FICT 1 (1) pp.

47–58 Intellect Limited 2011

Short Fiction in Theory and Practice

Volume 1 Number 1
© 2011 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/fict.1.1.47_1

HOLLY HOWITT-DRING
University of Portsmouth

Making micro meanings:

reading and writing
microfiction

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
This article aims to explore the concept of microfiction as both a reader and a writer: microfiction
that is to say, as a critic and a practitioner. It examines the historical roots of micro- flash fiction
fiction, such as fables and parables, and its sources in China and Japan, until its short fiction
development as a genre in its own right in the twentieth century and beyond, where very short fiction
it is becoming more and more popular. Its generic patterns, such as its search for
epiphany and use of poetic techniques in a prose form are also discussed, whilst
surveying its relation to flash fiction and prose poetry. Microfiction here has been
used as a blanket term for all forms of very short fiction, and all very short forms
have been discussed together, taking a holistic approach rather than a divisive one.
As well as critical questions, this article also looks at the creative process and ways
of writing microfiction, with examples and advice.

Much ink has been spilt over what makes or defines a microfiction, and how
this microfiction might differ from, say, a prose poem or a flash fiction. Having
been accused of writing all three (sometimes all in one piece!) I do not want
this article to become a polemic on the formal function or identifying factors
of very short fictions. I would rather discuss what they might be and how they
are written from the perspective of a writer-critic (or theorist-practitioner,

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 Holly Howitt-Dring

perhaps). It seems that the how, rather than the why, is what we, as practi-
tioners, want to know about. However, old wisdom tells me that definition of
what you are discussing is always handy, so, with that in mind, I will intro-
duce you to the world of very short writing, and how it may work as a form
in its own right first, as well as where it might have come from to begin with,
through discussion of some historical sources or roots of very short fictions.
I will also attempt to unravel the theoretical tangle over the names of such
stories, and the difficulty in assigning very short stories a place in genre theory.
I will also discuss ways of writing very short stories, with some worked exam-
ples. For the majority of this article, I use the term ‘microfiction’ to describe
any piece written in prose that is less than 1000 words, though, as we will see,
this usage is open to debate.

THE HISTORY
Despite its increasing popularity in anthologies, collections and as a teach-
ing and writing tool on creative writing courses, microfiction is not as recent
a form as some may imagine, as it has historical precedents in Japan, China,
Latin America and Europe, where it has been used for many centuries. In Japan,
very short fictions have a rich history, which is also probably the oldest back-
drop to the more modern microfiction. Forms such as haibun (a mixture of prose
and haiku poetry in a short burst) have been slowly developing in Japan since
the seventeenth century (Shirane 2008: 99), linking with the use and prolifera-
tion of haiku poetry, which is also related to microfiction due to its sparsity of
language. The haibun, as an older form, has led to the much more contemporary
ketai fiction – stories long enough to fit in a text message – which also originated
in Japan, but at the end of the twentieth century. In the West, this type of fiction
has also been dubbed ‘mobile-phone fiction’ or even ‘thumb novels’ (Yourgrau
2009). The ketai is also linked to the development of Twitter Lit, which are
stories designed to fit Twitter’s 140 character feed, often hash-tagged on Twitter
with #vss, which stands for ‘very short story’. (For many and varied examples,
just use the search tool in Twitter.)
Microfictions are also popular in China, and have been re-christened in
various self-descriptive terms: the palm-sized story, minute-long story, the
smoke-long story (see Casto n.d.). In France, tiny stories are called nouvelles
(Casto n.d.). They too have been increasing in popularity and visibility as the
twentieth century has rolled into the twenty-first, just like the haibun. These
forms, or perhaps sub-forms, both ancient and modern, are all what I would
categorize as one thing: microfictions. While this may cause consternation in
some critical circles, because there are so many other terms used to describe
very short fictions, I am using this term as an umbrella to cover all the little
stories underneath (such as flash fictions, short short stories, very short stories,
postcard fiction, sudden fictions, nanofictions and all the other pseudonyms
tiny fictions can use). I am not necessarily using it for definition’s sake, but
rather as a protective basket to put all these forms into. Some have used flash
fiction as an umbrella term for these forms instead; this too is perfectly accept-
able, but in this article microfiction is my cover-all, because it seems to me to
suit the form best.
As mentioned earlier, microfiction feels ultra-modern because it looks so
striking on the page: be it a sentence or a few hundred words, microfictions
are brief blocks of text on the page. But despite their innovative look, and
ties to our contemporary culture, we have seen through its possible historical

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 Making micro meanings

sources that microfiction was not created to satisfy the small attention spans
sadly synonymous with the twenty-first century, or to benefit readers who
would prefer to peruse online material rather than paperbacks. Its historical
uses in world literature show a form perhaps even centuries older (if haibun
from the seventeenth century are to be seen as a form of microfiction) than
this assumption supposes, and, rather like the theory of evolution tells us
about adaptation, it survived because of its uses and possibilities, and is now
developing further to fit on laptop and PC screens, on Twitter and on mobile
phones.
But what about other literary sources which lead to microfiction? Jerome
Stern, a practitioner of microfiction, as well as an editor and critic of the form,
argues that microfiction is ‘deeply rooted in the human psyche and in the
history of human communities’ (Stern 1996: 15–19), as a result of its reflection
of sub-forms such as the fable, parable or the anecdote. These tiny tales are
also seasoned forms of fiction which have influenced microfiction, or perhaps
could even be considered microfictions themselves: after all, they have a
beginning, a middle and an end, they have plot and structure and purpose,
and they are written relatively sparely. In fact, of all short forms used both in
the present and in the past, the influences of early fables, Biblical parables and
the oral tradition of anecdotes are important and illuminating, as they help to
shape and emphasize what the form is now, in a contemporary sense and as
a genre in its own right.
While the moral or righteous nature of fables and parables is not neces-
sarily suited to a modern microfiction (as moralizing may seem uncomfort-
able in a form which refuses to stay put, and in which a reader, and a writer,
is forced to question), they are certainly a source of it. Whereas fables and
parables use common narrative techniques, including dialogue, and simple
plot or characterization devices to create Everyman-style situations, and, in
some senses, are predictable in their form and function, this is less likely
in microfiction. A microfiction might instead use strong rhythms, or even
rhyme itself, and veer more towards a held-off epiphany or epiphanic event
than one grounded in reality. These techniques in some microfictions reflect
poetry, becoming a blurred genre. Myth and legend can also be embedded
in microfiction, and in fact this is another similarity microfiction shares with
fables, parables and anecdotes, which themselves often rely on folklore, or a
retelling of an oft-told tale. But microfiction does something else with these
sources. It might make them more fantastical, perhaps using magical realism,
extended metaphor and/or unlikely events. It may give them an ironic edge,
or the ending, viewpoint or message may be different. Here we can begin
to see the slightly more subversive nature of microfiction, a playful form
that aims to remake as well as to refashion the way prose might work. For
instance, we can compare Richard Gwyn’s story ‘Spartans’ with the legen-
dary but apparent truths of the ancient city, retold in a new context, from a
new narrative voice and a new perspective:

In the city of Sparta the living was tough. Left out on a hillside as a
newborn baby for a night, you soon learned what was what. Then there
was fighting to be done, lands to conquer, pillaging and subjugation to
carry out. Dignity and an honourable grave. And always those duplici-
tous Corinthians and superior Athenians to outdo in mortal conflict and
in leaving not a hair unscathed. Spears to be polished until they outshone
moonbeams, swords to sharpen till the faintest touch would bisect the

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 Holly Howitt-Dring

strongest sinew. If you grew up feeling faint at all this hardship, all this
clamouring for blood and death, and longed for just a hint of mystery
or tenderness, you were doomed to mockery and insult. I heard them in
the schoolyard, the would-be Spartan warriors. Even their swearwords
were thoroughbred, while my mouth was full of marbles.
(Gwyn 2010)

In the case of this particular piece, some pre-existing knowledge is required

of the reader, which may also be the case if microfictions reflect the structure
(as well as the content) of ancient wisdoms, parables or fables, giving an extra
context to the story.
So far then, we know that microfictions have historical precedents in older
literature, from the Biblical parable to the seventeenth-century haibun, and in
other forms, such as the fable, and we know that they are small. Most tend to
be fewer than a few hundred words, and almost all tend to be less than 1000
words, less they trample on the short story in that murky grey area of word
counts defining a form. They are structured enough to be able to use dialogue,
or character, and to have some kind of turn or epiphany (or otherwise, some
sense of narrative purpose), and they will have a beginning, a middle and
an end. But their techniques, as outlined above, can be problematic: using
rhyme, rhythm, image or even epiphany is questionable, as, in some cases,
microfiction can lean more towards poetry than prose, even though it keeps
the shaping of prose. This makes it a strange and troubling genre, because it
almost feels as if it is two forms of writing in one. This is a great part of the
ongoing argument of whether microfiction is ‘owned’ by prose or by poetry.
Many critics err on the side of caution here: after all, the name should say it
all. But microfiction is a tricksy critical companion, and will dip in and out of
poetic techniques without bothering to disguise its thievery, whilst maintain-
ing its ‘fiction’ moniker. Of course, use of poetic techniques in prose is not
something that only microfiction does (short stories, for instance, may also
use poetic devices), but it certainly puts a question mark over the form. For
example, Amy Hempel’s ‘Hostess’ uses rhythm and rhyme in a condensed
and markedly poetic way:

She swallowed Gore Vidal. Then she swallowed Donald Trump. She
took a blue capsule and a gold spansule – a B-complex and an E – and
put them on the tablecloth a few inches apart. She pointed the one at
the other. ‘Martha Stewart,’ she said, ‘Meet Oprah Winfrey.’
She swallowed them both without water.
(Hempel 1996)

Therefore, although it can be loosely defined as prose, reflecting ancient and

historical fictional forms, writers are at liberty to play with the form, even
when this means pilfering poetic procedures, because of its open boundaries
and slippage between genres.
Microfiction started to take a more solid shape in the twentieth century,
becoming recognizable as a block of text which has run-on lines, much like
traditional prose, but is usually very short, filling only a paragraph or a couple
of hundred words, rather like a poem might, and in tandem with the rising
popularity of the prose poem which came to full bloom as modernity came to
power, emigrating from the pen of Ponge and into the notebooks of Eliot, Wilde
and Stein on its way. There seems, however, to be a rather postmodern feel about

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 Making micro meanings

microfiction: its knowing challenge, its desire to show things through a new lens,
to reshape or even remake. Ernest Hemingway’s often-quoted sentence, ‘For sale:
baby shoes, never worn’ (original source unknown), is an example of microfiction
before it was even named or fully described as its own form, and came about
after Hemingway accepted the challenge of writing a story in six words. It has
become an urban myth that Hemingway believed it to be his best work. Whether
that is true or not, copycat stories soon evolved from this simple challenge, and
what had been on the periphery became more noticeable. Despite the small
word count, there is clearly a tale or a narrative embedded in the sentence, a
sense of loss, of longing – a sense of a whole story implicit, desperate to get out,
but perfect in its confined space. As the century developed, microfiction came
alive in the hands of Kafka, Borges and other literary heavyweights. No wonder
microfiction has grown since – not in size, but in popularity.
As I mentioned earlier, I use microfiction to describe very short fictions,
but another common moniker for them is flash fiction, which began to be
used around the same time as the term ‘microfiction’. The term ‘flash fiction’
was coined in 1988 by Tom Hazuka, Denise Thomas and James Thomas, who
began work together in the late 1980s on the anthology Flash Fiction: 72 Very
Short Stories (Thomas, Thomas and Hazuka 1992). The editors claim that the
term ‘flash fiction’ was devised between them, having taught flash fiction in
creative writing classes in the years preceding this publication. Although they
had taught students about the intricacies of writing tiny stories, they had not
known what to call it at the time, dabbling with the terms ‘mini fiction’ and
‘short shorts’, not really sure of the form, but knowing that it was something
in and of itself (Kotzin 2005). Certainly, the term has remained in use, and has
given the form a status that it had missed when it was nameless. It seemed
that once there was a title for the form, it was more accessible, as Stern’s semi-
nal Micro Fiction came a mere four years after Flash Fiction (and with the same
publisher). Stern does not comment on his use of the term ‘micro fiction’,
but he does mention in the ‘Introduction’ (Stern 1996: 15–19) to the text that
he had previously been a reader of what was then termed ‘short shorts’, so
perhaps Stern can be credited with the term ‘micro fiction’, later to become a
compound word, and widely used to describe the form.

THE THEORY
So then, with all this history behind us, how can we identify the difference
between a flash fiction, a microfiction and a prose poem? Personally, and as
indicated above, I use ‘microfiction’ to describe any piece written in prose that
is less than 1000 words, but which has a story, and a beginning, middle and
end. Other writers and readers prefer to use the term ‘flash fiction’ for this,
and in some circles there is great debate over the difference between flash and
microfiction, and this usually comes down to word counts, with microfictions
cited as typically shorter than flash fictions. And prose poetry is even trickier
to distinguish from flash and microfictions. It is habitually defined by its use of
poetic techniques within the story, because just as micros and flashes, it is writ-
ten as a block of text with no line breaks: that is to say, it is written as prose.
However, prose poetry often contains rhythm, rhyme or techniques such as
alliteration, assonance or detailed use of imagery or metaphor, for example.
Of course, I know what you might think here: does not prose (of any kind)
use these techniques from time to time? Well yes, it does, and therein lies the
problem. As writers and as readers, we know that prose has rhythms, totems

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 Holly Howitt-Dring

and technical tricks, sometimes as much as poetry – it is just set out as prose,
in blocks of writing with no line breaks. (I once argued that microfiction is not
‘formatted enough’ to be poetry, to some ridicule, but I think that it is true that
sometimes the difference between a prose poem and a poem, or even a micro-
fiction and a poem, could simply be down to line breaks.) In this sense, there is
sometimes no significant difference in the quality or meaning of the pieces: the
power lies in the way they are presented, which shapes the expectations of the
reader. Microfictions and flash fictions are the same: they too might use meta-
phors, clever prosody or the search for meaning or epiphany that prose poetry
(and poetry) may contain, but are technically defining themselves as prose.
Distinguishing between micros and prose poems is a difficult task, but,
in my opinion, and remembering Wordsworth’s advice that we should not
murder to dissect, one that may be best left undissected. After all, what
purpose does classification have here? There is some sense of difference
between the forms, but I do not think it is enough to argue about, especially
as definition of this difference has been ambiguous at best, outside of defini-
tion through word counts. It seems not even editors or writers of either form
are particularly worried about the lack of boundaries between the forms: for
example, Carolyn Forché’s wonderful ‘The Colonel’ was published in both a
flash fiction anthology (Thomas, Thomas and Hazuka 1992: 84–85) as well
as a prose poetry anthology (Friebert and Young 1995: 274), with no sinis-
ter repercussions: the world did not end, and prose poetry and microfiction
continued to exist, both separately and concurrently.
Some of my microfictions (which I wrote believing them to be microfic-
tions) have been described as prose poems, and one reader suggested that
some of these stories were actually poems. It made no difference to me, but it
was fascinating to see those pieces in another light, particularly on the outside
of my initial intention. In that sense, I wondered if the work was not just
affected by how it was presented, but how much I had chosen to make them
microfictions because that was what I thought I had been writing. I have not
decided upon an answer there yet. Dave Clapper, previous editor and current
publisher of the short-short story (another alias microfiction might appre-
hend) journal SmokeLong Quarterly states that:

I don’t really distinguish between the two [prose poetry and flash fiction].
Some flash pieces are definitely prose poems. Many aren’t. Prose poetry
is just one of many valid writing styles, and flash doesn’t exclude any
styles. I think even some straight poetry could be considered flash.
(Kotzin 2005)

So there you have it: prose poetry and microfiction are interrelated to the
point that they cannot be easily differentiated – so much so that I feel they can
be easily, and happily, discussed together.

THE PRACTICE
So we have heard the history, and the critical entanglements. But how does a
microfiction work, and how can we write them? It is evident that microfiction
looks different on the page – as a condensed block of text, of prose, it can be
seen in one glance, and easily read in one short sitting – but it is not poetry,
not a short story. It is able to finish a whole story in a few hundred words
(for instance), and that is clearly a noticeable factor when compared with a

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 Making micro meanings

short story or a novel, for example. It never usually fills more than three or
four pages (and in Stern’s anthology none is longer than two pages), but it
has a title, like a novel, novella, short story or poem may have, it is typeset
like prose, and there are, seemingly, no significant line breaks; the sentences
run on as they would in traditional prose. Just the visual implications alone of
microfiction are often enough to define it.
But that definition in itself would be too simple, too unlikely. Microfiction
cannot be defined solely by its layout, just as it cannot be defined by its length
(which we know to be anything from a few words to a few hundred). However,
I believe that there are some generic patterns to microfiction: its content,
its tone and its purpose can help reinforce genrification, or at least help to
identify it. Microfictions usually start in the middle of an action, or, in some
cases, a thought. It does not matter what story you look at, or what anthol-
ogy or collection it is in: microfiction mostly always starts with an idea, story
or situation presupposed. And then this focus is either skewed to magnify the
situation or character presented, or zoomed out, as it were, to view the impli-
cations of this from another perspective. The reason microfictions often start
in the middle of the story they wish to tell is that it makes them lively, sudden,
laden with expectation and showing the reader an immediate intimacy –
something unusual and fresh. Although longer forms of fiction use this device
too, it is not such a constant as it is in microfiction, which almost exaggerates
the devices of longer stories in this technique. The tone, however, despite this
active stance, tends to be one of unspoken meaning, a heavy weight on the
story, of the subtleties of implication and the silence of understanding.
Microfictions can deal with life and death vulnerabilities, with life-altering
decisions, grief, change and the inexplicable. They depict moments of great-
ness and moments of weakness, human sentiments and neuroses, frequently
with wry wit. The tonal voice of microfiction is often one of a bigger question
that is never asked. This tone can only be carried into a single scene, however.
Microfiction very rarely depicts more than one turning point, one purpose in
its small structure. Despite this smallness, microfiction is loaded with mean-
ings – but this does mean that the events depicted are often confined within
this small structure. This is another reason, perhaps, why microfictions can
start mid-story: because they have such a small space to grow in.
Language is of serious significance to microfiction. When a story is as little
as a hundred words, or less, for example, every single word should have been
chosen with deliberation, with a consciousness of the multiplicity of its conno-
tations, and a self-awareness. Because of this heavy burden of implication,
paradoxically the language used in microfiction veers towards being simple –
although, of course, this does not mean it cannot be poetic. The tone or style is
often direct, sometimes speaking to the reader by its use of the second person.
This is a technique not usually used in more mainstream fictions (although it
is used in poetry with more frequency). There is also a noticeable use of the
present tense, again drawing the reader into a situation already happening.
The use of poetic devices often culminates in a microfiction focusing on
one central image, as poetry can. For example, Ron Wallace’s story ‘Worry’
metamorphoses and anthropomorphizes the effect of worry between a
married couple:

Worry grew between them like a son, with his own small insistencies
and then more pressing demands.
(Wallace 1996: 71)

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 Holly Howitt-Dring

The image anchors the story. The simile is not groundbreaking, or difficult.
But this is usually the case with an image in microfiction. Microfiction is often
only about a small idea, and the relevance of the miniscule to the major, and
focusing on an image, which is, in this case simple, highlights the conse-
quence of the small thing.
Microfiction commonly delves into magical realism and horror, fantasy
and erotica. This may be because microfiction is free to experiment with those
techniques or themes that traditional literature avoids. As mentioned above,
microfictions can sometimes use stories already told, leading it into intertex-
tual realms. Indeed, G. W. Thomas argues that:

By using references to a commonly known story you can save your-

self all those unnecessary words. Refer to historical events. Use famous
situations from literature. If the story takes place on the Titanic you
won’t have to explain what is going to happen, who is there or much
of anything.
(Thomas n.d.)

Maybe this is reason enough. But I think that writers also see the potential
for a wry aside, a new perspective or a change of narrative in using an already
told story. This then could lead the way to the use of magical realist devices.
They may be small, such as a key appearing in a drawer (Manguso 2007: 60),
or they may be major, such as a man swallowing himself (Edson 1992: 72–73),
but strange occurrences seem more usual in microfiction. As in poetry, this
use of strange situations seems more fitting, questioning the nature of the
fictional itself, or perhaps it is simply because microfiction is experimental, in
the sense that microfictions are, as Pamelyn Casto so wonderfully describes:
‘like Daedaluses who refuse to stay put’ (Casto n.d.)
One feature often seen as the definitive hallmark of microfiction, is the
‘twist’:

[T]he twist ending allows the writer to pack some punch at the end of
the story. Flash fiction is often twist-ending fiction because you don’t
have enough time to build up sympathetic characters and show how a
long, devastating plot has affected them. Like a good joke, flash fiction
is often streamlined to the punch-line at the end.
(Thomas n.d.)

I am very uneasy with this concept of microfiction being a ‘good joke’, and
being structured towards a literary ‘punch-line’. The last line of the above
should make anyone, reader or writer, more than a little uncomfortable. The
‘twist’ could be defined as the surprising event at the end of a piece, perhaps
akin to a turn in a poem, and is often noted by new writers and readers of
microfiction as a prominent, and therefore defining feature. But this notion
of it being a ‘punch-line’ is demeaning to the genre, and to those who write
it. That is not to say humour is excluded, but more that there can be room for
more subtlety in short fictions. What Thomas suggests is that microfiction can
only be a joke, that it is not serious. But unfortunately, and possibly because
of its superficial, even easy-to-grasp nature, the twist is what is often used to
describe the genre of microfiction, other than its size.
I propose that rather than this unsubtle and unhelpful idea of a ‘twist’,
microfictions are instead small, and subtle, epiphanies – and that this epiphany

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 Making micro meanings

is reached not by some narrative trick, but by a realization that the moment
depicted in the microfiction has changed everything, that there has been a
shift in what the reader believed or expected, and that this has had signifi-
cance. The throwaway nature of the ‘punch-line’ twist is anything but this.
In his interview with Miriam Kotzin, Dave Clapper ‘dismisses the constraint
of a surprise ending […] to him flash “is a very open form, constrained by
nothing more than word count and a writer’s imagination”’ (Kotzin 2005).
He is talking about flash fiction here, but the point is still relevant. This seems
nearer a true understanding of microfiction, even though, as I have stated, the
word count issue will never be formalized. I also feel that this epiphany is not
necessarily something to be gleaned in the last line or two – it can or could be,
instead, be something that trickles through the text. The story should not have
been written just for a ‘twist’ ending, therefore; it should fulfil a deeper, more
significant purpose than that of a punch-line.
Richard Gwyn, a writer of microfiction and prose poetry, as well as novels
and poetry, has devised what could be called a formula for writers using
the form of microfiction, but this code could also be used to identify them.
The acronym S/I/M/P/L/E represents: sparseness, implication, minimalism,
precision, lightness and energy. Sparseness and minimalism have to be key
features of microfiction, because microfiction is centred on making every word
count, making every meaning matter. Precision would therefore follow on
from this focused brevity. And that would in turn give the text an energy, a
volubility which its small space cannot contain. Lightness perhaps is relevant
as the tone of microfiction is one in which sentiment or philosophy should not
be laboured: the text should speak for itself, and by itself. But implication, I
believe, is the key to unlocking the secrets of microfiction.
If microfiction is making every word count, every possible digressive
meaning matter, then implication is the heart of its narrative purpose. This
also blends well with the idea of microfiction being an epiphanic event. It is
not so much about what is stated; it is often about what is not said, which
is why every word is so burdened with meaning and influence. Implication
is what drives Hemingway’s ‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn.’ It is the
raison d’être for Amy Hempel’s ‘Housewife’:

She would always sleep with her husband and another man in the
course of the same day, and then for the rest of the day, for whatever
was left to her of that day, she would exploit by incanting, ‘French film,
French film.’
(Hempel 2004, italics in text)

Is the meaning here clear? Why does the writer use repetition in such a small
space? Why a French film, and why is this stressed? Does the married house-
wife really sleep with two men in one day? How much is fiction? The implica-
tions are various, and multiplicitous. There are few definitives or certainties.
Implication works because the reader could choose to identify microfictions,
such as the stories above, as metaphorical: metaphor is functioning through
realism. Some microfictions do not choose this poetic path, of course. ‘Knock’
is a prime example: ‘The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a
knock at the door’ (Brown 1948). But metaphorical techniques are available to
the genre, and, given the unsure nature of microfictions, many authors choose
to use them, driven to fill a niche between poetry and prose, to express some-
thing that cannot be expressed in any other form.

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 Holly Howitt-Dring

Because microfiction could be viewed as stories working solely by implica-

tion, I feel that they have been mistrusted and sidelined in literature, despite,
or maybe because of, their popularity online, in anthologies, and in news-
papers and magazines. The ‘twist’ idea is also a concept that could lead to
mistrust. Microfiction’s seeming refusal to be fully categorized and to side-
step the reader’s expectations are factors which make it difficult to under-
stand fully. The laying out of features or tricks to use in microfiction strikes
me as short-sighted and lacking in understanding of the genre. I do not think
that microfiction should not be made according to a strategy. It is a genre
about what is possible, what could be done. It is full of promise, a desire to be
moulded under the author’s hands, reconstructed through the reader’s eyes –
it is not about fulfilling criteria. It is variable; that is (partially) the point. It is
at once one thing and another (poetry and prose), it is implied yet simple, but
above all it is unable to be one sole thing, or function in one single way.
And so we come to writing microfiction. There are many ways into writ-
ing microfiction. Some try it through constrained word counts, such as the
‘drabble’ (a story of 100 words) or ‘69er’ (a story of sixty-nine words), or
perhaps through a prompt word, line or image. Some may wish to distil one
single moment of epiphany (or, occasionally, of anti-epiphany) into its small
space. Sometimes I have used autobiographical events to alter my tales, but
the limited space I can tell them in has given the stories a shape that real-
life events do not always have. Other stories I have written have focused on
phrases I have mulled over. A worked example is my story ‘Water’, which
came about after I heard the phrase ‘blue gold’ on TV, describing how precious
water is as a worldwide resource. I then took this idea to the extreme, ending
in a dystopia where water was most valued above all else:

There was that time – do you remember it? – where the government said
that we must share baths because the sea was evaporating, so we did,
you and I, and you soaped my toes and I flannelled your back (most of
the loofahs were dead by then) and we thought we were making a differ-
ence. Then we were told to drink our bath water as water was precious,
and we did. You used that tall glass and I used the blue whisky one. It
seemed somehow tastier then, like it looked on those adverts, in that blue
glass. Finally we were told that we must only use water if it were to boil
one or the other for supper, water being scarce. So I put you in that big
pot that we used to put coal in when it still existed and I boiled you dry.
After I’d ladled you out of the water, I washed my hair in your stock.
(Howitt 2008)

I wrote this story all in one go, but others have taken a bit of teasing to tangle
out, or have gone through a few drafts before they were ready to show anyone.
The creative process has been different with most of my stories, but the one
thing that has been constant is that they have usually all focused on one idea
or one event, rather like poetry.
Where does this fit in with writing, say, a short story, a novella or a novel?
Well, like other truncated genres, microfiction thrives in difference, defined by
what it is not. Shorter writing such as the short story or the novella have often
been condemned for being a practice or trial run for what could be expanded
into a novel; for some time, both forms straddled an uneasy no-man’s-land
between other forms. Microfiction too is often dismissed as what could have
been a poem, or a short story. I feel that this is missing the point. Certainly,

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 Making micro meanings

from my perspective, writing microfiction is my way of harnessing a poetic

moment without writing poetry. It is for me about using epiphany and
imagery with the added benefit of using prose as my medium, a medium I am
comfortable in. Microfiction has a purpose in itself, and this purpose should
not be denied or denigrated, and this purpose is to tell a story in a small space,
to hang on implication and to thrive on the untold. This seems to me to be
a shared motivation with short story writing, though again, it should not
discount microfiction because it is not a short story. There are shared purposes
between many genres, and I do not think it is appropriate to think of genre as
a closed and hierarchical system. Instead, the borders between genres should
be boundless and mutual. After all, there is no reason why prose should not
have elements of poetry, or poetry use the techniques of prose, or something
be discounted because it is not something else.
Stealing poetic techniques, truncating those of prose, it seems like the
offspring of some ill-fated alliance, but in fact microfiction uses the best parts
of both genres and is a genre in its own right, as it functions and speaks in a
new and different way to both (even though it still uses elements of both). It
is at once one genre and another, a paradox in literature, though it does have
a particular style and some shared features. It is innovative, fresh, and yet
relates in a realistic way to the uses of language when we speak, or tell stories
verbally and in poetry. It is ancient and (post)modern, prose and poetry, the
metaphorical and the mundane. It may be about contradiction, and therefore
the perturbing logic of identifying a genre that cannot be defined is somehow
delicious, self-aware and always just out of reach. It is the great reckoning in
the little room, the macro in a micro, the ship in a bottle. There is so much
going on inside a microfiction that it feels bigger than its small space on the
page allows. And it is challenging: it does not want to be defined. It wants
to be explored, changed, renewed. It wants to be used. Its incestuous lean-
ings and sharings seem somehow palatable, therefore, slipping into the liter-
ary world with few questions answered. It seems no one is writing about what
microfiction is: they are simply writing it.

WORKS CITED
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Shortest+Horror+Story. Accessed 10 August 2010.
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www.heelstone.com/meridian/meansarticle1.html. Accessed 10 August
2010.
Edson, Russell (1996), ‘Dinner Time’, in J. Stern (ed.), Micro Fiction: An
Anthology of Really Short Stories, London and New York: W.W. Norton,
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Forché, Carolyn (1996), ‘The Colonel’, in J. Stern, (ed.), Micro Fiction: An
Anthology of Really Short Stories, London and New York: W.W. Norton,
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the Prose Poem, Oberlin, OH: Oberlin College Press.
Gwyn, Richard (2010), ‘Spartans’, Sad Giraffe Cafe, Todmorden: Arc, p. 12.
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wired.com/wired/archive/14.11/sixwords.html. Accessed 10 August 2010.

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 Holly Howitt-Dring

Hempel, Amy (1996), ‘Hostess’, in J. Stern (ed.), Micro Fiction: An Anthology of

Really Short Stories, London and New York: W.W. Norton, p. 100.
—— (2004), Tumble Home, New York: Scribner.
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SUGGESTED CITATION
Howitt-Dring, H. (2011), ‘Making micro meanings: reading and writing
microfiction’, Short Fiction in Theory and Practice 1: 1, pp. 47–58,
doi: 10.1386/fict.1.1.47_1

CONTRIBUTOR DETAILS
Holly Howitt-Dring is a writer of microfictions, novellas and novels. Writing
as Holly Howitt, she published her first microfiction collection, Dinner Time
and Other Stories with Cinammon Press in 2008, followed by a novella, The
Schoolboy, also with Cinammon in 2009. She also co-edited the microfic-
tion and prose poetry anthology, Exposure (Cinammon, 2010). She is Senior
Lecturer in Creative Writing at Portsmouth University, UK.
Contact: School of Creative Arts, Film and Media, St George’s Building,
141 High Street, Portsmouth.
E-mail: [email protected]

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