In conjunction with our publication of BITE: An Anthology of Flash Fiction, Cheek Teeth interviewed three rock star flash fiction contributors to the anthology about the ins and outs of the genre. Today's interview features Bruce Holland Rogers, who is currently a member of the permanent faculty at the Whidbey Writers Workshop MFA program. Bruce publishes his own short-short stories by e-mail through www.shortshortshort.com.Don't own BITE? Order your copy today and enjoy this "flash-sized cache of beauties."
Cheek Teeth: You have studied, taught, read, edited, and written flash fiction for years. Can you tell us about a particular moment or story that solidified your interest in the genre early on in your career?
Bruce Holland Rogers: I think my interest in the form has two sources. The first begins in childhood, when I loved reading stories, particularly the stories of Ray Bradbury and Richard Brautigan. The chief pleasures of fiction for me came at the end of a story, when something was revealed or resolved, and the shorter the story, the more direct the journey to the part that I enjoyed most. I often started my reading with the table of contents, identifying the shortest stories and reading those first.
Later, as a university student, I developed an interest in translation. I already spoke Spanish, but still relied a lot on a bilingual dictionary. My reliance on the dictionary was far greater when I attempted translations from languages I barely knew: German, French, and
Portuguese. For my source texts, I chose the shortest prose pieces I could find.
Because I translated so slowly, I paid careful attention to each sentence and noticed far more about narrative strategy than I had ever learned by studying fiction in my own language. It was from writers such as Mario Benedetti, Salvador Elizondo, and Angela Sommer that I learned how to tell a story of a few hundred words.
CT: Some call it splitting hairs, but many fans of flash fiction really are interested in a definition of the genre. In a few sentences, can you take a stab at one?
BHR: I teach a graduate course in "short-form prose." We look at brief literary nonfiction, prose poetry, and flash fiction. One of the enduring lessons is that the borders between these genres are not distinct. Sometimes a narrative prose poem could just as easily be
called a poetic flash fiction.
Because it is so brief, flash fiction can subvert many of the conventions of fiction. The function of plot, from the writer's perspective, is to draw the reader through the story using hope and fear. Flash fiction doesn't need to draw the reader through pages and pages of narrative. The reader can see, from the beginning, that the end is already in sight, so the reader will in most cases keep reading even if the piece violates one expectation or "rule" of storytelling after another.
As a result, it's very hard to nail down what a flash fiction must do. Flash fiction can tell a story, or entertainingly refuse to tell one, or subvert the definition of story. Flash fiction can be conventional. It can be revolutionary. The reader will probably finish a given story no matter what that story does or fails to do.
Of course, in a collection of flash fiction, each story has to reward the reader somehow. The risk in flash fiction is not, as with longer forms, that the reader will lose interest and not finish this story. The risk is that the reader doesn't feel sufficiently rewarded by the end of this story to read the next one.
CT: When you teach or tell people about flash fiction, what is one of the more challenging notions for people to grab hold of and how do you work with that? (Does it pertain to length? To leaving certain story elements out? Or, perhaps to something more intuitive, such as rhythm?)
BHR: Actually, I don't think it's hard to grasp the aesthetics of flash fiction. The main thing to understand is that brevity is part of the pleasure, that readers who like flash fiction enjoy the demonstration, again and again, of how much can be done with so little.
CT: A few folks out there in the flash fiction world like to remind us that flash is a valid and growing genre because it feeds our culture’s ever-shortening attention spans. But others argue that attention span has nothing to do with the success of flash, in fact, stating that the genre gathers it power via line-level language and compression techniques—regardless of final word count. Can you add to this dialogue?
BHR: I'm calling bullshit on both of these positions. We've always had brief narratives. Always. If the genre is growing in popularity, I'd suggest that we have lots of new media that are ideally suited to brief narrative. My own stories-by-email subscription service isn't successful because attention spans are shorter than they once were. I think readers thirty or forty years ago would have enjoyed getting little stories three times a month by mail. But that distribution channel would have been too expensive.
Readers of flash fiction still read novels, too.
But I also disagree with blanket aesthetic assessments. In general, I think compression is a good thing in literature. Delivering the same effect in fewer words? I certainly approve of that as a reader! But flash fiction is too diverse to proclaim its success is a result of any
particular techniques. Some flash is constructed of carefully chosen and compressed language, but there are also good flash fictions that stand on a clever idea whose expression isn't really all that elegant. The idea is so good, the reward of the ending is so pleasurable, that it doesn't matter that the writing was a bit rough.
I hate the notion that art needs to be declared valid. On whose terms? For what purpose? The next step would be to invent rules by which some flash efforts could be thrown out of the temple.
CT: Where do you find inspiration for a new flash story? How does that creative moment manifest for you?
BHR: I find inspiration in many places. I read the flash of other writers. I read poetry. I'm thinking as I read, and sometimes I think I see where another writer's work is going, only to find out that, no, that wasn't their destination. If I like my idea better, then maybe I'll write that story.
I start writing with absolutely nothing, or with a one-word prompt.
I doze. Some of my dream suggest stories.
In conversation, someone makes an observation that I realize could be the germ of a story.
I have a recurring character, the Montreal poet Donat Bobet. I wonder what Donat is up to lately in his efforts to keep himself fed and to keep the lives of his friends a little surreal. If I'm lucky, Donat reveals his recent activities, and I find a story in them.
I travel. Or I stay at home and try to see what is nearby with new eyes. I ask myself what that stranger is doing, and provide an answer. Sometimes that becomes a story.
I spend some part of every day actively looking for ideas and recording them. I walk around with index cards and a pen. Any time a friend tells me what is going on in his or her life, I'm awake to the possibility of story. The same is true for my own story. What's going on in my life right now? My wife left after 23 years, and I am bitter. I turn that bitterness in my hands, trying to find the story inside, not writing for therapy, but seeing if there is something of value in my feelings, however negative or unjust they may be.
Bruce Holland Rogers: I think my interest in the form has two sources. The first begins in childhood, when I loved reading stories, particularly the stories of Ray Bradbury and Richard Brautigan. The chief pleasures of fiction for me came at the end of a story, when something was revealed or resolved, and the shorter the story, the more direct the journey to the part that I enjoyed most. I often started my reading with the table of contents, identifying the shortest stories and reading those first.
Later, as a university student, I developed an interest in translation. I already spoke Spanish, but still relied a lot on a bilingual dictionary. My reliance on the dictionary was far greater when I attempted translations from languages I barely knew: German, French, and
Portuguese. For my source texts, I chose the shortest prose pieces I could find.
Because I translated so slowly, I paid careful attention to each sentence and noticed far more about narrative strategy than I had ever learned by studying fiction in my own language. It was from writers such as Mario Benedetti, Salvador Elizondo, and Angela Sommer that I learned how to tell a story of a few hundred words.
CT: Some call it splitting hairs, but many fans of flash fiction really are interested in a definition of the genre. In a few sentences, can you take a stab at one?
BHR: I teach a graduate course in "short-form prose." We look at brief literary nonfiction, prose poetry, and flash fiction. One of the enduring lessons is that the borders between these genres are not distinct. Sometimes a narrative prose poem could just as easily be
called a poetic flash fiction.
Because it is so brief, flash fiction can subvert many of the conventions of fiction. The function of plot, from the writer's perspective, is to draw the reader through the story using hope and fear. Flash fiction doesn't need to draw the reader through pages and pages of narrative. The reader can see, from the beginning, that the end is already in sight, so the reader will in most cases keep reading even if the piece violates one expectation or "rule" of storytelling after another.
As a result, it's very hard to nail down what a flash fiction must do. Flash fiction can tell a story, or entertainingly refuse to tell one, or subvert the definition of story. Flash fiction can be conventional. It can be revolutionary. The reader will probably finish a given story no matter what that story does or fails to do.
Of course, in a collection of flash fiction, each story has to reward the reader somehow. The risk in flash fiction is not, as with longer forms, that the reader will lose interest and not finish this story. The risk is that the reader doesn't feel sufficiently rewarded by the end of this story to read the next one.
CT: When you teach or tell people about flash fiction, what is one of the more challenging notions for people to grab hold of and how do you work with that? (Does it pertain to length? To leaving certain story elements out? Or, perhaps to something more intuitive, such as rhythm?)
BHR: Actually, I don't think it's hard to grasp the aesthetics of flash fiction. The main thing to understand is that brevity is part of the pleasure, that readers who like flash fiction enjoy the demonstration, again and again, of how much can be done with so little.
CT: A few folks out there in the flash fiction world like to remind us that flash is a valid and growing genre because it feeds our culture’s ever-shortening attention spans. But others argue that attention span has nothing to do with the success of flash, in fact, stating that the genre gathers it power via line-level language and compression techniques—regardless of final word count. Can you add to this dialogue?
BHR: I'm calling bullshit on both of these positions. We've always had brief narratives. Always. If the genre is growing in popularity, I'd suggest that we have lots of new media that are ideally suited to brief narrative. My own stories-by-email subscription service isn't successful because attention spans are shorter than they once were. I think readers thirty or forty years ago would have enjoyed getting little stories three times a month by mail. But that distribution channel would have been too expensive.
Readers of flash fiction still read novels, too.
But I also disagree with blanket aesthetic assessments. In general, I think compression is a good thing in literature. Delivering the same effect in fewer words? I certainly approve of that as a reader! But flash fiction is too diverse to proclaim its success is a result of any
particular techniques. Some flash is constructed of carefully chosen and compressed language, but there are also good flash fictions that stand on a clever idea whose expression isn't really all that elegant. The idea is so good, the reward of the ending is so pleasurable, that it doesn't matter that the writing was a bit rough.
I hate the notion that art needs to be declared valid. On whose terms? For what purpose? The next step would be to invent rules by which some flash efforts could be thrown out of the temple.
CT: Where do you find inspiration for a new flash story? How does that creative moment manifest for you?BHR: I find inspiration in many places. I read the flash of other writers. I read poetry. I'm thinking as I read, and sometimes I think I see where another writer's work is going, only to find out that, no, that wasn't their destination. If I like my idea better, then maybe I'll write that story.
I start writing with absolutely nothing, or with a one-word prompt.
I doze. Some of my dream suggest stories.
In conversation, someone makes an observation that I realize could be the germ of a story.
I have a recurring character, the Montreal poet Donat Bobet. I wonder what Donat is up to lately in his efforts to keep himself fed and to keep the lives of his friends a little surreal. If I'm lucky, Donat reveals his recent activities, and I find a story in them.
I travel. Or I stay at home and try to see what is nearby with new eyes. I ask myself what that stranger is doing, and provide an answer. Sometimes that becomes a story.
I spend some part of every day actively looking for ideas and recording them. I walk around with index cards and a pen. Any time a friend tells me what is going on in his or her life, I'm awake to the possibility of story. The same is true for my own story. What's going on in my life right now? My wife left after 23 years, and I am bitter. I turn that bitterness in my hands, trying to find the story inside, not writing for therapy, but seeing if there is something of value in my feelings, however negative or unjust they may be.
In other words, the inspiration for flash fiction is everywhere. I gather ideas, and then I review recent ones (or sometimes very old ones that I still have written down) to see which ones excite me now. I have to find something that I smile to contemplate...even if I'm smiling about something very dark.
Read Bruce Holland Rogers' latest flash fiction and order BITE today!
Great interview. Thanks, Bruce, for not defining flash fiction, a genre so noted for its versatility.
ReplyDeleteI look at the table of contents and read the shortest stories, too.
Thanks for the mini-course on flash fiction and the great leads on sources of inspiration. And hooray for "lots of new media ideally suited to brief narrative."
ReplyDeleteIf you haven't yet subscribed to Bruce's stories-by-email, sign up now!