ANNOUNCEMENT:
The Second Irregular Flash Stroke Festival begins on October 14,
2005, and lasts for one month, until November 14, 2005.
RULES:
- Write a bradley, double-bradley, or some other variant.
- Post it to alt.sex.stories.moderated, or to your website, or to your blog, or mail it to me. Include [SIFSF] in the subject line to
mark it as part of the festival. Let me know if you want me to include
it in the official archive page.
DEFINITIONS:
- bradley:
- 1. A stroke story that is no more than eighteen lines long,
including the title and blank lines, and no more than seventy columns
wide. 2. A story short enough to fit onto the screen of Mat Twassel's
computer. Offers to just buy him a larger monitor have been ignored.
- double-bradley:
- A stroke story with a one-line title and a 34-line
body. A strict double-bradley consists of two seventeen-line segments,
each with a beginning, middle, and end.
- flash fiction:
- A short-short story. Different venues will
have different definitions, usually--but not always--in terms of word
count. Ideally, flash should have strong characters, setting, and
plot despite its brevity.
- stroke fiction:
- Writing with the primary purpose of causing
arousal. In the most compelling and honest stroke fiction, the person
the author is trying to arouse is herself.
- variants:
- Like the sonnet, the detective novel, and the delta blues song, the
bradley and double-bradley are literary forms with strict structural
and thematic rules. And, as with the sonnet, the detective novel, and
the delta blues song, different artists will adhere to these rules
with varying degrees of faithfulness.
ELIGIBILITY:
All sentient beings in the universe are invited to participate, especially you. Yeah, you. What, you think writing eighteen lines is gonna kill you? Come on—try it. You'll have fun, I promise.
PRIZES:
From Mat's original FAQ:
"The readers are the judges. The stories are their prizes. The readers
are the writers' prizes. Take care of each other, that's part of what
this festival is all about. If you like a story, tell the
writer. This being a flash stroke festival, a lot of words aren't
necessary; in fact, simple symbols might suffice. I suggest using !,
*, o, or @ to show your pleasure."
HISTORY:
This event is a sequel to the Bradley Stoke Flash Stroke Festival of
2003, organized by Mat Twassel. He maintains the archive of the rules and stories from that
festival, which makes a much
better introduction to the form than this stupid old document you're
currently skimming.
When the current organizer, Vinnie Tesla, asked Mat to MC another
round this year, Mat asked Vinnie to do it himself.
PEP TALK
Brian Eno on composing the Windows 95 startup sound:
'The thing from the agency said, ``We want a piece of music that is
inspiring, universal, blah- blah, da-da-da, optimistic, futuristic,
sentimental, emotional,'' this whole list of adjectives, and then at
the bottom it said ``and it must be 3 1/4 seconds long.''
'I thought this was so funny and an amazing thought to actually try to
make a little piece of music. It's like making a tiny little jewel.
'In fact, I made 84 pieces. I got completely into this world of tiny,
tiny little pieces of music. I was so sensitive to microseconds at the
end of this that it really broke a logjam in my own work. Then when
I'd finished that and I went back to working with pieces that were
like three minutes long, it seemed like oceans of time.'