Question

Literacy subject

write about any genre or any specific piece we have covered so far. Possible topics are below.

1. What about the sonnet form has drawn so many writers to it?
2. What are the challenges with reading/writing pieces that utilize stream of consciousness?
3. How is flash fiction different from a short story?
4. In what ways do limericks play with language?
5. What effect does writing in blank verse create, and how does the writer achieve that effect?

Instructions:

Your submission should be between 500 and 700 words, and have at least 5 quotes with proper citations.

Answer 1

(NOTE: below given are the main points to be considered for writing the essay)

How is flash fiction different from short story?

· Flash fiction means, it’s a kind of writing on some fictional literature which is of very short length

· Flash fiction is a variant of short story.

· Its shorter than the short stories.

· Short stories may be some brief story which could be read in a brief span of time.

· Its clear from the word, ‘flash’ means very small eg, a flash of light means which is present only for a short time.

· The number of words of a flash fiction can vary from 100-250 words, its always under 1500 words

· While that of a short story, it may more than 1500 words to a maximum of 30,000 words.

· Variants of short stories are: Fable, flash fiction, frame story, mini-saga etc

· Variants of flash fiction are: micro-fiction, sudden fiction etc.

· Even if the flash fictions are of shorter length, it will have all the main elements a story should have like-conflicts, protagonists, problems and their solutions etc.

· But for short story sometimes only some hints of these elements will be only provided.

· There are flash fictions with 6 words,

Example by: Ernest Hemingway

His six word story was: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

Six word story means, any story with a word count of single digit.

· Flash fictions are often poorly described with very less number of words, it drives the reader into more thought for understanding the story in its correct sense.

· Short stories are a more described one, the users will get the correct sense expressed by the writer in the first glance itself. It doesnot require much reader participation.

· Flash fictions are having more chance to be misunderstood, it can make the reader think in a wrong way sometimes, not in the way the writer has meant it.

· Short stories doesnot cause the problem of misunderstanding, because it is having enough description, so there is no chance the reader to interpret it in a different way.

· Short stories were the first emerged ones.

· Flash fictions came later from the short story.

Best and known example of short story is Aesop fables by Aesop,

“the tortoise and the hare” is a well known short story from the Aesop fables.

· Flash fictions mainly has story based on one place, because changing place needed more description about the change and the new place, so needed more words.

· While short stories may be set up in more than one place as the word limit is more in this case.

· The number of characters (from 3-4 characters) used in a flash fiction are limited and the background story or the flash backs are avoided or shortened here due to consumption of more words.

· There is no limit for the amount of characters or on the description of short story.

· Even if the flash fictions is very small, its complete and satisfies a reader through its strong plot.

· Short stories are also a reader satisfying one with more descirptions

• “A short story is a love affair; a novel is a marriage. A short story is a photograph; a novel is a film” it’s a quote by Lorrie Moore (an American fiction writer)

: this quote describes about a short story and a novel and it also describes about the kind of each of them.

• “Find the key emotion; this may be all you need know to find your short story.”
  –quote by, F. Scott Fitzgerald, he is an American novelist, he says about the spark to write a short story.
• “A short story must have a single mood and every sentence must build towards it.” –its quote by, Edgar Allan Poe, an American writer, poet. He says about how to write and short story.

(NOTE: the things written in latin-bold are direct quotes or facts from English literature)