Just One Thing with Charles Brown

Charles Brown’s November issue flash “Catching Light” takes us all for a hike in the woods. Here he shares just one thing about the piece:

“‘Catching Light’ began as an attempt at a piece of meta-flash where I was writing to an audience (you) and telling the audience to imagine a character, and then I would predict what kind of character my imagined audience might imagine with the goal of turning the act of imagination back onto itself and locating a story within that space of communication and projection. It was, I think, a subconscious attempt at answering for myself that question of why I was writing. But I never finished the original piece in the way I intended. Imagination proved too expansive, and by the time all was said and done, I ended up with four or five different characters with their own stories, of which ‘Catching Light’ was one. ‘Catching Light’ was unique though because it was my first attempt at answering that subconscious question, and it required further prompting (thank you to Matt Bell’s writing exercise newsletter) to understand that in order to do so, I was writing toward something other than conflict. I was writing toward joy.”