Not just a Flash in the Pan: Ali Bacon looks at the onward march of 'novella in flash'
It’s a year since In the Blink of an Eye came out and nearly 18 months since I talked here about the changing shape of ‘long form’ fiction, in particular the appearance of novels which, like mine, looked increasingly like collections of linked short stories. In fact right now I’m reading Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge , published to acclaim in 2011 and described on the jacket as a ‘novel in stories’ so apparently I didn’t invent this genre after all! Poet and flash fiction writer Michael Loveday However since then something else has come along. Just as Linen Press and I were doing final edits to In the Blink of an Eye , I noticed a competition run by Ad Hoc fiction for a ‘novella in flash. I could immediately relate to the concept of an overarching narrative composed of stand-alone stories - albeit very short short stories – and even considered the possibility of a ruthless edit in order to enter! Time did not allow for that, but soon after ...