Flash fiction: does a vignette count as a story?

[Summer M]

On another website (http://www.everydayfiction.com), I have noted (http://www.everydayfiction.com/flappers-and-skyscrapers-by-eric-dovigi/#comment-42004) what I consider a troubling tendency: flash fiction stories (short stories of under 1,000 words) are often not stories at all but rather vignettes, snapshots, descriptions of people and/or places without an actual story being told.

As I argued on that other site,


Vignettes are legitimate literary pieces, but I'm not sure they are of much value by themselves. Their value lies in setting a stage or a mood for a longer work—a novel, a play, etc. But when a vignette stands on its own, it leaves the reader unsatisfied, scratching her head and asking, "that's it?"

It is difficult to write good flash fiction, and to my knowledge no work of flash fiction has ever become a classic. Still, I think literary standards must be upheld even in this obscure and lowly category.

What do you think: does a vignette count as a short story?
{question edited for clarity}

[YesNo]

I think one could write an interesting story in under 1000 words. The problem with these vignettes is that they are not interesting which would remain the case even if one stretched each of them out to 5000 or more words.

Poems and jokes are often very short. Although poetry gets caught in the boring vignette category as well if it makes sense at all, the joke has to elicit a response from the audience in very few words. However, both poems and jokes show that an audience can be entertained in something that is communicated in under 1000 words.

[stlukesguild]

A story under 1000 words would not seem to be all that rare to me... nor a form excluded from the possibility of achieving "classic" status. I would guess that many of Baudelaire's "prose poems" fall within this realm... as well as many short fictions/allegories/aphorisms of Kafka. I also think of many of the writings of J.L. Borges, the "fables"/prose poems/meditations of W.S. Merwin, Italo Calvino, etc... Having twice referenced the "prose poem" it seems obvious to point out that poetry has long risen to the level of "classic" status on the basis of creations far shorter than 1000 words. Why should it not be possible to achieve the same within the realm of prose?

[stlukesguild]

Although poetry gets caught in the boring vignette category as well if it makes sense at all...

Not really...???:frown2::confused:

[Summer M]

I don't think you understood me, stlukesguild. My question was, Should vignettes count as flash fiction? Do you agree with the criticism I voiced on the other site?

Poetry is not flash fiction, although the line can be blurry. I'm only talking about works of narrative prose, about short stories in the standard sense of the word that are also under 1,000 words.