Toward the end of the year I was pondering what Flash Fiction Fidelity (faithfulness) would look like if put into words or chalked out upon a soiled building wall deep within some forgotten alley. Like the chalk maybe rules for writing Flash are meant to dissolve with the first rain, dripping into an ever widening pool on the ground only to be swept away by gravities suction deep within an anonymous city sewer.
Immediate Emotional Turbulence (IET), words placed on paper that grab and push the reader beyond their normal everyday experiences. And like turbulence Flash has an obligation to compel the reader to surrender their carefully constructed view of reality and feel something new, something extraordinary.
If writing Flash is an excuse to shrink a longer story without challenging both the writer and reader then what is it other then some homogenized spongy slice of white bread growing stale on the counter of sameness. Do we merely need to write about a bowl of fruit or does Flash call us to describe a rotten bowl of fruit littered with maggots evolving into something new while life around withers in loneliness. If there is an obligation for all writers no matter what their skill to challenge themselves and to deliver something real to their readers then maybe writing Flash compounds that responsibility and demands experimentation.
Doling out a quarter cup of plain yogurt from a quart container only shortens the time it takes to eat the plain colorless mushiness adding nothing to awaken taste buds and make the eater lick their mouths roof in delirious delight. But if you throw in dried cranberries canoodling with fresh blueberries sharing space with a sexy pecan or two you may light the fuse within a stilted imagination, forever changing their world and your world as well.
Fidelity Immediate (faithfulness to immediacy) is one New Years resolution I am committed to, stepping out with more experimenting so that my words strike a chord the reader will feel deep within driving a savoring catalyst causing experience and leading them to read more from an ever widening mishmash of daring writers and artists.
