Writing flash fiction has become a bit of a hobby with me. I do it nearly weekly on my blog in the form of writing prompts and have nearly 75 of them published as of right now. They are loads of fun and it is also fabulous practice for writers. It gives them the ability to focus on some core writing skills without investing months or years of your life into a huge project like a novel. Here are three tips to becoming a Flash Fiction Ninja!
1 ~
It doesn’t have to have a perfect ending. When writing flash fiction, we often don’t have the time or word count to come up with the perfect, tied with a bow ending. And that’s perfectly fine. Pick one thing to resolve by the end of the story. It can simply be the main character coming to terms with something, or part of the conflict is resolved. Or something merely becomes resolved in the characters mind so that he can go forth (after the story) and change something. It also leaves some to the imagination of the reader. It really intrigues the reader and will get their mind going on how it will really end.
2 ~
Be choosy with your words. Create complex pictures and emotions with as few words as possible. Your words are limited, so take your time and use them wisely. Even going over it numerous times as well really gives you an edge to sharpen and refine those word choices as much as possible. Make the readers FEEL and SEE things with the beauty of your words. Here is where your creative skills can really shine. Some of my favorite one-liners that I have ever written have come from my short stories.
3 ~
Limit your cast. Since you have so few words, you really want to focus on one particularly, but keep the extra cast small. If you throw in too many people, it just gets complicated and you don’t have enough words to describe them enough to give them separate personalities without getting too confusing.
There you have it! Three tips to becoming a better Flash Fiction writer. The only thing left that I can leave you with is practice. Keep at it and write a ton, it will only get better from there!
What did you think of the tips?
By God’s Grace,
Victoria
I think #2 applies to all novels, no matter how long it is. I’ve seen that advice in many how-to-writing books. 🙂
CutePolarBear
Great tips! Thanks for sharing them.
Thanks for sharing these! You’re really good at the ending one — leaving it to the imagination of the reader =) I *might* just have to try writing a flash fiction one of these days.
Awesome tips! Just curious, what is your typical word count for flash fiction?
It totally depends on how quickly I obtain my objective. . . But usually 1-4 K words.
Woops! I typed that wrong. It’s usually 400-1,500 words.
Great tips! I enjoy writing flash fiction too. 🙂