Let’s Try This: A Tiny Image Becomes a Story
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
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Flash fiction
15 min read
The entire article is about the craft of 'micro prose' and flash fiction, discussing its essential elements like imagery and concise word choice. Understanding the history and formal constraints of this literary form provides crucial context for the craft discussion.
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Image
16 min read
The article's central thesis is that imagery is 'the heart' of micro prose—exploring how sensory detail carries what cannot be said outright. A deeper understanding of literary imagery as a technique would enrich the reader's appreciation of the craft points being made.
Who is in the mood for some good news?
I think—between my ulcerated cornea, Jon’s sinus surgery on Monday (if you missed the update—and all is well (enough)—I wrote about it on Tuesday), and Frannie’s kennel cough, on top of the arrival of true Minnesota winter, complete with many inches of snow and single digit temperatures, topped off by ICE invading our city and dragging away neighbors—I am ready for some good news … and I shall be sharing some very soon!
Stay tuned!
Meanwhile, for our fifth of six installments of the Infinite Small intensive on micro prose, I want to talk about imagery as the heart of this form.
The writer Sean Glatch in his craft essay1 actually identifies four specific elements needed to make flash work:
Concise Word Choice
Imagery
Theme
Experimentation and Hybridity
What good flash is not driven by is explanation.
And, to my mind, image must provide the foundation (usually) needed for two of the other three components Glatch names—theme and experimentation/hybridity—to work their hardest. As for concise word choice, that’s inherent in this form! Doesn’t mean it’s easy or that it is just a matter of adhering to a lower word count, though. Concise word choice means weighing and measuring and considering each and every word and being willing and able to cut it or swap it as necessary to amplify the power of the micro prose.
All this said, I can readily acknowledge that for me, the best flash lives and breathes through image. In such a small space, the writer leans on sensory detail the way a body leans toward warmth: instinctively, urgently. An image can hold what there isn’t room to say outright—memory, metaphor, ache, astonishment.
And imagery isn’t only what we see. It includes the salt sting of language on the tongue, the shift of gravity when a feeling moves through the chest, the ghost of a smell that calls back a whole life. Motion counts. Temperature counts. The pulse beneath the surface counts.
The best flash leaves something lingering—an aftertaste, a shiver, a flicker in the mind’s dark. Long after the last sentence, the reader isn’t just remembering the piece. They’re carrying it.
So, the piece we’ll look at today, a wonderful, strange micro by Andrew Bertina,2 runs with the idea of image, from a meta perspective—the whole writing about writing within a piece
...This excerpt is provided for preview purposes. Full article content is available on the original publication.