How long does it take to write one?

 When Lydia Davis’s Collected Stories came out 15 years ago, readers usually said something like this: The book makes you think about what a short story is.

Some of her stories were remarkably short.

I like short shorts. They were popular in the 1930s, when some magazine offered readers a short story that would fit on one page. The short short’s descendants have been known by other terms, including flash fiction and sudden fiction. The terms are still evolving.

Some of the thinking about the form of short shorts is interesting. But I think there might be a simple explanation.

Some writers do their best work when they can work through a draft in a single sitting. In earlier times, a Chekhov or a Tolstoy might have had all day — and perhaps all day for several days. Today’s writers seem to be living, and thus working, at a faster pace.

For example, Claudia Smith:

I found that I did my best work when I could write through a piece from beginning to end with­out much inter­rup­tion, and for a flash piece, that usu­al­ly was about a half hour. I’m not say­ing the piece would be fin­ished, just that I would have a draft done. 

Perhaps a lot of the theory about compressed form might be explained by the compressed time that a writer can give to a draft at any one sitting.

I imagine that most readers, like most writers, are living a faster pace. I’m one of those who appreciate the shorter stories. 

• Source: Tiffany Sumner, “Flash Interview: Claudia Smith Chen”; FlashFiction, April 10, 2014.