Different people have their own strengths. Some excel with lots of words, others with a few. It sounds (and looks to me) David, like you really get going with lots of words. Training yourself to write with a few can only help you learn, of course, but length may turn out to be your specialty. I really admire people that can write novels. I've had one sitting around for years; it's the hardest thing I've ever attempted.

Poetry is the way the flow and sound of words and every word becomes in itself significant. It isn't only the content; it's the presentation.

Once that word count drops below a certain point and every single word is made to do so much, I do believe that a similarity to poetry is natural because every word lends a flavor and the whole swallows up in a gulp like poetry. It isn't just content anymore. It's the whole. A single off word can wrench the whole thing in a different direction and unless it's a vital word, the same is simply not the case with short stories and novels. Only flash fiction.

Both poetry and flash fiction are designed to convey MORE than what the actual words say, and therein lies much of what makes it so much the close to me. In flash fiction, as in poetry, most of the meaning lies below the surface.

Part of it could be considered artistry. But I think of all the poets and the different ways we use rhythm, meter, intonation, word order, etc. to create a feel and an impact, and I don't believe artistry makes it poetic. I believe the artistry simply determines what kind of “perfect meaning and sound” is perfect to us.

So now that I've thought that through by typing (sorry, bad habit), yes, I do believe that coming close to poetry is the natural result of achieving the perfect meaning and sound with minimal words. And I also believe that to write anything well with perfect meaning and sound is a part of the writer's artistry.

I may have to give 250 words a try. Several I've read carry a poetic quality. Do you believe that coming close to poetry is the natural result of achieving the perfect meaning and sound with minimal words? Or is it part artistry?

Sometimes it's an exercise in telling a story with no dialogue, or with only dialogue. A thousand words will let you convey a single scene. What can you do in that? Convey love? Devotion? Hatred? Lust? Fear? Reconciliation?

A good flash story is tight, tight, tight. Once you've learned to distill emotions and actions into a good flash story, it's like a shot of something 100 proof. If you want to dilute it and stretch it out, you can add some other items to sweeten it, make it bubbly or make it tangy.

Or you can just add complementary shots of other emotions that are just as strong. When you get to a Long Island Iced Tea of a story (~5000 words) that's a chapter. So it would take, what, twenty of those to make a novel?