Flash fiction is brevity: a story told in less than 1500 words. As such, it requires a unique skill set: the ability to work under pressure. The writer is on a clock, each word is a moment, and when their time is up, their words spent, their story must be told. Readers, used to the drama and intrigue of longer formats, want that same level of tense emotion from flash fiction. Consider the microflash, “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”1
Though brief, this phrase tells a story in concert with the reader. Imagination sprints forward where the sentence ends. This is flash fiction: clean as a bone2, sharp as a blade, and brighter than bottled lightning.
We are proud to share these flash fiction stories, exclusive to Page Turner Magazine. Brace yourself. You’re about to feel something.
- Commonly attributed to Ernest Hemingway, there is no clear evidence that he was the one who first wrote these words. ↩︎
- It was James Baldwin who penned, “Write a sentence as clean as a bone.” And damn. That hits. ↩︎
(Written by Sarah Burton, Amira Mazzawy, and Casey McCarthy)