This little form; what a sad little country, without territory or name.

I guess we’re still looking for a name for micro-fiction. Ignore that we can’t agree if it’s under a hundred words, exactly 150, a few hundred, or between 500 and 1000 words long – we don’t know what to call it. That’s a peculiar problem for a thing that can be identified by a word, like “micro-fiction.” Normally you consider that sort of thing named.

I like “micro-fiction,” but I guess the publishing industry is worried novels will be replaced by macro-fiction.

Super-short-stories reminds them of spandex.

Flash fiction makes me think of sticking a book in a photocopier.

I once had a professor walk into a classroom shaking his butt and singing, “Who writes short shorts?” Ironically, he went on to write Smart People.

If I can’t use “micro-fiction,” I guess I’ll go with shotgun fiction. I don’t know where it came from but I know that’s what I called narrative bathroom monologues when I started typing them out. It’s catchy, because anytime you’re in a room with a bunch of pent-up readers and somebody mentions any kind of gun, thoughts are going to happen. Attention is had. A shotgun has the one blast: stick in the shot, close the barrel, pull the trigger and bang. No extra rounds in the chamber, very few words, and the limit of only hitting whatever point and story you can hit with your rock salt prose. The worst drawback I can think of is somebody naming his micro-fiction sequel “double barrel shotgun fiction.”