mininarratives

Mininarratives are extremely brief narrative units designed to convey a complete or near-complete story in a compact form. Typically, they consist of a few sentences or even a single sentence, caption, or image with minimal accompanying text. Mininarratives emphasize concise diction, a focal moment, and often an emotional or revelatory insight that invites reader interpretation.

Key characteristics include compression of plot and context, reliance on suggestive imagery or symbolism, and openness to multiple readings. They frequently foreground everyday or mundane situations, small turning points, or sensory details that illuminate larger themes. Because of their brevity, mininarratives rely on shared cultural knowledge and reader inference to carry meaning beyond the literal text.

Origins and usage have emerged from related forms such as microfiction, flash fiction, and social-media storytelling. In academic, journalistic, and creative contexts, mininarratives are used to capture experiential fragments, to teach narrative technique, or to accompany multimedia content. They are also employed in research settings to elicit or document personal experiences in a concise, easily analyzable form, sometimes as qualitative data or prompts for reflection.

Relation to other forms: mininarratives sit between microfiction and traditional short stories, offering more narrative compression than longer forms while aiming for a more complete moment than standalone captions. They can function as standalone pieces or as components within larger works, such as blogs, databases, or study datasets.

Critiques note that extreme brevity can obscure context or marginalize complex identities if not handled carefully. When well-crafted, however, mininarratives provide accessible entry points to storytelling and offer rapid, resonant insights into everyday life. See also microfiction, flash fiction, nanofiction, narrative fragment.