Flash fiction is not an entire storm, but rather a moment of time
in the storm lit up by a single lightning flash. You don’t have room in 1,500 words or less to be John
Steinbeck or Jane Austen. Yet it is still your job as a fiction writer to fill
the reader’s imagination with the image of that lightning strike. Flash
fiction must flash bright and strong to show that moment in time.
Capturing the
flash.
Let your mind’s eye rove
over the picture captured in that flash of lighting.
Why the
flash? It’s just a moment in time, but it still has
plot stuff that came before, and plot stuff that comes after. That flash moment
must mean something.
It’s a moment of change. The husband
raises his hand to hit her. The father reads something in his daughter’s journal.
The sound of police sirens draws near the diner. Think of that lightning flash,
and dig deep until you know what is changing in that moment. Why the sirens, the journal, the raised hand?
Before the
flash. Now,
what brought your character to that moment? No room for back story, but
something brought this character to that lightning flash. Hint at that. The
wife screams, “I’m sick and tired of you hitting
me.” The father’s hand hovers over the journal—but he needs to know where his
daughter has been going. The criminal fingers the bag of jewelry as he thinks
of his sick son. See the barest hints of what came before?
After the
flash. You
don’t have room to tell what happens
next, but something does. Give the reader enough that their imagination can
take over. The husband lowers his hand. The father rushes out of the room and
gets in the car. The criminal sinks into a seat at the diner table. Leave the
reader with an image that shows life has changed for your character.
Writing the
flash.
I’ve been writing short stories
since I was five years old (not that those stories are very legible, ha!). It
took me awhile after I began novel writing to learn to layer in things like
description and back story. Flash fiction is a different story when it comes to
choice of details and words.
The Details. Write the
story elements that embody the scene and
mean something to the character or the plot — the elbows that stick to the
diner’s tabletop, which makes the
cranky mom lash out at her toddler, which shows her in a flash that she hates
the kind of mom she’s become. That sticky tabletop does triple duty: setting,
character, and plot. Flash fiction offers limited space. The details better
multitask! Take your time to find the perfect, multitasking details illuminated
in the lightning strike.
The Words. Writers are
all about words, but in flash fiction, take a double — a triple — look at your
words. Get out the thesaurus, even. Seek out those words that really bring the
image alive. Instead of “restaurant,”
use “diner.” Take a quadruple look at your verbs.
Take your
time. Be choosey.
Flash fiction may be quickly read, but it is not quickly written.
This is the challenge: To write that lightning moment with such power and
clarity it stays with the reader.
Have you ever tried flash fiction to sharpen your writing, try out a new craft skill you’re learning, take a break from your other writing, build a blog following, or see what it feels like to write in a different genre?
~~~~~~
Voni writes from her
family’s home on the beautiful Alaskan island of Kodiak, with a husband, a golden retriever and a wheaten terrier to
keep her from sitting at the computer too long at a time. She holds a radio-TV
degree from Drake University, and her short story “The Wedding” was published
in Heart-Stirring Stories of Romance (edited by Linda Evans Shephard). She has
won First Impressions and Daphne DuMaurier unpublished awards. She enjoys
capturing the flash when she writes flash fiction for her Leaning into Life blog at http://vonildawrites.wordpress.com.
