The art of flash fiction lies in its ability to make an impact in the briefest way possible. In our Flash Fiction Competition, Guest Judge Will Kostakis was impressed with how the winning pieces captured emotion, humor and danger in just 99 words, whilst praising the winning peer review for providing feedback perfectly tailored to this difficult genre. “Flash fiction requires careful consideration of every word”, notes David Bolotin, winner of Best Peer Review. “While vivid details are important, they must be important in not only the short-term but the long-term too”.
Read on to learn more about the Flash Fiction Competition winners, including their writing processes, their inspirations and their other projects!
Q&A with Flash Fiction Winner, Natalie Tokita:
You capture so much in ’Sophia’. How did you convey such depth and emotion in just 99 words?
Vagueness is my favorite literary device. I rarely utilize it intentionally, but when I read over my finished pieces, I enjoy the beauty of the sort of beautiful mess I’ve created. I’m quite fond of the way a single unclear word or phrase can convey so much to so many different people, and I’m not deliberately ambiguous very often — I just come back to find that my words can be interpreted in that way, and that my writing is just vague enough so that I’m not quite sure what’s happening, but the feeling is there, and that’s what I think writing is. As long as readers feel, it’s not necessary to understand.
Guest Judge Will Kostakis was impressed with the way you utilized second person perspective to draw the reader into the narrative. Why did you choose this second person narration, and what impact does it have on your story?
The best way I can describe it is that “Sophia” is a reverse love letter to myself. This was my own story, give or take some degree of truth, but whether I was “her” or “you,” I can’t say I know. I don’t think I can say I’m either. I’ve never written in second person before, in fact, so this was less of a stylistic choice (or even a conscious choice at all) and more of me bitterly addressing my reflection. As for its impact, it quite clearly plunges the reader into the foam, and readers feel as if they’re the narrator — or I suppose in this case the subject.
Can you tell us about an author who has inspired your writing style?
Ocean Vuong’s poetry and prose is just incredible, in particular On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous and Night Sky With Exit Wounds. I would give anything to write like him. He has such a striking command over language and a very deliberate way of conveying emotions. His work is devastating and beautiful all at once. My favorite line of his is “I miss you more than I remember you,” which actually influenced “Sophia” itself to some degree. Even his briefest lines contain an undeniably bittersweet heartbreak and longing that I could only dream of expressing in so little words.
Q&A with Best Peer Review Winner, David Bolotin:
What first attracted you to the piece you reviewed?
Flash fiction’s biggest challenge is the word count, and hooks are useful in all genres of writing, but in flash fiction, the first words hold so much more power. The opening words help set the tone of your poem, and not only lure readers in, but manage to keep them there, something that the writer of the poem did very well. Yet, what drew me in first wasn’t even the hook, but rather the title. As I said in my review, “A title is a hook, especially in flash fiction.” The title is often overlooked, but in a genre so tight on words, the title can help tell so much of the story while hooking the reader at the same time. User mindfruit (US)’s title “to grasp Baba’s world” contextualized the main purpose of their story with a beautiful title while also providing the reader with questions that ultimately hooked me into the piece.
Guest Judge Will Kostakis said you did “an excellent job providing feedback for a piece of flash fiction within the especially constricting bounds of its genre”. What was it like peer reviewing a piece with such a limited word count, and did it change your feedback style at all?
Peer reviewing flash fiction is a difficult thing as you must put a lot of thought into every single word to try and help the writer. Showing where words helped the story, and where some additional words could help was very important. Due to the word count, I had to alter what to focus on in the peer review, choosing to focus more on how each word contributed to the overall story rather than to a paragraph or individual sentence. Flash fiction requires careful consideration of every word, and while vivid details are important, they must be important in not only the short-term but the long-term too. This is something I often put less emphasis on in genres more generous in words, but something that was very essential in this review. I tried to leave the writer with questions that could allow them to consider the importance of parts of their story, and where some words could be cut back or changed, or where a few words spread throughout could help flesh out deep concepts hidden beneath the surface of the words.
What writing (or editing!) projects are you working on at the moment?
I am in love with poetry, especially poetry written by someone with a voice. I like when I can read a poet’s work and get a sense of who they are from their work, and I have been trying to find my own voice within my writing. I like sitting down and filling pages of notebooks up with poetry, phrases, and short pieces to try and find a voice for myself and write with authenticity. But along with writing, I am also working on editing and layout for my school’s magazine. I like putting things together and working on writing through a collaborative method, and editing helps give me the opportunity to learn about my own writing process, while also helping someone else improve their work. Peer reviews are a very important step in writing, as they give insight from someone in the same position as you, and I hope to do it on a larger scale one day.