Short story writer James Thomas coined the term “flash fiction” in 1992, although acclaimed literary writers penned “micro fiction,” also known as “sudden fiction,” in the decades prior. Urban legend attributes the advent of this style of brevity writing to the “six-word story” allegedly written by Ernest Hemingway: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn” (Wright, Frederick A. “The Short Story Just Got Shorter: Hemingway, Narrative, and the Six-Word Urban Legend.” The Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 47, no. 2, April 2014).

Contemporary flash fiction is short prose typically of 500 to 1,000 words. Although there is no defined word count for the genre, flash fiction includes the development of both character and plot to tell a story. Like its predecessors fables and parables, flash fiction gathers force by selectively compressing its subject matter. Compaction of the story makes every word count, including the title. Works in this genre often depict only one to two characters in a single setting. The action of the story usually occurs within one day.