Flash Fiction

1. Flash Fiction Micro-fiction, Short-Shorts, Sudden Fiction, Micro Narrative, Postcard Fiction,Smoke Long, Palm-sized Stories, Sawed-off Tales

2. Features of flash • Extreme brevity (300-1000) • Early practitioners: Anton Chekhov, Franz Kafka, O. Henry, H.P. Lovecraft, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., Ernest Hemingway, Ray Bradbury • “For Sale, Baby Shoes, Never Worn.” sometimes attributed to Hemingway • Blurs lines between narrative and poetry, though it is not the same as prose poem • Contains all the elements of fiction, though some remain “unwritten” • Often creates more intensity and resonance than traditional fiction “… nimble, nippy little thing[s] that [can] turn on a sixpence and accelerate quickly away.” ~ David Gaffney

3. Show me it’s not vignette • Limited word length forces some elements to remain Unwritten hinted at  implied in the storyline, but still there… still complete • Poetic elements: imagery, metaphor, symbols help convey meaning • Some aspects condensed, more punch: desire/yearning and meaning, esp. • Must consider its effect on you: Is your capacity for empathy enlarged  this is change, according to Burroway • Passes the vignette test: yearning, change (enlarged capacity for empathy in us), meaning

4. How to write it: David Gaffney • Start in the middle: No time to set scenes and build character • Don’t use too many characters: Don’t describe them or even name them, unless it conveys a lot of additional story info or saves words elsewhere • Make sure the ending isn’t at the end: Avoid punch line endings by giving almost all the info we need in the first few lines, using the next few paragraphs to take us on a journey below the surface • Sweat your title: Make it work for a living

5. Make your last line ring like a bell: The last line is not the ending – we had that in the middle, remember – but it should leave the reader with something which will continue to sound after the story has finished. It should take us into a new place…where we continue to think about the ideas and wonder what it meant. A story that gives itself up in the last line is no story at all, … we should be struggling to understand it, and in this way will grow to love it as a beautiful enigma. • Write long, then go short: Create a lump of stone from which you can chip out your story sculpture. Stories can live much more cheaply than you realize. But do beware: writing micro-fiction is for some like holidaying in a caravan—the grill may well fold out to become an extra bed, but you wouldn’t sleep in a fold-out grill for the rest of your life. (tips from “Stories in your pocket: how to write flash fiction” at www.theguardian.com)

6. Dangers • Avoid purple prose: if it sounds like writing, rewrite it, as Elmore Leonard says • Adjectives are anthrax • Whatever you’ve heard about drabbles, forget it. This is nothing like that.

7. Economy: Ways to save • Don’t waste words. Use only what’s necessary. • Don’t repeat what’s already been said • Choose the “less is more” path to revealing info • Think as you would in a tweet: every character-space counts. Sweat your sentences, even your punctuation. What’s truly needed?

8. Boil down every element: character, setting, plot, POV, theme. Think concision. If I free-based this character, distilled him to his most essential nature, what would he be? (Read “Note to Self” for examples) • Make the gaps and silences work for you, esp. with setting. Readers will fill in what’s unwritten, but you must hint. A hint is enough. • Use metaphor. Remember, a picture is worth a thousand words. One rightly place metaphor speaks volumes but takes up little space. • Build conflict (arising from some deep desire/yearning) into the language itself. You’re not building traditional scenes with action and exposition. You’re hinting, but use words that have heft to them. • Refrain from secondary conflicts. Let us gaze upon one thing that matters.

9. Writing exercise: Try this • Using the full-length story (3,128 words)“Jealous Husband Returns in Form of Parrot” by Robert Olen Butler as your lump of stone, cut away the flash version • First aim for 2,500 words • Then try 1,500 • Can you go lower? • Refer to the 3 stories from Vestal Review: “Intercourse” by RO Butler, “Note to Self” by Tracy Guzeman, and “Lungs Once Pink and Fragile” by Ashley Nisslerto help guide you