Phoebe Kate

I am a huge fan of flash fiction — generally defined as short stories of 1,000 words or less.  It is exceedingly difficult to write (I know – I occasionally write it.)  Every word counts because you’ve got none to spare.  In stories rambling on for 5,000 or 7,000 words, every word does not have to be perfect (they should be, of course, but probably only fellow writers will notice if they’re not.)  In a story of 500 or 700 words, however, you’ve got absolutely no room for error.  Every word has to be just the right one, otherwise your little tiny house of cards falls down very fast.

I learned to write flash fiction from a Beatles song, “Eleanor Rigby.”  I didn’t know that was what I was doing as a kid in 1966 listening to song.  I just thought it was a cool piece of music from the coolest band that may have ever existed on this planet.  Thirty years later, I left a career as a scriptwriter and media producer and decided to write fiction for what remained of my life, even if it meant making $0.  I began writing stories of the usual length — 10, 20, 30 pages.  Then I picked up some journals and anthologies that had stories that were only a page or two long.  I truly thought those brief, twist-at-the-end tales went out of vogue with O’Henry back in the 1800s.  I was amazed the genre still existed.  Even more,  I was mystified: how did authors manage to tell a complete story in so few words?  No matter how intensely I analyzed individual works, I still didn’t ‘get’ it.

Until I remembered “Eleanor Rigby” and listened to the song again.  In a few well-chosen words, John Lennon paints a definitive picture of loneliness and disconnection, and summarizes two tormented, futile lives.

Here’s the song, minus the chorus, written in story form, as it could easily appear in a literary journal:

“Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been.  She lives in a dream, waiting at the window, wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door.  Who is it for?

Father McKenzie writes the words of a sermon no one will here.  No one comes near.  Look at him working, darning his socks in the night when there’s nobody there.  What does he care?

Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name.  Nobody came.  Father McKenzie wipes the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave.

No one was saved.” 

Wow…

And suddenly I understood how to write flash fiction. 

I’ve been writing it ever since.  You can read some of it on the online journals Spillway Review and Flashquake  and 3711 Atlantic and Megaera and Vestal Review and Ghoti Magazine.

Above and beyond the fact these publications were gracious enough to publish me, they are stellar internet literary journals that deserve to be read for the excellent writing they feature, issue after issue, year after year.

-phoebe kate