Genres
Flash fiction
A very short fictional narrative that still offers a character arc or implies a larger story; named varieties are defined by word count.
Flash fiction is a fiction narrative in the form of a very short piece of writing, which still offers a character arc or implies a larger story: briefer even than the traditional short story, and prized by some commentators for exactly that ability to hint at a larger one. Named varieties are defined by word count: the six-word story, the 280-character "twitterature", the dribble (minisaga) at 50 words and the drabble (microfiction) at 100. The term was coined in 1992 by James Thomas, editor of the anthology Flash Fiction: 72 Very Short Stories; the form's roots run through fables, parables and Zen koans, and the internet drove its rise, from online journals like SmokeLong Quarterly to The New Yorker's annual online flash series.
For a serial writer flash is the compression gym: drafting to a hard word cap trains the same economy a web serial needs at chapter length, where every installment has to open fast and land a turn.