it means that I have trouble reading contemporary authors without thinking, “I’m not this good. I’ll never be this good. I should probably give up.” It makes reading new fiction a … conflicted experience. Whereas I feel enough distance from older authors that I can enjoy them without launching down that spiral.
There are exceptions to this, though. Etgar Keret is someone working now, writing the sorts of things I’d love to be writing, who is just too delightful and whimsical to permit any kind of negative association.
In between, there’s a guy named Caleb Echterling – he also does a lot of flash work on Twitter (@CalebEchterling), and reading it is worth the occasional pang of professional jealousy.
My first flash-fiction stories were ideas for longer stories. I tend to write down scraps of ideas as they come to me and try to flesh them out later, when I have time to devote to them. I struggled for a while to work that first couple of stories into something bigger – adding characters, tacking on scenes, and so on – until I realized that the scrap said everything that needed saying about the idea. So I refined the wording a little (the nice thing about flash fiction is that, given the small number of words involved, you can really agonize over every … single … one) and then called them finished.
I found that I feel the same sense of accomplishment having finished a 10-word story as I do when I finish a 1,000-word story. I get the same sense of having conveyed a complete idea as eloquently as I can, which is what it’s all about for me.
Flash fiction also resonates with my short attention span.
How does a short story begin?
It begins with that scrap of an idea – usually something that occurs to me while I’m going about the rest of my day. As an example, my story “Kid Commitment Proves Them Wrong” (published in the first issue of Talking About Strawberries All of the Time) began with me watching a boxing match and being struck by the very specific use of the word “commit” in that context – referring to an offensive move that makes you vulnerable defensively – and how that relates to the more common, romantic definition of “commit.” The story was born when I applied my overall penchant for writing about losers instead of winners, and I imagined someone with commitment issues in both spheres.
You post flash fictions regularly on Twitter. How has Twitter changed the way you think about writing?
I honestly believe that Twitter hasn’t changed the way I think about writing. I find artificial limitations to be productive – or maybe I should say that I find the lack of limitations to be paralyzing. I suffer greatly from the tyranny of the blank page. If I think about turning one of those idea scraps into a long-form piece I can sit there and toy with it forever and never be happy. Whereas if I challenge myself to convey that idea in 140 characters (I’m still getting used to 280 – it still feels like a luxury I shouldn’t count on) I find it easier to create something that feels complete. Twitter is a tool that imposes that limitation, but I’ve done it before in other ways. Before writing on Twitter I started my ongoing zine series The Last Thumbnail Picture Show, which has a relatively strict format imposed by the medium – I use 4x6 photo prints as the covers and print on regular letter-size paper, which means that the whole thing can be a maximum of 16 pages long; otherwise the staples can’t get all the way through the paper when I’m binding. That’s all very physical and analog compared to the digital limitations imposed by Twitter, but the concept’s the same. And I also work as a journalist, meaning I have an external force (my editor) imposing limitations (word counts) on my writing there.
That said, Twitter is more complicated than a text box with a word count, so I feel I should constantly question its shaping effect – any technology has a tendency to shape us in ways we can’t easily see. But that in itself is a fun idea to play with as a writer – language is a technology, and so the writer’s selection of language as the technology to convey an idea has its own shaping effects. Referring back to “Kid Commitment,” that story doesn’t work as a painting, and indeed it doesn’t even necessarily work in a language other than English – the same connotations don’t attach.
Have you a daily schedule by which you work, or are you working to fit this in between other activities?
Definitely the latter. I work when I can squeeze it in. This restriction also tends to push me towards flash fiction – I talk about scraps of ideas as the starting point for a lot of stories, but they also often occur on more literal scraps of paper. I’ve written whole stories on the backs of envelopes while I’m at work, on napkins while waiting for friends at restaurants – one time, this is actually true, I had an idea for a story but I didn’t have a pen with me, so I actually scratched it out with my fingernail on the back of a receipt – one of those thermal-paper ones that turn black with friction. With this as my “process” – which is an awfully grand way to describe scribbling on napkins – it’s not too surprising that my stories end up pretty short as well. That said, at other periods of my life I’ve built longer periods into my schedule for writing, and I still end up with a lot of very short stories. They’re just what I like to write.
What are your favourite print or online literary journals?
Other than Talking Strawberries All of the Time (and I’m not just saying that – it really is filled with some of my favourite writers and the best writing I’ve seen in a while), I’m very into Little Fiction journal right now. Also, the Feathertale Review, and its companion website Feathertale.com, is consistently delightful. And of course above/ground press in Ottawa – it’s not a journal, but you can subscribe to receive packages of poetry chapbooks and broadsides in the mail, so it functions like a journal in terms of providing a near-constant stream of great writing to your brain.
Who are some of the writers you are reading lately that most excite you?
I feel like now’s not a great time to ask me that because at the moment I’m obsessed with reading a lot of embarrassing junk that won’t enhance my profile as a serious person – I’m currently burying myself in a pile of Len Deighton’s spy novels and British cozy mysteries. I can tell myself that this is research, because a lot of what I do is lampooning old-timey thrillers, but really, they’re just a hoot to read.
But I should admit to something (else) here: I suffer from a bit of an insecurity problem. It manifests in different ways in all aspects of my life, but in my writing life it means that I have trouble reading contemporary authors without thinking, “I’m not this good. I’ll never be this good. I should probably give up.” It makes reading new fiction a … conflicted experience. Whereas I feel enough distance from older authors that I can enjoy them without launching down that spiral.
There are exceptions to this, though. Etgar Keret is someone working now, writing the sorts of things I’d love to be writing, who is just too delightful and whimsical to permit any kind of negative association.
In between, there’s a guy named Caleb Echterling – he also does a lot of flash work on Twitter (@CalebEchterling), and reading it is worth the occasional pang of professional jealousy.
Adam
Thomlison is
a writer in Ottawa whose work has appeared in national newspapers and
bus-station bathroom stalls, and has gotten him banned from Parliament Hill. As
a fiction writer, he's written one book, We
Were Writers for Disastrous Love Affairs Magazine, and edited and
contributed to another, These Are Not
Movies: Screenplays for Films That Will Never Be Made.
At the same time he's been releasing issues of the
ever-more-unfortunately named Last Thumbnail Picture Show zine,
now at its tenth issue and thirteenth year because he can't stick to a schedule. His even shorter
writing also appears on Twitter, @40wattspotlight. Information about all of it
can be found at 40wattspotlight.com,
or by email at mail@40wattspotlight.com.