Flash Club Live: Christopher Allen's "Otters at the Zoo"

This Flash Club looked closely at Christopher Allen’s “Otters at the Zoo,” a flash that asks us to trust emotional truth over literal truth. We spent much of our conversation following a single repeated phrase, my imaginary son, watching how it changes each time it returns. The words themselves never change, but our relationship to them does. What begins as playful slowly gathers tenderness, longing, grief, uncertainty until “imaginary” almost stops mattering altogether.

We also talked about the way Allen grounds an impossible premise with concrete, everyday details. Carrot sticks become a measure of time. Churros, search results, an endless stream of otter facts keep the world feeling so tangible that we eventually stop asking whether the son is real and start paying more attention to what the narrator is experiencing. We found ourselves noticing multiple hinges within the piece, both the obvious plot turn and the quieter emotional shift that follows, reminding us that a flash can change direction more than once while still feeling inevitable.

Take five minutes to make a list of five or six noun phrases.

The extra key.
The empty room.
The blue suitcase.
My imaginary son.

Choose the one that feels like it has somewhere to go.

Now write a flash that repeats that exact noun phrase six times. Don’t change the wording. Instead, let the meaning evolve with each return. By the final repetition, the phrase should carry a different emotional weight than it did at the beginning.

As Bill reminded us during our discussion: the words don’t have to change. The feeling behind them does.

We also asked CL a few questions about his process…

Your stories cover enormous emotional territory in few words. What kind of information are you likely to cut during revision? How do you decide when you’ve removed enough that the reader is participating and not merely confused?

Thank you. I don’t want readers to be confused, but as a reader I’m also fine with a narrative that warrants multiple readings. A text that challenges the reader isn’t a bad thing. In terms of removing information, distillation increases flavor, right? Or like when you reduce a sauce? I teach my workshop participants to chisel away everything that’s not the art in the stone, so of course I try to do the same. I hope I’m successful at it, but I think I’m a better teacher, editor and reader than a writer. Flash writers do run the risk of having read our own work so many times that we can’t see what’s missing or, worse, what’s flabby. It’s important to get honest feedback from someone who wants you to win prizes.

Your stories often make me laugh or smile before delivering something painful, lowering my guard before deeper emotional material arrives. Is this intentional? How do you know when you’ve pushed too far toward humor or tragedy?

I’ve had workshop mates tell me that a scene fell flat or that the quirky ha-ha bit left them scratching their head. So again, I think it’s important to have someone read your work who’ll tell you when you’ve gone too far. But I have internalized this snooty editor who’ll do this for me. If you set a story aside for a couple of weeks, you’re likely to approach the draft more objectively, seeing slips into jokey or maudlin prose. And even then, I can think of a few stories I’ve published that some readers would say are too sentimental. I’m kind of a sap, especially if there’s pop music playing.

Humor—biting sarcasm mostly—is just a distraction I’ve always used to deal with pain.

Your stories feel larger than the space they occupy. Reading them I get the sense that there are entire novels worth of history and possibility just beyond the edge of the page. What tells you a particular idea belongs in 1000 words instead of 5000 or 50,000?

Thank you. This feeling of expansiveness is one aspect of the flash narrative that interests me the most. I think there are two questions here. A successful flash narrative suggests the world enveloping the moment and accomplishes this in a different way than longer narrative forms do. Amy Bender, in an interview I conducted with her last year, described the difference between the flash narrative and longer narrative forms best, so I’ll just paraphrase her with much respect for her brilliance. A flash narrative feels like it’s rushing toward the ending—like the ending is a big fat magnet (my words)—while in longer narrative forms the ending is constantly being delayed or the plot is constantly being complicated. And both are interesting approaches to the narrative, just different—some might even say opposite.

What’s something you’re trying to get better at as a writer?

Definitely finding the time to do it. In 2018, I took the reins to SmokeLong, becoming the owner of the journal in 2022. We read more than 14,000 submissions a year (see next question), and I run the year-round community workshop SmokeLong Fitness. Finding time for my own writing these days is a challenge. I do love teaching and editing though.

What have you read recently that really lit you up?

Because I read dozens of SmokeLong submissions a day when I wake up, my eyes want to do other things afterwards (like naps). It’s unusual that I have the time to read outside my job. I have, however, recently read Chuck Palahniuk’s Not Forever but for Now. Chuck makes me giggle. I love his characters with all my heart. I’m giggling right now. I’m rereading Amy Hempel’s The Collected Stories and Sing to It because I’ll be interviewing her later in the summer. Amy was one of the first flash writers I read in the 90s, so I always feel at home when I’m reading her work. Gillian O’Shaughnessy’s collection of micro and flash, Salt City Runaway, is a solid well-crafted collection. Salt City Runaway is published by Night Parrot Press in Western Australia. We have a discounted ebook in The Village, and I’m happy to talk more about how your readers outside of Australia can get that. Kim Magowan’s The Last Day also just came out from Moon City Press. It’s a fantastic collection. OK, my eyes are working I guess. Oh, and I’m just about to tear into Ryan Ridge and Mel Bosworth’s Climate Strange, which I’m sure will be nuts. I can’t wait.

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