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Flash Fiction Month is rolling up quickly! To help our participants along, we've asked SRSmith to contribute to our Writer's Resources with some tips on how to write flash fiction, which we think you'll find very useful. Thanks, Steve!
If you don't know what Flash Fiction Month is about yet, please check out our Very Sexy FAQ, and you can sign up with our other writers here!
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Tips For Writing Flash Fiction
by Stephen R. Smith with excerpts by Kathy Kachelries
In order to improve as a writer, you need feedback. It's difficult to write something the size of a novel, and equally difficult to carve out the time required to read one and provide any sort of meaningful critique on it. This severely handicaps the feedback loop so important for the aspiring writer.
Flash Fiction on the other hand allows you to exercise all of your story writing and editing skills while creating works that can be read in a few minutes. This makes it ideal for examining ideas, developing writing skills and getting the feedback needed to help elevate you in your craft. Note that while Flash Fiction stories can be read in a few minutes, you shouldn't expect to write them that quickly.
Kathy Kachelries, founder of 365tomorrows, had this to say about Flash Fiction:
"The most concise and widely-cited example of flash fiction is the story Ernest Hemingway penned, allegedly to settle a bar bet: For sale: baby shoes. Never worn. Despite the limitations of its length, this story, framed as an advertisement, satisfies all of the requirements of a short story: protagonist, conflict, and resolution. A reader imagines the person who wrote the ad: a parent torn apart by the loss of a stillborn or miscarried child. The reader senses the conflict: an incomprehensible feeling of loss, made all the more poignant by the fact that it is not directly addressed. Even the resolution is contained within that six-word masterpiece. By framing it as an advertisement, Hemingway allows us to see the protagonists coping mechanism: an attempt to distance him or herself from the loss by selling the only physical evidence that such a loss exists.
Not all short prose is flash fiction. Unlike the vignette or the prose poem, flash fiction adheres to the same conventions as a short story or novel. As demonstrated above, flash fiction gives readers a protagonist and a central conflict, and directs them to a resolution. Due to the constraints of the form, some elements can be implied rather than expressly stated, but a story that begins in media res still holds the shape of its unwritten beginning.
...
Flash fiction is fiction with its teeth bared and its claws extended, lithe and muscular with no extra fat. It pounces in the first paragraph, and if those claws arent embedded in the reader by the start of the second, the story began a paragraph too soon. There is no margin for error. Every word must be essential, and if it isnt essential, it must be eliminated."
Recognizing the requirements is one thing, writing Flash well is another entirely. When I started writing Flash, I routinely drafted stories of 1,500 words or more, and then tore them down to the limit, and it showed. It's impossible to cut away that much of a story without leaving the remains feeling picked carcass clean; structurally intact but with an apparent absence of meat.
With a piece of even 1,000 words, you should be able to hold the entire story in your head. I don't write anything down until I've played it out many times, establishing the voice of the characters, working out the dialogue and getting a sense of the flow. By doing that in my head, anything that's unnecessary naturally falls away; I don't have the head space to hold onto filler. Once I've got a story idea complete, I write it down. While outlining and writing more traditionally may work, it's far too easy to scaffold too large an idea to be effectively written in such a small space.
Once your story is written, edit mercilessly. If you're over the limit, your first task is to cut away superfluous words. If you find anything that isn't completely necessary, remove it. Sometimes the story that's 100 words under the limit is better than the same story with those words in. Kathy told me early on - "cut out everything you know you don't need, and half of what you think you do." Good advice that you should use.
That done, make the words that remain the best ones possible.
There are some key points that you should consider when writing Flash Fiction:
1. Write your first draft in your head, and rough edit it there. Not writing it down too soon will help minimize your story idea.
2. Don't get attached to your words. They are only words, and you'll write more. If it doesn't have to be in the story, cut it out.
3. Always be showing and keep the telling to a minimum. In an epic novel, you've got the reader long enough you can devote a chapter to telling the history of the world without losing them. In Flash, you've got them for less than 5 minutes. Show them everything, tell them only what you can't show them.
4. Engage the reader from the first few words. Hit the ground running, and at the end, leave them satisfied, but wanting more. Never leave them wanting less.
5. Pick the absolute best words. When you're writing at the most 1,000 words there's no excuse to use the same one twice in a paragraph. There's no reason to use mediocre language when you can use extraordinary language. Don't be too lofty for the sake of sounding clever, but if you can make your reader open a dictionary after reading your story, you've done a good thing.
6. Make the story complete, but brief. Protagonist, conflict, and resolution, some of which can be implied. You don't have to tie things up with a bow, but make the story complete.
7. Spellcheck, proofread, edit, spellcheck and proofread again. Again, this should be a given for any writer, but in a short piece there is absolutely no excuse for a typographical error. None. If you can't be responsible for 1,000 words and their correctness, you'll never be trusted with anything longer. Nothing ruins a story faster and more completely than a writer's apparent disregard for accuracy.
8. Reread point number 7., it's important.
Flash Fiction can be a tremendous amount of fun, and at the same time incredibly valuable while you evolve as a writer. If you can pack an entire story into 500 words, imagine what you can fit into a novel. By developing the skills required to write Flash Fiction effectively, you'll make everything you write tighter and more impactful, and that's something you should always be looking to do.
_____________________________________
Thanks again to the lovely SRSmith for those tips, and we hope to see you at Flash-Fic-Month for 31 days of flash fic fun!
If you don't know what Flash Fiction Month is about yet, please check out our Very Sexy FAQ, and you can sign up with our other writers here!
_____________________________________

by Stephen R. Smith with excerpts by Kathy Kachelries
In order to improve as a writer, you need feedback. It's difficult to write something the size of a novel, and equally difficult to carve out the time required to read one and provide any sort of meaningful critique on it. This severely handicaps the feedback loop so important for the aspiring writer.
Flash Fiction on the other hand allows you to exercise all of your story writing and editing skills while creating works that can be read in a few minutes. This makes it ideal for examining ideas, developing writing skills and getting the feedback needed to help elevate you in your craft. Note that while Flash Fiction stories can be read in a few minutes, you shouldn't expect to write them that quickly.
Kathy Kachelries, founder of 365tomorrows, had this to say about Flash Fiction:
"The most concise and widely-cited example of flash fiction is the story Ernest Hemingway penned, allegedly to settle a bar bet: For sale: baby shoes. Never worn. Despite the limitations of its length, this story, framed as an advertisement, satisfies all of the requirements of a short story: protagonist, conflict, and resolution. A reader imagines the person who wrote the ad: a parent torn apart by the loss of a stillborn or miscarried child. The reader senses the conflict: an incomprehensible feeling of loss, made all the more poignant by the fact that it is not directly addressed. Even the resolution is contained within that six-word masterpiece. By framing it as an advertisement, Hemingway allows us to see the protagonists coping mechanism: an attempt to distance him or herself from the loss by selling the only physical evidence that such a loss exists.
Not all short prose is flash fiction. Unlike the vignette or the prose poem, flash fiction adheres to the same conventions as a short story or novel. As demonstrated above, flash fiction gives readers a protagonist and a central conflict, and directs them to a resolution. Due to the constraints of the form, some elements can be implied rather than expressly stated, but a story that begins in media res still holds the shape of its unwritten beginning.
...
Flash fiction is fiction with its teeth bared and its claws extended, lithe and muscular with no extra fat. It pounces in the first paragraph, and if those claws arent embedded in the reader by the start of the second, the story began a paragraph too soon. There is no margin for error. Every word must be essential, and if it isnt essential, it must be eliminated."
Recognizing the requirements is one thing, writing Flash well is another entirely. When I started writing Flash, I routinely drafted stories of 1,500 words or more, and then tore them down to the limit, and it showed. It's impossible to cut away that much of a story without leaving the remains feeling picked carcass clean; structurally intact but with an apparent absence of meat.
With a piece of even 1,000 words, you should be able to hold the entire story in your head. I don't write anything down until I've played it out many times, establishing the voice of the characters, working out the dialogue and getting a sense of the flow. By doing that in my head, anything that's unnecessary naturally falls away; I don't have the head space to hold onto filler. Once I've got a story idea complete, I write it down. While outlining and writing more traditionally may work, it's far too easy to scaffold too large an idea to be effectively written in such a small space.
Once your story is written, edit mercilessly. If you're over the limit, your first task is to cut away superfluous words. If you find anything that isn't completely necessary, remove it. Sometimes the story that's 100 words under the limit is better than the same story with those words in. Kathy told me early on - "cut out everything you know you don't need, and half of what you think you do." Good advice that you should use.
That done, make the words that remain the best ones possible.
There are some key points that you should consider when writing Flash Fiction:
1. Write your first draft in your head, and rough edit it there. Not writing it down too soon will help minimize your story idea.
2. Don't get attached to your words. They are only words, and you'll write more. If it doesn't have to be in the story, cut it out.
3. Always be showing and keep the telling to a minimum. In an epic novel, you've got the reader long enough you can devote a chapter to telling the history of the world without losing them. In Flash, you've got them for less than 5 minutes. Show them everything, tell them only what you can't show them.
4. Engage the reader from the first few words. Hit the ground running, and at the end, leave them satisfied, but wanting more. Never leave them wanting less.
5. Pick the absolute best words. When you're writing at the most 1,000 words there's no excuse to use the same one twice in a paragraph. There's no reason to use mediocre language when you can use extraordinary language. Don't be too lofty for the sake of sounding clever, but if you can make your reader open a dictionary after reading your story, you've done a good thing.
6. Make the story complete, but brief. Protagonist, conflict, and resolution, some of which can be implied. You don't have to tie things up with a bow, but make the story complete.
7. Spellcheck, proofread, edit, spellcheck and proofread again. Again, this should be a given for any writer, but in a short piece there is absolutely no excuse for a typographical error. None. If you can't be responsible for 1,000 words and their correctness, you'll never be trusted with anything longer. Nothing ruins a story faster and more completely than a writer's apparent disregard for accuracy.
8. Reread point number 7., it's important.
Flash Fiction can be a tremendous amount of fun, and at the same time incredibly valuable while you evolve as a writer. If you can pack an entire story into 500 words, imagine what you can fit into a novel. By developing the skills required to write Flash Fiction effectively, you'll make everything you write tighter and more impactful, and that's something you should always be looking to do.
_____________________________________
Thanks again to the lovely SRSmith for those tips, and we hope to see you at Flash-Fic-Month for 31 days of flash fic fun!
Flash Fiction Month 2022 Is Upon Us!
Hark, the herald angels sing; GLORY TO THE FFM. Again, and again, and again we rise in righteous glory to bring forth the most anticipated literature event in the world*! Yes indeed, wordsmiths, littérateurs, and scriveners, we are here to celebrate the THIRTEENTH annual sojourn into the wild depths of madness to write for thirty one days straight– WELCOME TO FLASH FICTION MONTH 2022! *Our lovely Hydra-lic world. Here. On dA. Flash Fiction Month kicks off this year on Friday the 13th! Actually, it's the thirteenth on the first. Well, more accurately it's Friday, July 1st, the 13th year of Flash Fiction Month. Haven't signed up yet? DO IT NOW. :stare: MOREOVER! You may have noticed a theme in the last sentence. Yes! Precisely! It's Flash Fiction Month. For the thirteenth time. Don't know what Flash Fiction Month is? Find out the answers to your burning questions right here. 2022 News for Veterans and Newbies alike: 1. Scales et al.: We are working with a skeleton crew
FFM 2022 Sign-Up Page
Something sinister is coming. It slithers. It runs. It flies. It crawls. It stops and looks at you. It starts galloping straight towards you, papers full of words detailing the screams of the damned souls flying in its wake like a startled murder of crows. It’s yelling something about word counts and an ungodly challenge. You know exactly what it is. We know what you're thinking: It's dangerous. It's unseemly. It definitely doesn't fit in with my schedule! Writing 31 flash fiction stories in 31 days? Only a madman would undertake such a foolish venture. But luckily we're all mad here. If you'd like a chance to stretch your creative muscles, and push your fictional prowess to the limit, Flash Fiction Month is the event for you. Are you ready for a month of prompts, challenges, mixed metaphors and literary contortion-ism? Are you ready to witness the horrors, and wonders that lie beyond? Not sure what Flash Fiction Month is? Check out our shiny FAQ for all the sordid details,
Flash Fiction Month 2022 - DANGER Will Robinson!
Hark! Yes, you read that correctly. Flash-Fic-Month is in danger! Hydra, the all seeing, all powerful beast is on the brink of extinction, and with that falls the mighty Flash Fiction Month, this delicious literature event that we've been running since 2009. We need volunteers in order to make this year happen. We need Hydra heads and we need Judges, but we can only look for judges if we have the infrastructure to run the event. Now, before you starting jonesing for it, please read the koalafications below. Hydra Head Requirements :bulletblue: COMMITTED: #1, first and foremost, above all things, hallelujah amen, Actually Available. Almost nothing else matters but this. Quite literally. Can you read? Doesn't matter. Be here. Now, we get that people have lives, because it'd be weird otherwise unless you’re a blob of neurons floating in space (no offense to any neurons floating in space, please apply), and truly that is why we have an evil, er, magnificent council of flesh--no
Flash Fiction Month 2021: Golden Mug Awards!
You'd almost given up hope, but here it is at last... These last couple of months have broken our hearts and maimed our limbs, but at last the (slightly worse for wear) Hydra have crawled back from the brink to deliver unto you the final FFM 2021 announcements. After great delay, and many hours of toil and judgement, we are delighted to bring you winners of the SECOND annual Golden Mug Awards!! (On account of Eclipse, this is best viewed on a computer; we can't guarantee the behavior of formatting gremlins in any other format. ) After last year's success with the inaugural Golden Mug Awards (or GMA's for the cool kids) we wanted to go big, and go bold! We asked the community for suggestions, and stocked the category shelves to the brim, and well... honestly we all probably got a little carried away. :giggle: But we have no regrets! We're going to start things off with the returning categories from last year, and then we'll dive into the new story/genre specific categories.
© 2009 - 2022 Flash-Fic-Month
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Point 7, yeah.