This discussion began here. So start with that and then continue here. Give us your thoughts on what constitutes a story. Do the requirements change when the writer has only 140 characters? Do some pieces of tiny fiction seem more like poems than stories? Where is that line drawn?
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As always, it comes down to the meaning of story. I wrote about that here a couple of years ago, and depending upon whom you ask, the definition can be pretty fluid. That’s going to be even more true if we work to see if some flash fiction is better labeled as poetry.
In the October 2010 piece, linked to above, I quoted Guy Hogan, and I always try to keep his words of caution in mind: “When many writers try to write flash fiction they end up with a sketch.” It’s pretty easy to fall into that trap. Some of my #quikfic posts have been nothing but little jokes of one sort or another; they weren’t attempts to tell much, if any, of a story. Others, I think, have succeeded in telling a tale. Depending on the mood (both when I write and of the post), there can be a poetic sense to a #quikfic that’s intentional. But I don’t know where, or if, there’s a bright line between the two.
I would agree that my No. 25 is less story and more poem. It fit two criteria: it was 140 characters or fewer, and I liked it. It might also tell a story, but I’m not at all certain what that story is.
My No. 21 is sort of a visual pun, The Persistence of Memory being Picasso’s famous melting watches painting. But there is significant story there, too.
No. 26 could easily be (and probably has been) the impetus for a much longer work. I actually wanted to say that the narrator chose a new path, killing his future self; I couldn’t make that work within the character limit while ensuring that the reader would understand the new path that altered the future, “killing” the miserable version of the narrator because he never existed. That would require more pages to do well. There’s nothing poetic here.
We seem to know poetry when we read it. No. 25 is poetic in that there is an ambiguity and the potential for metaphor (what does “sketched” mean, in this context?). Also, the words flow more smoothly here (and in No. 21) than, say, in No. 26.