FYE Comp / Hill & Ketchum
Flash Fiction and Film Shorts
Today you read some very short stories. Most of them were about a thousand words or less.
Sometimes, a short film, also known as a “short” or “short subject” are borne from an idea, or in some cases similar stories to the ones you have read.
According to Wikipediea, the length of North American Shorts can range from twenty to forty minutes. In parts of Europe and other regions, however, a short can run as little as a minute to fifteen minutes. Your course supplement includes a DVD of film shorts from both the U.S. and other countries. Take the time to view some of these on your own to get a sense of the different kinds of approaches to shorts.
Today – just for the fun of it* – write some flash fiction or a short short.
For the moment, don’t worry about rules, but here is some advice from Robert A. Allen, author of Fast Fictions: Creating Fiction in Five Minutes:
· Decide beforehand that whatever you put on the page will be okay.
· Give yourself freedom: allow yourself to write whatever comes up.
· Some of the thoughts going through your mind may seem silly or nonsensical. Include them anyway.
· Let go of the critic before you start. You have no way of knowing what these initial exercises may lead to in the future.
· Even if you end up throwing out your exercise, your effort is not wasted. Nothing is wasted. Every effort is a part of a process. (59)
Finally, please note what Louis Gianetti, author of Understanding Movies (10th ed.), says about stories:
A story can be many things. To a producer, it’s a property that has box office value. To a writer, it’s a screenplay. To a film star, it’s a vehicle. To a director, it’s an artistic medium. To a genre critic, it’s a classifiable narrative form. To a sociologist, it’s an index of public sentiment. To a psychiatrist, it’s an instinctive exploration of hidden fears or communal ideas. To a moviegoing, it can be all of these and more. (388)
For more examples of the short short genre in writing, visit the class wiki, Writing Resources. There are numerous online and print publications that specialize in short fiction.
If you like film shorts, there are numerous online literary publications that include film. You can visit www.newpages.com for a list of online lit mags. If you know of any other online resources for film shorts, please let me know.
*This doesn’t happen often in college, so enjoy it while you can!
Setting Lack of Emotion Subject
Conflict
Setting Emotion Realized Response