Image Credits:- Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay images. Many thanks to Penny Blackburn for taking the images of me at The Writers’ Summer School, Swanwick 2024. Many thanks to Gill James for taking the image of me reading at the 2023 Bridge House Publishing Celebration event (and it was a cold day!).
As some of you will know, I discovered flash fiction by accident. It is easily the happiest writing accident I have ever had/am likely to have and I’m grateful for it. Two published books later with a third accepted – well, it’s the kind of accident any writer would welcome.
CafeLit, with whom I’d been published for a while, issued a 100 word challenge and I gave it a go, discovered the form is addictive and I’ve not looked back.
These days I regularly write 100 word stories for Friday Flash Fiction, judge flash fiction competitions, speak to writing groups on the topic, and I run the monthly Association of Christian Writers Flash Fiction group which meets on Zoom. I guess it’s fair to say then flash fiction has changed my writing life and taken it in directions I hadn’t anticipated but welcome wholeheartedly!
Benefits from Writing Flash Fiction
I thought for this post I would share some useful tips when it comes to writing flash fiction. The format itself is an excellent writing exercise, even if you mainly focus on longer works, so I encourage all writers to give it a try. What you learn from writing in the short form will be skills you can also apply to any other form of writing you do.
For instance, I’ve developed my show not tell techniques writing flash fiction. I haven’t the word count room for lots of description so I must get my characters to show you what you need to know to make sense of their story.
I also now know what my “wasted words” are – those words we all put in to our tales but which should come out as they are fillers/padding. (Mine are very, actually and most instances of the word that. It’s amazing how often you can cut the word that out and not lose any meaning from your sentence. As for the first two words, they actually add very little to that story of mine – all padding so out they come).
Due to this, I’ve lost all fear of editing and now see it as a creative art in its own right. Write first, edit later. Get the story down and then you have something to work with. I know I need to know the whole tale before I can see what needs improving – there is always something, it is the nature of the beast here.
Top Tips for Writing Flash Fiction
Focus on the characters, especially the lead one. In stories under 500 words, it is common in flash fiction to have only one character though they may refer to others. (It’s as if they are off stage). For stories between 500 words and the upper limit of 1000 words, often there are two characters and again either or both may refer to others off stage.
Use a character’s internal thoughts to show something of their attitude. You can do this via the words you select – some words convey mood immediately. This idea is especially interesting when you make what they say to other characters different from what they’re thinking. A reader is kept wondering just what is the true situation and if the thoughts are right and the dialogue isn’t, when is that going to become apparent to the other character and how will they react? Thoughts tend to lead to actions and reactions and consequences.
Odd though it may sound, don’t worry about the word count. Just get the story down. Rest it. Edit it. When you’re happy with the tale itself, then look at what word count it comes in at and then decide what to do here.
Sometimes I’ve written a tale intending it to be a 100-worder but I find when I’ve got a draft I’m happy with it’s coming in at 150 words, say. I look at the story again and if I really don’t want to change anything because I feel the tale would lose something important, I leave it at that 150 words and find an alternative home for it. I then try again on writing the 100 worder.
You do develop a feel over time for when a story works best at a longer word count and I’ve learned to leave it alone when this happens to me. What matters most of all is working out what you do need in the story and then leaving it there.
The first person works especially well for flash fiction given it is immediate as is the format. I try to write a balance of first and third person stories. I occasionally use the second person too.
But work out whether your story would work best with your character being the “I” narrator and they tell their own tale or whether it would be best done in the third person with a neutral narrator relating what happened and showing your characters in action as He/She/It.
(I’ve written some tales deliberately from the it viewpoint. It works well for monsters, ghosts etc. I don’t always want to elaborate on exactly what it is – this gives an unsettling feel to the story and sometimes that is right for the tale).
Practice writing to different flash fiction word counts. The most popular for competitions are 50, 100, 250, 300, and 500 words. I have come across the odd 750 word category (Writing Magazine sometimes have this as one of their competitions).
It is worth practicing writing to the most popular word counts. It can mean you have stories ready to send to markets and competitions when you come across something of interest to you. Also if you have already practiced writing to these counts, if you decide to write something new for the market/competition rather than use something you have in “stock”, you’re not going to worry about the word count because you already know you can do this.
Conclusion
One side benefit to writing flash fiction is it has led to me learning more about editing, which also helps my work overall. That in turn has led to me running workshops on this topic too.
Another side benefit has been flash fiction is easy to share on social media. It doesn’t take long to read. It will hopefully entertain readers. It flags up what you do. It’s why I have a YouTube channel where I create a story video most weeks and share it.
Flash fiction has led to me being published (a) at all and (b) more often so I now have a track record I can share should I ever want to submit longer works to publishers/agents. There is never any guarantee with these things of course but I took the view (and still do) having a track record in being published is likely to help! The nice thing here is being published online “counts” too.
And it has led me to discover Flash NANO with its thirty prompts for the thirty days of November as an annual challenge to me to see just what can I do with those prompts. It has also led me to take part in Open Prose Mic Nights (great fun and useful practice in reading to audiences).
In all sorts of ways, writing flash fiction has made and continues to make a massive impact on my Continuing Professional Development and I welcome that.
Shortly, I hope to be writing some festive flash fiction again, which is fun, cheery, and a lovely way to end the year.
Flash fiction, because it is character led, can be set in any genre, time, mood etc. I’ve written humorous tales, crime ones, historical flash fiction, poignant slice of life tales, and much more besides. It is all down to where I put my character and I can literally set them anywhere I want.
Despite the word count restriction then, I’ve found flash fiction to be incredibly liberating. Why not give it a try?
Related Posts:-
Allison Symes – Author Update November 2024 – Book Fairs, Autumn Gatherings, Flash NANO and More
Read interviews with Chandler’s Ford writer Allison Symes: Part 1 and Part 2.
Read blog posts by Allison Symes published on Chandler’s Ford Today.
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