Diminishing Returns

The Initial Shock

For the past month we have been focusing on flash fiction. We not only solicited the form heavily, but we also looked to select shorter pieces from our regular submissions. We’re not sure who invented flash fiction. Some believe that you can trace its roots back to oral and religious traditions, sighting Aesop’s fables, the parables of Jesus and even prayer as possible points of origination. The first time we truly became aware of the capabilities of the short-short form was when we read Ernest Hemingway’s vignettes in In Our Time .

Recently the form has exploded. Most assume this trend is due to a shrinking attention span and literature’s ever-increasing enemies in the field of the entertainments. However, when recently thumbing through a Thomas Keller cookbook we came across a culinary theory that might also explain recent flash fiction fanaticism.

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