The Short Short Story: Sudden or Flash Fiction

The short short is a very brief story, often only one or two pages long. It is sometimes called "flash fiction" or "sudden fiction" after the l986 anthology Sudden Fiction, edited by Robert Shapard and James Thomas.

In short short stories, there is little space to develop a character. Rather, the element of plot is central: A crisis occurs, and a sketched-in character simply has to react. Authors deploy clever narrative or linguistic patterns; in some cases, the short short resembles a prose poem.

Supporters claim that short shorts' "reduced geographies" mirror postmodern conditions in which borders seem closer together. They find elegant simplicity in these brief fictions. Detractors see short shorts as a symptom of cultural decay, a general loss of reading ability, and a limited attention span. In any event, short shorts have found a certain niche: They are easy to forward in an e-mail, and they lend themselves to electronic distribution. They make manageable in-class readings and models for writing assignments.

Drama

Contemporary drama mingles realism with fantasy in postmodern works that fuse the personal and the political. The exuberant Tony Kushner (l956- ) has won acclaim for his prize-winning Angels in America plays, which vividly render the AIDS epidemic and the psychic cost of closeted homosexuality in the 1980s and 1990s. Part One: Millennium Approaches (1991) and its companion piece, Part Two: Perestroika (1992), together last seven hours. Combining comedy, melodrama, political commentary, and special effects, they interweave various plots and marginalized characters.

Women dramatists have attained particular success in recent years. Prominent among them is Beth Henley (1952- ), from Mississippi, known for her portraits of southern women. Henley gained national recognition for her Crimes of the Heart (l978), which was made into a film in l986, a warm play about three eccentric sisters whose affection helps them survive disappointment and despair. Later plays, including The Miss Firecracker Contest (1980), The Wake of Jamey Foster (l982), The Debutante Ball (l985), and The Lucky Spot (l986), explore southern forms of socializing – beauty contests, funerals, coming-out parties, and dance halls.

Wendy Wasserstein (1950-2006), from New York, wrote early comedies including When Dinah Shore Ruled the Earth (l975), a parody of beauty contests. She is best known for The Heidi Chronicles (l988), about a successful woman professor who confesses to deep unhappiness and adopts a baby. Wasserstein continued exploring women's aspirations in The Sisters Rosensweig (l991), An American Daughter (1997), and Old Money (2000).

Younger dramatists such as African-American Suzan-Lori Parks (1964- ) build on the successes of earlier women. Parks, who grew up on various army bases in the United States and Germany, deals with political issues in experimental works whose timelessness and ritualism recall Irish-born writer Samuel Beckett. Her best-known work, The America Play (1991), revolves around the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth. She returns to this theme in Topdog/Underdog (2001), which tells the story of two African-American brothers named Lincoln and Booth and their lifetime of sibling rivalry.