Flash Fiction

[Mercy]

Flash Fiction :P

For anyone who doesn’t know what flash fiction is, it’s a story under 1000 words. In fan-fiction, these are usually called drabbles. While staying below that word count may seem easy, you might find it difficult. Writing more is usually easier than writing less.

Edit: The Passive/Active example was corrected by Crocolyle (http://www.youngwritersonline.net/member.php?u=40).Please take a look. I apologize for being incorrect. ^^;

First, like all stories, you need these elements:
Ø Characters
Ø Setting
Ø Theme
Ø Plot


Now, writing it is the hard part. How do you keep a plot under 1000 words?

Ø Skipping the beginning and move right into the action.


There's no need to talk about the character's past, how they go where they are and so on and so forth. Sometimes its just better to let that be explained subtly or not at all.


Ø Limit description.

Let's say you are describing how the main character sees a flower because you feel it is important and symbolic. You might say:



Mary stared at the violet, minuscule flower in awe and wonder, it's beauty radiating and reminding her of a past she wished to forget.

Instead


Mary stared at the flower in awe, it's beauty reminding her of an unpleasant past.

I'm afraid that wasn't a great example - but you can see how the sentence is cut down but still holds the same meaning.
Ø Try to make every word count

This is basically stating that you shouldn't write what isn't needed. For example, if you are writing about a character learning to love, you probably shouldn't include the detail of this character watching American Idol because that's his or her favorite show. If this is relevant, however, it may be included. Just remember: don't weigh your story down with little meaningless details, make everything you write contribute to the story and the theme.


Ø Keep your mind focused on the theme, don’t get carried away.

If you are trying to show a theme of tolerance, don't go off on a tangent. Or if you are describing a flower, don't give us the great American novel. Keep in mind what you want to portray and don't stray from that path.


Ø Use active verbs, or “show don’t tell”.

This is hard for me to explain, so I'll give you an example given to us by Crocolyle (http://www.youngwritersonline.net/member.php?u=40) :



Passive: "The cookie was stolen from the cookie jar by Michael" (Michael, despite being the object of the preposition and not the subject, performs the action, adding a lot of useless words)
Active: "Michael stole the cookie from the cookie jar."

You can see how making the voice active made it a tiny bit more interesting, it cut down on the word count and it made the sentence more precise.
I might add more to this later, but I think this sums it up. Keep in mind, that these rules can apply to short stories, novellas, novels and all other forms of writing.
Here are some links that might help with flash fiction and writing in general.

:)YWO: Descriptions by George (http://www.youngwritersonline.net/showthread.php?t=214)
(http://www.youngwritersonline.net/showthread.php?t=214)
:)YWO: Scotty's Guide to Effective Writing by Scotty (http://www.youngwritersonline.net/showthread.php?t=541)

:)Writing Flash Fiction by G. W. Thomas (http://www.fictionfactor.com/guests/flashfiction.html)

:)George Orwell's Rules for Effective Writing (http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/george-orwells-5-rules-for-effective-writing/)

[eriko]

Thanks for putting it up. I am glad you did.

[Shaun]

Not bad, Mercy. Pretty good example of how to write flash fiction. The biggest thing is that it takes a lot of practice. I'm still not very good at the stuff...the good news is that there are a heck of a lot of markets for flash fiction out there.

[Mercy]

Thanks, Shaun. ^^
It is difficult. @w@

[jcsk88]

This was helpful. I never knew that there was a "format" for writing flash fiction. Sounds challenging though, trying to put all that under a word limit.

[Midsummernightsdream]

Thanks for the pointers.

[johnroyal]

I always figured flash fiction was just, one scene, almost like a character study. I'll post a few once I critique enough.
I do these sometimes, they're really handy when you have a writing experiment you want to put down, and you don't have to worry about messing anything up with a larger story.
Ø Try to make every word count[/FONT]

This is basically stating that you shouldn't write what isn't needed. For example, if you are writing about a character learning to love, you probably shouldn't include the detail of this character watching American Idol because that's his or her favorite show. If this is relevant, however, it may be included. Just remember: don't weigh your story down with little meaningless details, make everything you write contribute to the story and the theme.



Its best to use this with everything, I find. Minimalism isn't the right word, but it's the first word that comes to mind. Meaningless details in anything or just that: meaningless.

[Crocolyle]

Sorry to be pointing this out so long after it was posted, but your passive example actually is in active voice, because the subject (man) is performing the action (walking). "Was walking" is the past progressive (a.k.a. imperfect or past continuous), which usually describes an action that began but was not or has not yet been completed, where as past tense usually describes a past action that was completed.

Just because a verb phrase has a helping verb, doesn't necessarily mean it's active.

Passive voice (it's not a tense) is when the subject of a sentence does not perform the action of the verb.

Using your example, it would be:
"The store was walked to by the man."
It adds a lot more words. It's easier to say
"The man walked to the store."

It is used pretty commonly (that sentence is passive if you didn't notice), and sometimes you can use it--like if you're unsure of who completed the action.

Passive: "The cookie was stolen from the cookie jar." (The subject is cookie, but it isn't doing the stealing)
Active: "Someone stole a cookie from the cookie jar." (The subject is someone, and it is doing the stealing)

The main problem comes in when you add an unnecessary prepositional phrase that names who performed the action.

Passive: "The cookie was stolen from the cookie jar by Michael" (Michael, despite being the object of the preposition and not the subject, performs the action, adding a lot of useless words)
Active: "Michael stole the cookie from the cookie jar."
---------------
Often on this forum I see people calling people on passive voice when in fact they just used a linking verb to join the subject and the predicate (and usually I send an annoying pm). That is not passive voice either.

The flower was red.
John is the mayor.

Anything like that. Those sentences are rather boring, though they aren't actually passive. Basically, what they should be calling you out on is overusing the verb "to be" as the main verb when you can use a more interesting one or just have a more interesting sentence.

The red flower... [insert verb and description]

is more interesting than simply saying "The flower is red."

Sorry. I just felt a need to rant about this. Miss using grammatical terms is a pet peeve of mine.