AGENDA:
Please complete and turn in any missing work!
FLASH FICTION: 3 EXEMPLARS (MODELS)
Read Margaret Atwood's "My Life as a Bat"
Ron Carlson's "Bigfoot Stole My Wife"
Bruce Holland Rogers "Murder, Mystery"
POST A COMMENT RESPONDING TO THESE STORIES:
EQ: What qualities of plot, character, and structure make these stories strong examples of flash fiction? How do writers achieve compression in shirt, short story (aka flash fiction)?
What I thought was interesting about the flash fiction pieces was how complete they were. Murder Mystery painted this beautiful scene of a murdered man, and even though it didn't really advance much beyond that, that single image and scene was perfectly complete. In contrast, My Life as a Bat was a collection of stories that were less complete individually, but strung together they created a larger piece of fiction that was also interesting. Each part of it added a new layer of depth that separately were intriguing, but somehow incomplete without the others. Lastly, Bigfoot Stole my Wife was different than both of the previous two, because it was one story, and actually told a full story, rather than just a scene or a scattered group of scenes. It had a main character, a conflict, it developed the character through flashbacks, and had a definitive ending to it. I like My Life as a Bat best, but each of the three pieces seem to represent a different style because of how it captures your attention through separate but interweaving stories.
ReplyDeleteThese stories are effective because the characters in them are surprisingly complex. In Bigfoot Stole My Wife the story involves two main parts. There is the story about how the guy lost his wife to bigfoot, and then there is the story within the story, in which he remembers the story of how he was caught in a trailer that traveled 31 miles because of a flood. Both bits develop the theme of disbelief in stories. In My Life as a Bat a woman describes how she knows that she was a bat in a previous life. An important theme in this short story that the world is more fluid than we often think. We can't be sure who we were in a past life, and we are more connected to nature and one another than we may think. Murder, Mystery is kind of like a snapshot of this one moment in time, but instead of a picture, it's words. It is interesting because you don't know anything about the dead guy, and you never will. It is all up to you to think of a story for him.
ReplyDeleteI thought the plot in each story was quite well developed. For example, in Bigfoot Stole my Wife it starts with a beginning, has a middle, which is mostly comprised of flashbacks to when his trailer was washed away by a flood, and an end when he concludes that Bigfoot stole his wife and he believes that. In Murder Mystery, although it was only one scene it was still complete because he used imagery to described the scene so well it was like i was looking at it. Also, my life as a Bat was complete because each little sub-story tied each other together and further developed the plot. Writers compress these stories by only including what is absolutely necessary to the plot in order to advance it and using imagery to develop the story quickly and effectively.
ReplyDeleteThese stories are strong examples of flash fiction because of their plot and structure, and characters. The stories by Margaret Atwood are good examples of this because there are several short short stories about the topic of bats, and how they relate to the speaker's life. They are short, to the point, and cover basic techniques of plot to keep the reader interested and make the story good only for a few paragraphs. The stories by Bruce Holland Rogers and Shelley Hunt are also good examples because of their structure; they are short and yet they are welcoming to the reader to become enhanced in the plot. I didn't think Bigfoot Stole My Wife was a great example because of it's length, and the topic became a little confusing when he started talking about his trailer being washed away, and how it was relevant to Bigfoot. Writers can achieve compression in flash fiction by starting out with an inviting sentence or two to keep the reader interested. An exciting flash fiction piece is a good flash fiction piece. It shouldn't be just a boring plot carrying on for a few hundred words. An interesting plot that can be followed by an equally exciting setting or character brings an great flash fiction piece.
ReplyDeleteOften in flash fiction, writers use a lot of detail to describe situations in a brief manner. Within this brief story writers must have the skills to get the point of the story across. The characterization of protagonists and antagonists is crucial to the reader even when the stories are as brief as they are in flash fiction stories. These 3 stories used three different techniques to portray the characters. "The Problem is Credibility" really explained characters in detail. while in contrast " Giving it Away" kind of gave a summed up description of characters. "My Life As a Bat" doesn't really give any characterization at all, it really just explain the setting and says that a man was murdered, and didnt really elaborate on who the man was.
ReplyDeleteFlash fiction has to have a proper plot and powerful line structure. Flash fiction gets straight to the point, with a brief introduction of the story. This type of writing uses almost all of the writing elements, such as: metaphors, similes, personification, diction, tone, and lots of imagery. Flash fiction has to grasp the reader's/audience's attention, before you lose them. This type of writing has to be on it's p's and q's, and needs a meaningful story. Except for, My Life as a Bat. That story was so meaningless to me. in couldn't read any further. I agree with Atwood about reincarnation and past lives, but then she lost me. On the other hand; Bigfoot Stole my Wife, I loved the concept of that story. There was one powerful line that caught my eye. "Anyway I close the fridge door as it's like part of my life closed." He was so upset that Bigfoot stole his wife had no purpose of living anymore.
Delete