Passage 5

Questions 21-25 are based on the following passage.

Many editors and writers today define flash fiction as a story ranging from a few words to not usually over 1,500 to 2000 words (but more often less than 1.000 words). A traditional short story ranges from 3,000 to 20,000 words, so flash fiction is considerably shorter. However, while length can help identify flash fiction, it is of little use in actually defining it.

The amorphous and variable quality of flash fiction allows for the constant changing of shapes as these stories draw and develop from various genres and traditions to create stand-alone stories that often work on their own terms. Countless writers are involved in writing flash fiction in various ways. Many are involved in following the form's long tradition, and many others are reinventing the form as they continue to experiment with the boundaries and methods of fiction, These shortest of stories are not always diversions for the moment but are often stories that are profound and memorable -as good fiction of longer lengths can be.

Charles Baxter notes in the introduction to Sudden Fiction International 60 Short Short Stories, "This form is not about to be summarized by anyone's ideas about it. The stories are on so many various thresholds: they are between poetry and fiction, the story and the sketch, prophecy and reminiscence, the personal and the crowd. As a form, they are open, and exist in a state of potential.

Some names for flash fiction are chosen to stress brevity, suggesting that such stories can be read or even written in a flash. Other names are chosen to emphasize the way in which the stories affect and enlighten readers. And still other names are chosen for the way in which they cause readers to perform the act of reading. many times forcing them to slow down and read such pieces as slowly and carefully as they would read good poetry.

Even though this type of writing travels by several names, flash fiction has become the most popular label, likely because of its snappy poetic consonance, which makes it easy to hold in memory, and because of its distance from the older, less descriptive term "short-shorts". More and more writers, editors, and readers use "flash fiction" to refer to very short stories.

 Flash fiction usually refers to a story ranging from a few words to ______