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I'm quite interested in what might be called flash fiction that wasn't called that when it was written. A good example is Lu Xun's wonderful book 'Wild Grass'. These pieces were called 'prose poems' at the time. Yusunari Kawabata also did a book called 'Palm of the Hand Stories' that for a long time was my model of the very short short story. And of course Richard Brautigan in 'Revenge of the Lawn' and 'The Tokyo-Montana Express'.
I think much recent flash fiction becomes a little formulaic with the twist-in-the-tail, which to me resembles the punchline of a joke and makes the story lose all potential to a cheap capping line. A twist has to be very good to earn its keep, and most just aren't.
I wonder if flash fiction is defined in terms of more than length. This is why I look for examples before the term was invented, before it had a chance to take on 'genre' characteristics.
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