Microfiction

Over at HTML Giant, Sam Pink is thinking about what flash fiction means compared to a short story. I have a lot of difficulty with flash. Last week I went back and forth with Sasha Fletcher about the value of the genre. I understand it that for him, it's a matter of accumulation -- his stories work in aggregate and the real payoff is when several pieces add up to something bigger than the sum of the parts. For me, when I write flash, I try to nail every single word. Every word should be the totality of the story (I'm applying some Emersonian "height of thought" here). About every word I ask, "Is this the most interesting word choice?" I ask myself if each element of the story is as interesting as it should be, and if the story itself is worth telling.

(UPDATE: That's not to say that Sasha doesn't care about the language in his things. I imagine he feels the same way as I do in that regard. And also, he just told me that during our conversation he was talking about PROSE POETRY. The fact that we were able to carry on a conversation about two different things without knowing it, I think, is indicative of all the problems in these little genres.)

To Pequin last year I submitted a 447-word piece about a guy who meets a girl at an art show. Every element was painstakingly considered, to the extent of my ability. Yet, with an extremely generous letter, Steven rejected the piece, saying among other things, that "Right now I'm after some kind of really tight mindblowing hard-worked text, probably with strong plot and other narrative elements, or something with just genius language." I thought my piece was exactly that, so it was a little painful to read a contrary perspective from an editor I admire.

The thing is, though, that the kind of precision I nailed in the story (IMHO), doesn't always come across in a submission of only one piece. From reading a lot of flash fiction that people submit for Everyday Genius, I know that I don't always catch the intricacies of the work that, I assume, are so familiar to the author. Exquisite prose is a requirement, probably the most important element of a very short story, but alone it does little to garner attention, let alone publication. There's no point in saying well a thing that's boring.

Aside from Amelia Gray's ability to craft great sentences and engaging situations, I think the thing that keeps me coming back to AM/PM is the way she reuses characters from piece to piece. This technique creates a much larger effect; the book is practically a Russian novel with the interweaving lives of suburban emotional tribulation. Individually, the stories in the book are enough to show that Amelia is a capable writer and that she's probably a funny person, but without the full context, I'm not sure I would love any single piece the way I love the book as a whole.

Joseph Young's collection, Easter Rabbit, which Publishing Genius will release in December, works in a completely different way than Amelia's. Joe writes much less into his stories than Amelia does, or pretty much any other author I can think of. I think what happens with these gaping holes is that diligent readers can, if they want, uncover their own intertextuality. If I wanted to apply the same eye to his stories as I used in reading AM/PM, I might conjecture that the "he" in the story about the keys is the same guy with the foot pain. Ultimately, though, my reading of Joe's "microfictions" (as he terms them) is that so little is given, and given so beautifully, that filling in the gaps is not the point. No amount of mesh will hold the caulk and anyway, each story is complete. Reading Easter Rabbit, I have learned not to look for gaps, not to follow story like a sleuth for meaning or literary gadgetry. This is post-structuralism 101. The really cool thing, I learned, is to not not look for, but more simply to not find, value.

Joe has insisted to me that the value of microfiction isn't in mood, which I identify strongly in his work. He also told me that whatever he does, he doesn't know why he does it. I'll leave it for the comment box for Joe to refute this, but I'm pretty sure his writing about the genre (including at Frigg, in this hilarious debate with Randall Brown) hasn't done much to identify what the value is. Microfiction will "carve out whole worlds in a space small enough to fit the eye," he says in that debate, and it "is an experience of time closest to zero," but for a genre so popular in literary circles, and so complicated to define, what is that saying about the worth of a story like this, called "Sine":

A white line, across the cement, under the park, through the door, faint and hardly there, to its red center.

It's worthless! That story and $2.50 will get you a cuppa joe. But -- why care so much about "value?" At what point in the history of art criticism did we start to rely on value when something resists understanding? Oh Aristotle, what are the possible responses to "Sine"? I ask because it seems to me that the possible responses, like all of the possible readings, are the best ones, equally. They are all the best -- as if that matters.

I used to care about Zen Buddhism but then I got, like, a job. The fact that I don't care about Koans anymore but that I like Easter Rabbit tells me that there is something more than nothing happening in good microfiction, and it is this: beauty.

Some things I've been reading

I just got the new Keyhole and read the story by Michael Jauchen called "Our Electric Borders." It's about the Mexico/US border, but the Interesting Reader lodges the meaning more squarely on the borders between people, or even between the short sections that comprise the telling.

There's a resolute morality in Sarah, the main girl gives freelance psychology a shot before settling for border patrolling. Then there's the narrator, who is Sarah's husband or boyfriend, and he seems emotionally neutral but not detached. I mean, like not detached in a Jake Barnes way but in an independent way that does more to outline Sarah than himself.

The sections of the story are connected, but not in a linear or chronological way, more like the firing synapses of a good conversationalist. You know how a smart person can start at one point in a conversation and move back and forth and tangentially through it? That's kind of how this story goes, and this story goes to show the value of such a technique in writing.

Jauchen puts some pretty good jokes in "Our Electric Borders," too. Like, when they leave Texas for LA, "everything started costing twice as much. Even coffee or getting a key made or a three-pack of underwear."

It could be that's just good writing and not a joke. One actual joke is when Sarah's brain-weary grandmother calls and says, "Eggshells, what a waste!"

Someone could argue with me about the narrator's emotional neutrality. It could be that he is very deeply and wildly emotional. The story can support both of our opinions, I think.

Does Sarah die? Did she die? It doesn't say. I don't think she does, but I kind of felt that she does. I felt that because of the way the guy reflects so long on his first kiss at the end.

If you read that story and have an opinion, I welcome your comments. I'm interested in a reading group thing hosted by Blogger comments.

Microfiction, Fake, Plot-driven, Fragmentary, Not Empty, The Wire Season 6, Sarcastic/Cynical, The Kind of Stuff People Want to Read Not That Frigg BS

Guy with raccoon eyes walks into my shop with a gun. I get all tee'd when he demands money, but I give him some anyway. In the meantime, a pregnant woman enters. The bells jingle on the door. The guy knocks her on the head. A cop passes. I'm thinking robber just leave. I'm thinking Rico Suave. Cop looks in the window, sees the gun. The phone rings. It's mom.

"Hey what's up" I say.

"It's Darryl" she says, "his car broke down and he's going to be late for work."

"Did you call Denise at the temp agency?"

The pregnant lady's head is bleeding. The cop has one hand on his holster and the other hand on the door. The guy fingers pearl. I didn't notice earlier but the sack he's carrying is burlap and has a dollar sign stitched on it. I'm acting cool, leaning against the register, remembering my senior prom. I push back my cowlick with an open palm.

Hobart's baseball issue

My very short story, "His Point of Sadness Now Becoming Light," was just published in Hobart's annual Baseball issue. Check it out. My favorite thing is the story by Simon A. Smith called "Man's Man." In it, an overzealous baserunner meets a gruesome end.

Sad Story, Russian

She has wicked tendencies in spite of the best efforts her parents have made over the years. They have to think very hard to remember when the girl wasn’t thoroughly wretched. One night her cousin came to visit. The last time he had been to their region, a verdant and bustling countryside, she was very young. Now she is almost nineteen. Her cousin remembers her as a delightful girl of three or four (he is just a few years older than her, a young lieutenant in the service). After she took her sedative and went to bed, the cousin sits up with her parents and reminisces. With a glass of sherry, he tells a story of hiding in a toy box with her and stealing a kiss, and he remembers her laughter. The parents are grateful for this memory. They have been so miserable over the last years. They tell him that it’s hard to remember any time that was different. The cousin can understand that, certainly. Her behavior is lousy. He extends his sympathy and goes to his bedchamber. The next day he leaves before his cousin awakens.

She takes her breakfast in bed. Then, when she finally makes it downstairs, she is annoyed that her cousin has left and she returns to her rooms. There, she throws a mild tantrum. Her father is out hunting. He comes home and finds everyone in the house gathered around her bed, where she is pale and trembling in her sleep. Her mother, sitting in a chair she’s drawn up along the bedside, has set her jaw with some resolution, and she gives a cold look to the father. A doctor comes in.

He gives a dim pronouncement, leaves a vial of some solution, and departs. It’s evening. The girl sleeps through the night, and in the morning, wakes and is happy. It’s a mystery to all, and they are miserable for days.

Transmodern Fest ListServ Reviews

Here is the text of the first part of my reading at The Shattered Wig on June 8, 2007. There are a few entries here that were left off the performance.

The Thumb

Here's a story I wrote last October.

The Known Letters of Dave Dave Dave

I'm blistering with excitement and pleasure to present my new story, "The Known Letters of Dave Dave Dave."

A Flight and a Crash

One morning I was riding my bike to work in downtown Baltimore. It was a chilly morning, and I didn't want to ride my bike, because I never want to ride my bike, because only one brake works, and I don't know how to shift the gears well. It's an old ten-speed. It has twelve speeds, but it's a ten-speed because it's shaped like the bike I had when I was a youth, which was a ten-speed. When I was a youth it was a Panasonic, blue. Now I ride a black Raleigh. This morning on my way to work I was riding it, and I wiped, and it was awesome. Sometimes I beg a ride from my girlfriend, about half the time, but this morning we weren't speaking because she was asleep. So I rode my bike, which I never want to do, because it makes my legs hurt.

I should be writing this in Danish. In fact, I originally wrote this in Danish, but it was translated.

Luckily, I didn't have my video camera taped to the front of my Raleigh. One time I thought about how a good movie would be to videotape my ride home from work, because I ride from the glittery Baltimore inner harbor into the shabby east side, where my girlfriend, Tiffany, and I live. My name is Adam Robison. On this particularly morning, however, I did not have my video camera, because I do not have a video camera, at all. One time my friend Ryan said he was having an art crisis. At the time he was a photographer but now he plays the Moog.

"How come you are having an art crisis," I said.

"Because I cannot find my camera."

For similar reasons, I have not yet made my movie. Once I do, though, it will be a scathing look at economic inequity in Baltimore, an extremely unequal town, economically. But I do not complain, because I am currently employed to much gain. Not only that, but I also don't complain because I think there are better ways to enact change. For instance, one could live in a poor neighborhood, like I do, and sweep the trash from up off the street every once in a while. One could staple poems to the abandoned houses. I did that, both of those things. I think the poems really made a difference. One of the abandoned houses was demolished.

So I was cruising down this hill while I was riding my bike, a shallow hill, an old bike, a bad shifter. The Ravens, who are the Baltimore football team, were scheduled for a playoff game the following Saturday. Everyone in town, even the poor people and the druggies, were psyched out. They were really looking forward to that game. I was even a little excited, although I don't like purple (the Ravens's color) and never watch football. But then I decided I would try and go into tenth gear, because I was enjoying my ride, my girlfriend and I had ridden together the night before after sushi eating, and I realized how fast I was compared to her, so I was knocking myself out with my speed, so I switched it into tenth gear. I'd quit smoking the previous Friday, not that it matters, but just so you know.

Then get a load of this. Before I could even put my hand back on the handlebar the front wheel cocked itself perpendicular to the bike frame. "Well, here I go," I thought. "Fwoop." I flew through the air like that muthafudge Santa Claus and landed on the ground. It was the street, but it couldn't stop me. I just slid across it on my chest and pants and scarf. All the high school girls went "Do do do do," and I jumped up and said "Hey baby, please don’t knock on my bike ride."