Flash: Stunning Short Fiction
Like flash-bang in an action movie
Like flash-bang in an action movie, flash fiction should stun the reader.
Neil Gaiman in his Master Class says short stories are the last chapter of a novel you didn’t have to write. The characters have a sense that they’ve been on their journey, things have happened, and they’ve finally reached the climax.
Gaiman’s description resonates because I am a long form writer, typically 80,000–100,000 words in each project, but I struggled with shorter forms. I would jokingly tell people that
Every short story I started turned into a novella, or worse, a full-length novel.
And then I discovered flash fiction. The constraints of flash fiction made staying short possible and necessary.
What is flash fiction?
Before defining, let’s clarify that flash pieces are not excerpts from longer work. Flash doesn’t typically cover thoughts and feelings, but rather they are “mini-movie forms” that use “characters, scene, action, and dialogue” (Sellers 429).
While the form typically leaves out the character’s thoughts and feelings, that doesn’t mean leaving elements like character and action out. An economy car and an SUV are vastly different in size, but they both have four wheels, car doors, engines, and steering wheels. Flash fiction and longer-form fiction still have to tell a story.
In general, avoid:
Avoid ending with a trick. Don’t end a story with a trick like “and then she woke up.” Those surprise endings no longer surprise, but they feel like a cheat to the reader.
Avoid ending with a joke (see above).
Avoid too many characters, but you can use a group identity as a character as Shoen does in her piece where “kids” and “teachers” are the characters.
Avoid thoughts and emotions. Let the reader’s emotions happen in reaction to the story and not a character’s internal dialogue.
Avoid stories without plots.
Avoid morality tales.
Instead, flash fiction pieces are short, offer a complete plot or story arc, and have a surprise or twist at the end.
Magazines, journals, and other publications don’t follow the same guidelines, which I think confuses the issue. They use different word counts or definitions. In some cases, they don’t even call it flash fiction, but sudden fiction, short shorts, or micro fiction, but in general, flash pieces are standalone stories that are:
1,500 words or less, although some journals limit the word count to between 250 and 750 words.
In fact, there’s a journal that publishes 100 word stories.
The magazine Brevity publishes flash nonfiction under 750 words.
These stories are:
Compressed
Detailed
Focused
Tense
Like all good fiction, flash fiction is designed to shed light on the human experience. The story should linger in the reader’s mind. There should be a turn or surprise at the end. Dinty Moore , who is the editor for Brevity magazine, compares flash pieces to smoke jumpers, those
“brave fire fighters who jump out of planes and land 30 yards from where the forest fire is burning. The writer starts the reader right at … the edge of the fire.”
Don’t just start in medias res; start at the edge of the fire so that the reader can feel the heat.
Read like a writer
The first thing to writing flash fiction is to read flash fiction. To adequately understand and practice flash fiction, it’s imperative to read like a writer. That simply means that we tear things apart to see how they’re made, so the next few examples are designed to get you to consider how the piece was created.
The first time you read a flash piece, read it for the story, but as a writer, you don’t want to think “that was a good story,” and then move to the next story. There’s little learning and reflection when you do this. Read the story again (and again) to figure out the mechanics; the what and how of the writing craft. Here are some questions to consider:
Does it feel like a complete story/story arc? Does it have a beginning, middle and end? (although you might start in the middle like Neil Gaiman).
What details give clues to the conflict? What about word choice and tone?
How many characters does it have? What details help characterize?
What imagery do you notice? Does the writer employ metaphor? How/where?
Where do you see the turn or change in direction?
What emotions does this story elicit? Does the write tell you those emotions? If not, what do you think caused this emotional reaction?
Examples of Flash Fiction
Neil Gaiman has a 100-word story “Nicholas” in this book Smoke and Mirrors, that demonstrates both the intense focus, the details and imagery, and the turn at the end. You can find a copy on Gaiman’s website.
Read the piece, and then re-read, asking yourself the questions I wrote about in the previous section. How the author achieved what he achieved?
When did you know who Nicholas was? Be honest, the first time you read, when did it click?
A slightly longer example is Pamela Painter’s “The New Year.” In this, we see a stronger attention to the details and imagery of the scene. It’s tightly focused, but still has that turn at the end. Read the piece, and then re-read, asking yourself questions from the previous section Read Like a Writer.
In many ways, flash fiction packs a more powerful punch because of its concise nature. Heather Sellers explains in The Practice of Creative Writing:
“In creative writing, it’s often said that the tighter the container, the more powerful the emotions the author can present to the reader. Because the flash form is compressed, writers are able to write about powerful, overwhelming subjects — betrayal, domestic abuse, lives imploding. In longer work, the reader might be overwhelmed with unrelenting heaviness. In flash, hot bursts of intensity work extremely well.” (Sellers 427–428).
An example of this is “Under the Shells” by Kaleigh Shoen in 100-word stories. Read the piece, and then re-read, asking yourself the questions from Read Like a Writer.
Titles
Titles in flash fiction matter. Like poetry, they set the expectation.
Titles can hint at theme such as they do in Shoen’s piece
Titles work as the first line, much the way Gaiman’s Nicholas does
Titles provide context as they do in Painter’s piece
Titles demonstrate a twist. When you look at Gaiman’s piece, once you get to the end, you put that together with the title, and you get that surprise of which Nicholas he’s writing about.
How to write flash fiction
Begin at the end. Remember Gaiman’s admonition that short story is the last chapter of a novel you didn’t have to write. Leave out the setup and the subplots.
Head straight for the climax of the story and stick to that one moment. In Painter’s story, the focus is on a server who is caught cheating, and the rest of the story represents the repercussions of that action.
Work with just one or two characters to help maintain focus. Gaiman’s focus is on Nicholas alone. In “Under the Shells,” Shoen groups the characters so we have two groups: “kids” and “teachers.”
Make sure to have a beginning, middle, and end. There is a sense of movement in flash fiction where each word pushes the narrative forward. Gaiman’s piece demonstrates this with his paragraphing.
Create conflict. To have conflict, one or more of the characters must have a goal. In Painter’s story, the narrator’s goal is to save his relationship with Gilda. The conflict exists in the pile of his stuff on her steps. In Shoen’s piece, the goal is survival and the conflict is the antagonist who is implied, but exists passively in the last line.
Create a turn at the end that leaves the reader on a different emotional tone than you started. Give the reader something to think about. Think about Gaiman’s last lines. “His punishment was harsher.” While the next, “Ho, ho, ho” is the surprise turn that makes the torture/punishment really sink in.
Focus on the details. Use strong imagery so each word you use counts. Think of Painter’s essay where imagery flows from the “glimmer like Gilda’s gold lame stockings” to the last image of the ham floating into the Pacific.
Create an evocative title. Since your word count is limited, let your title do some of the work. Some examples use the first line as title, like poetry, or offer a hint, such as Gaiman’s “Nicholas” about St. Nicholas. Others offer an overarching metaphor, like the clear backpacks in Shoen’s “Under the Shell.” It isn’t until you think about the clear knapsacks as their turtle shells that you see the full story. I’ve also read flash fiction that uses the title as the first line in the story, and the story isn’t clear if you skip the title. That one is a lesson in RTFQ: Read the full quote.
How to edit flash fiction
Pamela Painter says that the difference between a good story and a publishable story is revision. One of her suggestions is to write the first draft, and then cut it in half. Then cut it in half again, so if you started with a 1,000 word story, you end with 250 words. I’ve done this with flash fiction contests to narrow the story to fit the guidelines.
Practice compressed narrative. With compression, editing is the key. You may not have a short enough form until you’ve gone after the prose with a red pen (literal or metaphorical). Think of the line from Aladdin (the Robin Williams as Genie version): “PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWERS! [Shrinks down inside the lamp]. Itty-bitty living space.”
Write concisely. Hone your sentences until all the wordiness is elminated. Think along the lines of Gaiman’s piece. In 100 words, he helps to define a new element of Father Christmas’s experience, not as jolly Santa, but the man imprisoned like Sisyphus.
Read your work aloud. With flash fiction, the sound and cadence of the story is as important as the story arc. Read aloud to find the right word or phrase. It also helps eliminate errors like missing words.
Submitting flash fiction
While I enjoy writing for the sake of writing, there’s also value and joy in seeing your work published. Publishable flash fiction offers compression, language, character, and story. While the number of magazines and journals that accept flash fiction is high, I won’t list many here as submission guidelines change frequently.
Brilliant Flash Fiction accepts flash fiction for ongoing contests and anthologies. In addition, both Brevity and 100 word stories, both mentioned in the article, accept flash fiction and flash nonfiction. Both also use Submittable.
If you haven’t used Submittable, now is a good time to start. You can search for specific types of journals, types of creative writing, and by contests. This means that you can quickly “Discover” (Submittable’s term) who is publishing flash fiction at any given moment.
Prompt 1:
Create your own. Using one of the sample essays, create your own prompt.
Here’s an example, and then the idea is that you can use an existing piece to create your own prompt looking at additional samples. Look back at Gaiman’s “Nicholas.” It’s a 100–word story. Pick it apart. There are 4 paragraphs that represent the beginning, middle, and end. Try to do the same using the same number of sentences.
In the first paragraph, write 2 sentences that introduce your character.
In the second paragraph, he adds conflict. Note how Gaiman’s second paragraph is one sentence. Can you do the same?
In the third paragraph, he increases the tension to the point where Nicholas is sobbing. Increase the tension in your third paragraph with three sentences.
In the fourth paragraph, keep it short. No more than 3 sentences, and bring the story to conclusion with that final twist like Gaiman’s “Ho, ho, ho.”
Once it’s finished, read it aloud. Where is there unnecessary wordiness? Listen to how it sounds. Where can you change the words to make the imagery more evocative? Where can you add more details?
Now revise until it’s between 100 and 250 words.
Prompt 2:
Write a 1000 word story about a journey, and make sure it has a beginning, middle, and end.
Give it a conflict and characters.
Refine the details and imagery.
Now, cut the story in half.
Cut it in half again.
Now you should have a 250-word flash fiction story.
Cindy Skaggs is a writer, public speaker, and writing coach who holds an MFA from Pacific Lutheran University and an MA in Creative Writing from Regis University. She is an advocate for military and veteran issues, mom to two humans, and an armchair traveler. She is a native of Colorado where she teaches graduate and undergraduate creative writing.
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Resources:
Gaiman, Neil. “Nicholas.” Smoke and Mirrors.
Painter, Pamela. “The New Year.” Reprinted at Miramichi Flash, https://miramichiflash.miramichireader.ca/2021/04/23/the-new-year-by-pamela-painter/.
Sellers, Heather. The Practice of Creative Writing, 3rd edition. Bedford/St. Martins, 2017.
Shoen, Kayleigh. “Under the Shells.” 100 Word Stories.
Worley, Jeff. “The new short story: Dinty W. Moore cultivates flash nonfiction for the digital age.” Ohio.edu, 1 January 2013, https://www.ohio.edu/research/communications/dintywmoore.