Flash Bright: Fiction & Poetry in Bursts

Last week I was sitting on a plane coming home from a veterinary conference in Chicago. Planes have always been a
great source of writing time for me -- an imposed finite bubble of singularity where the options for distraction are so limited that it's freeing. On liftoff, along with the funny feeling in the pit of my stomach, I also have a lightness, a sense of freedom from all the clutter of life on the ground. My mind is stripped bare and I'm left to focus on my very immediate environs. I try my best to utilize this space.

On this flight I was going through back issues of Poetry. In the October 2018 issue, the editors included a section titled "The View From Here" which is an occasional addition where people from different fields comment on their experience of poetry. While there were two fantastic essays from teens about how poetry has impacted them (do yourself a favor and read "Teenagers Are Not Exempt from Poetry" and "Smells like Teen Poetry" when you get a chance), Greg Pak's "Thanks, Poetry!" rang true to certain aspects I've been chewing on as they relate to flash fiction recently.

Enter my primary thesis of this month's post, dear readers: for me, the similarities between flash fiction and poetry are so intertwined that their creative processes are the same. Greg makes the point for me in a more coherent manner. Here, look:

• Just writing. Greg writes, "One of the hardest things for many writers and would-be writers is simply beginning the physical act of writing. But when I was a kid, poetry gave me permission to start writing instinctively, with almost nothing in my head. The stakes were low -- how much trouble could I get myself into in a single page of writing?"

The stakes are low -- that struck me, big time. Writing a novel is intimidating to me. I have a fear of commitment; what if I'm 40,000 words in and discover a massive plot hole? What if I write myself into a corner? What if it's boring? The stakes are high for that sort of length; imagine the time lost to that many words. I shudder.

But a piece of flash that's 1,000 words? Now we're talking. No plot holes, no corners to find yourself in. There's not enough room to be boring. At 1,000 words, the stakes are low. If it sucks, so what? A handful of stinky flash pieces feels more like practice writing than a few attempts at a novel. Maybe it's something about the finish-ability of a flash piece. This is not at all meant to downgrade flash fiction in the eyes of other lengths of work. Flash is serious business; it's raw, honest, emotional, weighty, and tricky. Writing good flash is hard. Writing great flash is very hard. But the stakes? Somehow the blank page isn't so intimidating when my intention is 1,000 words, not 60,000.

• Love of language. "Poetry gave me permission to put words together in any way that felt true and sounded right -- or even just sounded interesting." Greg writes comics and says "Comics letterers play with type and punctuation and sizes and fonts, separating dialogue into balloons and captions, spacing them across the page in specific ways to create specific rhythms and emotions in a reader's mind and heart. If that's not poetry, I don't know what is."

I love language; most writers do. I find the ability to write more lyrical, highly descriptive language in flash more welcoming than in a longer piece. That's not to say that beautiful words don't belong in longer pieces. But I think they're framed especially well in a short piece of flash--their shine is brighter because they're not drowned out by all the other words. I think what I'm trying to say segues into Greg's next point:

• Concision. Greg mentions the old cliche: a good poem doesn't waste a single word. He casts  reflection on the dubiousness of the word "waste" and I tend to agree. "Still, writing poetry as a teenager challenged me to explore a single idea in a concentrated way, building each element of the work toward a final effect." 

In flash, you are granted the superpower to face the challenge of writing beautifully but in the period of a heartbeat, nothing more. Peel back the oyster because we want to gaze at the pearl. 

• Heart. " . . . I learned that poetry was a safe place to express all of those confusing, painful, earnest emotions." 

I read somewhere recently on Twitter about how an author finally acknowledged her internal anger on various subjects and started letting this rage onto the page. Since then, she stated her writing has been

more visceral and genuine. I am slowly starting to learn this, too. It's hard to write from the true gut--I'm talking accessing those dark corners. It's scary and makes you feel really vulnerable. But sometimes it brings out the best writing. That's true for every form of writing, be it flash or poetry or graphic novels or YA books -- the list includes all genres. But that's also exhausting to write like that, so why not train in short bursts?

I am slowly working toward the idea of starting a novel, but it's going to take quite a while and I have a ton to learn and practice in the meantime. When gearing up for a big project, I'm reminded of the saying: "How does one eat an elephant? One bite at a time." (I used this mantra to help me study for the national veterinary board exam.) If a novel is the elephant, let me cut my teeth on a few mice first.