"Flat Diane" is a novelette by American author Daniel Abraham. It first appeared in ''

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction ''The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction'' (usually referred to as ''F&SF'') is a U.S. fantasy and science fiction magazine first published in 1949 by Mystery House, a subsidiary of Lawrence Spivak's Mercury Press. Editors Anthony Boucher a ...

'' in October 2004, and was nominated for the 2005

Nebula Award The Nebula Awards annually recognize the best works of science fiction or fantasy published in the United States. The awards are organized and awarded by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA), a nonprofit association of profe ...

, and won the 2005

International Horror Guild Award The International Horror Guild Award (also known as the IHG Award) was an accolade recognizing excellence in the field of Horror fiction, horror/dark fantasy, presented by the International Horror Guild (IHG) from 1995 to 2008. The IHG Awards wer ...

Jeff Jeff is a masculine name, often a short form (hypocorism) of the English given name Jefferson or Jeffrey, which comes from a medieval variant of Geoffrey. Music * DJ Jazzy Jeff, American DJ/turntablist record producer Jeffrey Allen Townes * ...

and

Ann VanderMeer Ann VanderMeer (née Kennedy) is an American publisher and editor, and the second female editor of the horror magazine ''Weird Tales''. She is the founder of Buzzcity Press. Work from her press and related periodicals has won the British Fantasy ...

included the story in their 2011 reprint anthology ''

The Weird ''The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories'' is an anthology of weird fiction edited by Ann and Jeff VanderMeer. Published on 30 Oct 2011, it contains 110 short stories, novellas and short novels. At 1,152 pages in the hardcover editi ...

''. Inspired by

The Flat Stanley Project The Flat Stanley Project is an educational project that was started in 1995 by Dale Hubert, a third grade schoolteacher in London, Ontario, Canada. The project features paper cut-outs based on the title character of the 1964 children's book ''F ...

, it tells the story of a father who helps his daughter create a paper outline of herself. They send the outline to friends, with instructions to take a picture of themselves with it, send back the picture, and send the outline on to another friend. The daughter, Diane, begins to show signs of knowing things that only the paper outline "Flat Diane" could have witnessed, and shortly after Diane begins having nightmares of torture and molestation the father receives photographs showing that Flat Diane has "fallen into the wrong hands".

References

2004 short stories Science fiction short stories {{2000s-sf-story-stub