Tips for Wrting Flash Fiction

With the advent of the Internet, editors are looking for shorter works, more easily read on a computer screen. The current term is flash fiction, a tale between 300-1000 words long. Longer than micro-fiction (10-300 words) but shorter than traditional short stories, flash fiction is usually a story of a single act, sometimes the culmination of several unwritten events.

1. The small idea

Look for the smaller ideas in larger ones. To discuss the complex interrelationship of parents and children you would need a novel. Go for a smaller piece of that complex issue. How kids feel when they are not included in a conversation. What kids do when they are bored in the car. Middle child. Bad report card. Find a smaller topic and build on it.

2. Bury the preamble in the opening

When you write your story, do not take two pages to explain all the pre-story. Find a way to set it all in the first paragraph, then get on with the rest of the tale.

3. Start in the middle of the action

Start the story in the middle of the action. A man is running. A bomb is about to go off. A monster is in the house. Do not describe any more than you have to. The reader can fill in some of the blanks.

4. Focus on one powerful image

Find one powerful image to focus your story on. A war-torn street. An alien sunset. They say a picture worth a thousand words. Paint a picture with words. It does not hurt to have something happen inside that picture. It is a story after all.

5. Make the reader guess until the end

A little mystery goes a long way. Your reader may have no idea what is going on for the majority of the story. This will lure them on to the end. When they finish, there should be a good pay off or solution.

6. Use a twist

The twist ending allows the writer to pack some punch at the end of the story. Flash fiction is often twist-ending fiction because you do not have enough time to build up sympathetic characters and show how a long, devastating plot has affected them. Like a good joke, flash fiction is often streamlined to the punch-line at the end.