How Microfiction Could Transform Social Media
I’ll be level with you from the get-go: social media and I don’tget along. Beyond the avatars we create or the companies behind our screenscollecting and brokering our data habits, I don’t like social media most of allfor a simple reason: I rarely encounter content that is meaningful to me.
Now I can see how, at first glance, you might think one of two things. A) Well that’s an awfully selfish way to think about social media (or anything). Why does social media need to be self-serving? Or alternatively, B) That’s on you, pal. Follow better accounts, delete your apps, and stop complaining. I see both of these perspectives, yet still remain unsatisfied. I know deep down I keep these apps because I want them to mean something to me - whatever that looks like. Aside from swooning over foreign landscapes or scrolling through clothing I will never buy, what if I asked more of my digital presence? What if you did, too? What if we repurposed all the complaints, jokes, humble brags, and sorrows that fill our screens and minds? I have a theory for how we could do it.
In walks Microfiction - the perfect literary medium for our digital habitats.
In broad strokes, microfiction is a subset of flash fiction,generally composed of less than 300 words. You may have heard microfictioncalled another name, as it has many: sudden fiction, short shorts, minifiction,or even minute stories. The importance of microfiction, Mexican scholar LauroZavala reminds us, is not in its name but the six proposals critical to itsessence. They are: brevity, diversity, complicity, fractality, ephemerality,and virtuality.[1]
Now ask yourself: what do those six words in aggregate make youthink of? How do Zavala’s six elements compare to the chemical make up ofsocial media? At an atomic level, I’d say quite comparable.
But let me take it a step further, show you what microfiction onsocial media could look like: Take the legend of Hemingway’s most famousencounter with microfiction, a six-word story that supposedly won him a bet:
For sale: baby shoes. Never worn.
Or one of my personal favorites from argentine author, MarcoDenevi, who wrote in Veritas odium parit:
Bring me the fastest horse, the honest man said. I just toldthe king the truth.
What do you see in these stories? I see short quips of narrative,easily and repeatably consumable, that stir in me the magic of any greatfiction I come across. In Hemingway’s work, I find myself asking: What happenedto the baby? Why are its shoes being sold? How come they were never worn? Eventhough there’s no description of the shoes, I can see how pristine their rubbersoles are. I, the reader, become an actor in the story’s creation, as Hemingwayleaves the lines for me to color in. Similarly, in the Denevi story I adore theagile humor in the honest man’s flee. I wonder what truth the king couldn’thandle this time? I wonder who the king is in my life?
Importantly, microfiction is story as breath. It is story that exists with the same lifespan as a tweet or a post on IG. We react and scroll on. I’m proposing we change the reaction. We give social media artistic value where shallow interests currently reside.
Think how easily we, writers and readers, could make sureliterature flourishes among our followings. Because while social media and Imay fight, I cannot deny the blessing it gives me to share. To reach so manyeyes and brains with a few finger taps. Consider your power as follower.Consider your power as an artist. Couldn’t we improve social media throughmicrofiction?
I dream.
When he woke up, the dinosaur was still there. -AugustoMonterroso
[1] Lauro Zavala. “Minificción contemporánea: la ficción ultracorta y la literatura posmoderna.”Universidad Autónoma de Guanajuato, 2011. Web. Personal translation.
How Microfiction CouldTransform Social Media
I’ll be level with you from the get-go: social media and I don’tget along. Beyond the avatars we create or the companies behind our screenscollecting and brokering our data habits, I don’t like social media most of allfor a simple reason: I rarely encounter content that is meaningful to me.
Now I can see how, at first glance, you might think one of twothings. A) Well that’s an awfully selfish way to think about social media (oranything). Why does social media need to self-serving? Or alternatively, B)That’s on you, pal. Follow better accounts, delete your apps, and stopcomplaining. I see both of these perspectives, am mindful of them even, yetstill remain unsatisfied. I know deep down I keep these apps because I wantthem to mean something to me - whatever that looks like. Aside from swooningover foreign landscapes or scrolling through clothing I will never buy, what ifI asked more of my digital presence? What if you did, too? What if werepurposed all the complaints, jokes, humble brags, and sorrows that fill ourscreens and minds? I have a theory for how we could do it.
In walks Microfiction - the perfect literary medium for ourdigital habitats.
In broad strokes, microfiction is a subset of flash fiction,generally composed of less than 300 words. You may have heard microfictioncalled another name, as it has many: sudden fiction, short shorts, minifiction,or even minute stories. The importance of microfiction, Mexican scholar LauroZavala reminds us, is not in its name but the six proposals critical to itsessence. They are: brevity, diversity, complicity, fractality, ephemerality,and virtuality.[1]
Now ask yourself: what do those six words in aggregate make youthink of? How do Zavala’s six elements compare to the chemical make up ofsocial media? At an atomic level, I’d say quite comparable.
But let me take it a step further, show you what microfiction onsocial media could look like: Take the legend of Hemingway’s most famousencounter with microfiction, a six-word story that supposedly won him a bet:
For sale: baby shoes. Never worn.
Or one of my personal favorites from argentine author, MarcoDenevi, who wrote in Veritas odium parit:
Bring me the fastest horse, the honest man said. I just toldthe king the truth.
What do you see in these stories? I see short quips of narrative,easily and repeatably consumable, that stir in me the magic of any greatfiction I come across. In Hemingway’s work, I find myself asking: What happenedto the baby? Why are its shoes being sold? How come they were never worn? Eventhough there’s no description of the shoes, I can see how pristine their rubbersoles are. I, the reader, become an actor in the story’s creation, as Hemingwayleaves the lines for me to color in. Similarly, in the Denevi story I adore theagile humor in the honest man’s flee. I wonder what truth the king couldn’thandle this time? I wonder who the king is in my life?
Importantly, microfiction is story as breath. It is story thatexists with the same lifespan as a tweet, a post on IG. We react and scroll on.I’m proposing we change the reaction. We give social media artistic value whereshallow interests currently reside.
Think how easily we, writers and readers, could make sureliterature flourishes among our followings. Because while social media and Imay fight, I cannot deny the blessing it gives me to share. To reach so manyeyes and brains with a few finger taps. Consider your power as follower.Consider your power as an artist. Couldn’t we improve social media throughmicrofiction?
I dream.
When he woke up, the dinosaur was still there. -AugustoMonterroso
[1] Lauro Zavala. “Minificción contemporánea: la ficción ultracorta y la literatura posmoderna.”Universidad Autónoma de Guanajuato, 2011. Web. Personal translation.
J. Dominic Patacsil is a first year student in the University of New Hampshire MFA Writing program and a fiction reader for Barnstorm.