I recently read something one of my writer friends wrote about why they love microfiction. I can’t for the life of me remember who it was. If you read this, please speak up so I can credit you!
He (I definitely remember it was a he) said something to the effect that microfiction is so wonderful because tiny stories create empty spaces. At first glance that seems an odd comment, but it really does make sense.
When writing extremely short fiction, there’s no room for elaborate description or even to give many details on the action of the story. The writer leaves lots of empty spaces. Those spaces draw readers in as much as the explicitly stated parts of the story do. They raise questions that the mind often automatically answers. They make the reader an active participant in the creation of tiny tales.
We all engage our imaginations when we read. With microfiction, our imaginations have to work double time. Whether we realize it or not, we take the empty spaces left by the writer and fill them in, making the story truly complete. We become collaborators with the writer.
But it goes much further than this. When I call for prompts from my readers, you respond with three words. Those words are each ideas and between them lie empty spaces. It’s up to me to fill those spaces in with connections that tie them together into a story. And within that story lie still more spaces, which you again fill in. This is truly a collaboration between reader and writer.
Those of you who have been with me for a while may remember the prompt with a twist week I ran in March. I posted a daily photo prompt to you, my readers, on Twitter and Facebook. Around each of those photos lay almost infinite empty space. You filled a bit of that space with your three-word return prompts, narrowing it for me. I then wrote fifty-word stories, narrowing the space even further, and you finished filling it in when you read those stories.
This is truly interactive storytelling, with reader and writer interweaving our thoughts and imaginations to create something unique and special. This, to me, is magic. My ability to write for you is dependent on empty spaces, which we collaboratively fill.
It is always true that without an audience, a creative’s work is less than it could be. You breathe life into our works of imagination. This becomes increasingly true with fiction as it becomes shorter and less detailed, that is to say, the more empty spaces it contains. When we knowingly collaborate, through prompts, I think this reaches its pinnacle.
Although I didn’t start out intending this post to be a pitch for reader prompts, I’m going to end with one. Please keep sending me your words and ideas (Laura, in particular, writes of life experiences to me privately, which fuel many stories). Share with me your empty spaces, and I’ll return mine to you. Together, we can build worlds!
And next time you scoff at the idea of your being a writer, remind yourself that you read microfiction and remember empty spaces.