Review: Two-Fisted Tweets by James Hutchings

Title: Two-Fisted Tweets

Author: James Hutchings

Published: Smashwords Feb 2011

Sypnosis: Thirty mostly humorous stories, including science fiction, fantasy, horror and romance. Each story is less than 140 characters long (the length of a Twitter tweet).

Status: Read on March 11, 2011 — I own a copy

My Thoughts:

I hadn’t heard of ‘Flash Fiction’ until Hutchings approached me to read Two Fisted Tweets. Curiosity, and that James is a fellow Australian, saw me accept his work even though I had no clear idea how to review it.
A little bit of googling informs me that the style, with its limited word length, forces some of the traditional story elements: protagonist, conflict, obstacles or complications, and resolution, to remain unwritten, that is, hinted at or implied in the written storyline. A famous example of the style is Ernest Hemmingway “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” With Twitter’s popularity, the idea has had a ressurgence and there are several websites (and twitter feeds) devoted to Twitter Fiction – a story told in 140 characters or less.
So, based on my limited understanding of the goal of this type of fiction, Hutchings has created some interesting stories, though I think some work better than others. My favourite’s included a malfuctioning time machine and Thomas the Tank Engine’s inner monologue. One or two seem more like punchlines to a joke.
I imagine its an incredible challenge to tell an original story in only a few words. To be successful, I also think the reader has to be willing to look for the subtleties and perhaps have a similar frame of reference to the author.
Two-Fisted Tweets contains just 30 stories and so is an extremely short read. I am not sure Flash Fiction will be a reading interest of mine, but the challenge of writing it could be interesting. I’d like to thank James Hutchings for making me aware of this unique new form of fiction. Two-Fisted Tweets is currently available at Smashwords to download at your chosen price.

@ Goodreads

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