WRITING HOT FLASHES
by Michael Mallory
Two years ago, I sat on the short story panel at Bouchercon in Monterey and sang the praises of "flash" mysteries--those little 250-to-1,000 word sketches that, when done well, have the fire power of a cannon. I truly loved the flash mystery format, I told the gathering, adding that since cracking the nut on how to do them, I've tried to dash one off first thing each morning before going onto my primary project of the day. The point I was trying to make was that by stealing an hour or so each morning to write a flash meant that no matter what else happened (or didn't) for the rest of the day, I had already accomplished something.
There was, however, a lady in the front-row who was obviously paying more attention to what I was saying than I was. She raised her hand at the end of the panel and said: "Okay, you've claimed that you figured out how to write Flash mysteries, so . . . HOW DO YOU DO IT?"
Busted at Bouchercon.
I initially tried to joke my way out of it, saying "Use less words," but by now many in the audience were glaring at me, pencils poised over their pads, waiting for me to unleash the "secret" of writing flash mysteries. As the time-honored phrase, "Me and my big mouth," danced between my ears, I realized that I would have to give up what I had considered up to that point to be a personal discovery, and a professional secret.
"Okay, here's how you do it," I sighed, and told the crowd the model I continue to use in creating flashes: a joke.
We've all told jokes, and most story-based jokes (as opposed to riddles or one-liners) are structured exactly the same. They begin with a set-up describing a situation--a man walks into a bar, a woman goes to see her doctor, a parrot goes into a used car dealership, whatever--and then progress into a brief complication of the situation. The joke ends, of course, with the punch line, which in order to be effective must be both logical yet surprising, something that the listener did not see coming.
Let's trying putting the analogy into practice with the following:
A guy goes into a bank, whips out a gun and shouts, "Nobody move, this is a stick-up!" He grabs an old woman from the line and holds the gun to her head, saying he'll shoot her if anyone so much as breathes hard. The teller loads up a sackful of money and hands it to the robber, who then decides to take the old woman hostage to ensure a safe getaway. As he's shoving her into the getaway car, she calmly says: "You're not going to hurt me, you know." The robber replies, "You don't think I'd shoot an old lady?" "Oh, yes, I think you would," she says, "I just don't think you'll have the chance." Then she draws her own gun and shoots the robber. With his dying breath, the robber asks, "Just tell me why is an old woman like you packing a gun?" The woman smiles sweetly. "For the same reason you are," she says, "to rob the bank, of course."
Simply in terms of being a joke, the above is obviously not going to send Jay Leno into fits of envy. But in terms of structure, it could be told verbatim as a joke. My point, though, is that by adding a few hundred extra words, fleshing out the characters a little, alluding to motivations (perhaps a line about a cut in Social Security benefits), and writing in some suspense, you now have a flash crime story.
Aside from basic structure, the biggest similarity between a joke and a flash story is the use of a punch line, or at least, a punch ending. By necessity, the ending of a flash must take the reader by surprise, and in my opinion, the best flashes are the ones that elicit an audible reaction from the reader, much in the way a joke will. No matter how grim the story might be in subject matter, the ending ideally should contain enough irony and surprise to make the reader laugh, gasp, or at very least grin.
Anyone wishing to bone up on the flash mystery format can do no better than to seek out the work of the late, great pulpsmith Fredric Brown (1907-1972), perhaps the greatest of all practitioners of the short-short story, and a master in the art of using unspoken impact in the place of extra words. Brown wrote in both the mystery and science-fiction fields, and created dozens upon dozens of flashes in each (he also wrote long stories and novels, including "The Fabulous Clip Joint" and the gloriously bizarre "Night of the Jabberwock," which I also heartily recommend).
One of Brown's greatest flashes--indeed, one of the greatest flashes ever put to paper--was actually one of his sci-fi tales. Since I don't actually have a copy of the story, having read it some years back, I can't quote from it, but I can give the gist of the tale in the format of . . . you guessed it . . . a joke.
Seems that all the great brains of the earth got together and made the ultimate computer, one that not only contained all the knowledge of the world, but was also built with the capacity to think for itself. For weeks the scientists struggled to come up with a question worthy of being the first one that was put to the incredible electronic brain, then they finally got it. As they formally gathered around the computer, the scientists ask: "Is there a God?" PING! PLINK! PLUNK! WHIZZZZ! The computer's lights flash and it beeps and bleeps, and after a few seconds, a card comes shooting out of it. The card reads: THERE IS NOW.
Buh-DUM-bump.
But the rimshot lasts only a second. The wonderful, powerful disturbing implication of that short little fable has stayed with me for years.
The great thing about flash mysteries is that in the time it has taken you to read this article, you could have read an entire mystery story. The unbeatable thing about flash mysteries is that in that same amount of time, multiplied by perhaps five or six, you actually could have written one! # # # Michael Mallory
m-mallory@email.msn.com
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