Date

7-22-2025

Department

College of Arts and Sciences

Degree

Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing (MFA)

Chair

Tess Martinus

Keywords

flash fiction, sudden fiction, short shorts, short short stories, microfiction, blasters, quick fictions, nanofictions, skinny stories, palm-size stories, Six-Word Story, Twitterature, Drabble, Dribble

Disciplines

Creative Writing

Abstract

In In a Flash: A Study of Flash Fiction’s Ability to Create Complete and Meaningful Stories, I seek to prove that despite flash fiction’s extreme brevity, this relatively new sub-genre of fiction is capable of producing fully delineated stories with powerful messages, especially messages that align with a Christian worldview. To do this, I first examine the various definitions and complex history of flash fiction. Then, through the critical literary lenses of formalism, structuralism, and reader response theory, I analyze the different ways flash fiction uses the following eight narrative elements to create stories within specific examples of flash fiction: character, action, multitasking, specific details, time, ambiguity, plot twists, and foregrounding. Finally, as additional proof of flash fiction’s ability to tell meaningful stories and to act as a viable literary genre for disseminating the Truth of God’s Word, I infuse these eight narrative elements and my Christian worldview into my own collection of flash fiction stories, Flashes in the Pan.

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