Vignette

A vignette (French for “little vine” ) is a short passage that uses imagery to describe a subject in great detail. Using highly descriptive language, a vignette helps readers to visualise a character, a place, or a moment.

The term is also used to describe a stand-alone piece that exists for the same purpose: to describe a character, a place, or a moment. This will be very brief, but should not be confused with a short story or a piece of flash fiction. The major difference here is that short stories and flash fiction are still complete works, whereas a vignette is not a whole story and doesn’t attempt to be one. A short story or piece of flash fiction features a protagonist and a central conflict – and it progresses through time. A vignette might describe an interesting scene or predicament, but it doesn’t include conflict (why ‘X’ can’t have ‘Y’) and no time passes during the passage of text.

Many of the shorter fetish stories on transgender fiction sites are not stories at all, but in fact vignettes.

Vignettes also feature within a longer piece of writing, offering a descriptive interlude. The author should take time out from the plot and feel free to break all the usual rules of plot structure, to zoom right in on a particular character’s viewpoint, presenting it as a snapshot.