Wednesday, May 16th is National Flash Fiction Day .
Flash fiction is also referred to as micro-fiction or sudden fiction or
short-short stories. It consists of a beginning, a middle, and an end with
character development and descriptions, all within 150 to 500 words. The story must have structure, plot, point,
and dialogue.
How can writing flash fiction help us become better writers?
Flash fiction banks on action and an active voice. Avoid passive voice; have
the action immediate and now. Adjectives and adverbs need to be banished from
the page. Be precise and use words that really matter.
You don’t need more than one or two characters. By limiting
your characters, you don’t have to waste words as tags. Focus on one main
conflict; don’t try from a complicated plot. Start at the beginning of the
conflict. Choose a powerful moment in a character’s life and place your story
there.
1. 1.Start in the middle
2.
2. Don't use too many characters
3. 3. Make sure the ending isn't at the end
4. Your title, make it work
5. Leave the reader with something
6. 6. And try ending in a different emotional place
than where you start
Reduce, condense, and write like a
poet—lyrical, dense passages that grab the reader from the first sentence. Remember
Hemingway’s famous iceberg dictum: only show the top 10 percent of your story,
and leave the other 90 percent below water to be conjured.
Here are a couple online markets
to submit your work: http://www.theguardian.com/books/flash-fridays-by-tin-house-magazine,
http://nanofiction.org/submit, http://flashfictiononline.com/main/,
or, check out http://absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?59234-INDEX-OF-FLASH-FICTION-MARKETS-Last-fully-verified-on-21st-February-2015
for a complete listing of markets paying for flash fiction stories.
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