Unreeling by Kent Thompson, Essay Example

Modern fiction has grown more accepting of the very short story. Known as micro-fiction or flash fiction, stories that are qualify as very short are “usually less than 1,000 words long,” and can be in any subject on any theme. The only real stipulation on the content of a work of flash fiction other than word count is that idea that a flash fiction story “ must be complete, and not a fragment or a segment of a longer narrative unit.” (Chambers). The question remains as to whether or not micro and flash fiction actually fulfill the requirements of narrative writing or if they represent something other than a reduced form of a short story.

Due to contemporary influences such as Twitter and the Internet as a whole, many authors have recourse to audiences. The online site Flash Friday, for example offers a Twitter-connected series of flash narratives where “anybody who fancies a go can bash out a short piece of fiction on a Friday, post it to their blog and tweet it using the hashtag #FridayFlash.” (“Twitter Inspires Flash of Genius” 31). Is this a wave of the future or simply a silly diversion from real writing?

The answer is that well-written flash-fiction, such as “Unreeling” by Kent Thompson, is actually able to preserve all of the traditional elements of a longer narrative are present: characters, setting, conflict, rising action, climax and resolution. There is even a “moral” to be construed from the single-paragraph story. In the case of Thompson’s story, there can be no doubt that micro-fiction qualifies as genuine narrative writing.

The question is, of course, just how short a work of narrative fiction can be before the necessary elements of fiction are sacrificed beyond redemption. The key point of flash fiction is its ability to create “vivid distillation of the short story genre” (Nel 532). The piece by Thompson certainly achieves this goal and captures an entire story of dissolution and tragedy in a single paragraph. As such, it would seem to validate the idea that it is the talent of the writer and not the limitations of form that prove most important in determining whether or not flash and micro fiction are “authentic” short story forms. As evidenced by the Thompson story, in the hands of a skilled writer they are most certainly legitimate narrative forms.

Works Cited

Chambers, Aidan. “Flashes of Fiction.” NATE Classroom Autumn 2011: 8+. Questia. Web. 26 Feb. 2013.

Nel, Philip. “Micro Fiction: An Anthology of Really Short Stories.” Studies in Short Fiction 34.4 (1997): 532.

“Twitter Inspires Flash of Genius; the Short Story Has Found a Bold New Format, Writes Jasmine Gardner.” The Evening Standard (London, England) 23 May 2011: 31.Thompson, Kent. “Unreeling”