Blog 5 JCP

Flash fiction is fiction of extreme brevity. As per standard fiction, flash fiction has the normal aspects of a including a protagonist, conflict, climax, complications and resolution. Where it differs is the length and detail. Although there is no cut off, flash fiction is typically under 100o words. To keep this length authors tend to leave out much descriptors, forcing the reader to look for what is implied by the actual words on the page.

Flash fiction was a perfect style for writing for Richard Currey's Fatal Light. It was so effective because flash fiction's abrupt to the point style is exactly what war is. War is not an elaborate descriptive story, it is blunt and harsh, fitting the concise style of flash fiction. Currey does not circle around the point of his stories, he is very direct with the reader to convey how soldiers saw and faced those events in Vietnam.

Currey's direct style allowed the reader to understand what he was describing, but then caused them to think about it themselves. Fore example chapter 12 was a mere two sentences describing seeing Vietnam for the first time as "pure green into pure blue, innocent, mysterious, dreaming into the sun" (29). There is far more to that line than the physical appearance of Vietnam, it also describes a soldier as they are first in country.

Another example of the effectiveness of flash fiction is the chapters that are just a post card message. Whether it be a letter to a girlfriend or the soldiers mother, the brevity of the text very representative of the soldiers emotions. All the soldiers had was a short post card or letter. They hung on to the value of every word, just each choice of wording is vastly important in this style of writing.