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I love short-shorts - make no mistake, I also love the deeply-rooted, sprawling masterpieces of the classic epics.
But I love short-shorts - or flash fiction as the modern lexicon tags them. In fact, one of the first reading projects I set myself when I reached the point in my study of Japanese that regular reading was required to progress any further was to explore the work of Hoshi Shinichi, a science fiction author famed for his mastery of the short-short format.
The short short story format takes you to a world and gives you the penny tour through the eyes of the protagonist. It leaves enormous vistas open to the imagination and puts your mind into overdrive. It's like a carefully selected aperitif - just a taste, really, and maybe an incredible contrast to the main course, but perfectly formulated to make your stomach growl and your mouth water.
But (contrary to a recent call for submissions that suggested you could write a 1500 word story in an hour (but maybe take an extra hour to edit it)) the short-short is very challenging to do well. After all, you have only one or two thousand words in which to provide the reader with an engaging situation, a believable context, and most importantly a relatable hero.
Can it really be done? Can you really pack all three of these things onto a single sheet of paper?
My answer: Not only yes, but hell yes.
