What is flash fiction?
Flash fiction is a complete short story told in very few words, usually under 1,000 and often under 500. It is a whole story, with a turn and a consequence, compressed to its smallest workable size.
| Form | Word count |
|---|---|
| Micro fiction / drabble | up to ~100 |
| Flash fiction | up to ~1,000 |
| Short story | 1,000 to 7,500 |
| Novelette | 7,500 to 17,500 |
What makes it a story, not a fragment
Flash is not a scene or a mood; it is a complete arc. Something must change. The compression forces every element to do more than one job: a single image carries the backstory, a line of dialogue turns the whole piece. What is left out matters as much as what is on the page.
Where it lives
Flash fiction thrives in literary magazines and in chapbooks; Behind This Mirror on this shelf is a flash fiction chapbook. For examples, see flash fiction examples.