NUNUM - A Canadian Literary Journal dedicated to Flash Fiction
  • NUNUM
  • Current Issue
  • Archive
    • 2020
    • 2019
    • 2018
  • Contributors
    • Winter 2020
    • Fall 2020
    • Summer 2020
    • Spring 2020
    • Winter 2019
    • Fall 2019
    • Summer 2019
    • Spring 2019
    • Winter 2018
    • Fall 2018
    • Summer 2018
    • Spring 2018
  • Nominations
    • Nominations 2020
    • Nominations 2019
    • Nominations 2018
  • Anthology
  • Consultation
  • Manifesto
  • Blog
  • Shop
  • Masthead
  • Resources
  • Submissions

Nuts & Bolts of the NUNUM Aesthetic: Part 3

2/3/2018

0 Comments

 

NUNUM - Blending Flash Fiction & Art

Nuts & Bolts of the NUNUM Aesthetic: Part 3

I thought we were talking about how Flash Fiction works?

Picture

​In flash fiction, the soil is the

​brain of the reader and the associations held in it, and just as the farmers’ in the 1390s needed to know about the conditions of the soil to get their crops growing, a writer of flash fiction needs to understand the brain into which their work is going. To begin, it is necessary to understand how the brain is when life begins. 

However obvious it might be to anyone that they do have a

brain; the native state of it is still a somewhat unanswered question for the field of psychology. There are however, two major yet completely opposite camps to use as departure points – it is empty when we start or it comes preloaded with inherited knowledge/memories. Empty is clear enough, there is nothing there and a person simply acquires information via their senses through stimulus from, at first, elements of their environment and then later also through exercising cognitive reasoning with previously attained knowledge to create new understandings of themselves and/or their surroundings. This theory of the brain is commonly known as tabula rasa and has been in existence at least since the writings of Aristotle in 4 BC (Aristotle, 1936). The other theory, perhaps most popularized by Karl Jung, is not as easily defined, as there are a variety of theories pertaining to both the suspected content and the commonality of the preloaded knowledge or memories within each individual. In the case of Jung, he believed a person has access to a collective unconscious within which there exist archetypes or ideas, which assist a person to shape, their beliefs towards and understanding of, the reality they inhabit (Cherry, n.d.). Taking this or any of the other prominent theories currently in season in the field of psychology related to the native state of the brain, there is one premise constant among them all – some amount of knowledge is inherent and is not learned but rather discovered by the individual. So there it stands, empty, ready and waiting or influenced by one or more eternal notions but ready to get more nonetheless. 

Here though it does not matter; the amount or content of any

pre-existing knowledge does not impact on how flash fiction works, just as it does not matter if there is something there or nothing there when someone is born. What is fundamental is that regardless of what any theory states concerning the native contents; all theories agree that new information is acquired through time. Furthermore, these theories all suppose that this new information does not rest in a state of isolation – it mixes with what is already inside the individual to create a new knowledge base. This means new knowledge connects to old knowledge, which existed before it and through this process becomes more than a single, isolated piece of data; it becomes associated. ​

flash fiction theory, literary theory, writing craft, how to write flash fiction, how to write sudden fiction, how to write nano fiction, how to write microfiction

NUNUM

Blending Flash Fiction & Art

Current Issue
Meet an Artist
Read Part 4
Picture
References
Aristotle, On the Soul (De Anima), W. S. Hett (trans.), pp. 1–203 in Aristotle,Volume 8, Loeb Classical Library, William Heinemann, London, UK, 1936
Cherry, K. (n.d.). Archetypes: Jung’s Archetypes. Retrieved from http://psychology.about. com/od/personality development/tp/archetypes.htm
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Author

    NUNUM

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    September 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018

    Categories

    All
    Art
    Craft Essays
    Interviews
    MFA Dispatch
    Reviews

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • NUNUM
  • Current Issue
  • Archive
    • 2020
    • 2019
    • 2018
  • Contributors
    • Winter 2020
    • Fall 2020
    • Summer 2020
    • Spring 2020
    • Winter 2019
    • Fall 2019
    • Summer 2019
    • Spring 2019
    • Winter 2018
    • Fall 2018
    • Summer 2018
    • Spring 2018
  • Nominations
    • Nominations 2020
    • Nominations 2019
    • Nominations 2018
  • Anthology
  • Consultation
  • Manifesto
  • Blog
  • Shop
  • Masthead
  • Resources
  • Submissions