Flash fiction handy hints

Today I visited a local secondary school to talk to their Year 11s (16-year-olds) about flash fiction handy hints. For their upcoming exams, they need to do a piece of creative writing of 400 to 600 words, in 40 minutes. A tall order, glad it’s not me!
During the year they’ve covered the expected elements such as structure, characters, dialogue, point of view, but their teacher asked if I could give them some ‘handy hints’ to help their work stand out.

I had two 45 minute sessions, and in the first session I decided to do it lecture style, and to focus on areas which are practical to implement once you know they exist.

My aim was to cover areas which would help them with their word count – you have to be succinct in that number of words – and at the same time strengthen their writing. I choose to talk about –

Writing in Deep POV

At the simplest level, Deep POV reduces word count because you don’t use phrases such as ‘he thought’, ‘he heard’, ‘she saw’ etc. This is because the piece is written as if the writer IS the character vs normal POV where the writer is telling (or showing) what the character is thinking and doing. Which is where the quality win comes in, because, with the narrator perspective removed, the reader is drawn deeply into the character’s head and their world.
I love Deep POV and write everything in it, which has earned me some lovely review comments about my books being ‘immersive’ and my characters ‘three dimensional and relatable’. And it’s not hard to do at all. See the handout for examples.
I used this blog post of mine for content, so take a look.

Resist the Urge to Explain

This is a mantra drummed into writers these days, and another skill which can be learned if you pay attention. I drew on this blog post but pulled out key elements most suitable for flash fiction-

1. Ditch explanatory phrases, eg – see the handout for an example
2. Imply things – let the reader work
3. Examine every sentence for redundant words and phrases, eg ‘he stood UP’, ‘she nodded HER HEAD’

Easy wins to lose words and tighten your writing

There’s a whole host of things you can do which you need to be aware of and then practise them.
They include: lose weasel words like very, nearly etc (see this blog post); use active vs passive tense; use present tense for immediacy; lose ‘that’ (please!!); be sparing with dialogue tags and replace them with action beats to enhance your characters

Short story endings and Resist the Urge to Explain

The story likely ends at least one sentence, and possibly one (or more) paragraphs before you think it does. We tend to get to the end of the action and then explain to the reader what happened/or what happened afterwards. This either ties the reader into the writer’s interpretation or tells them they’re not bright enough to work it out for themselves.
Get to the end of the action and leave it there! Let the reader work.

Other effective short story endings

• The twist in the tale
• Circularity – bring the reader back to the beginning
• A sense of optimism, hope for the future
• Anticipation
  

Here’s the presentation. As you will see, in the second session we examined some stories in small groups to see what made them appeal, and how they had sometimes used the points made above. The kids were great! They got it!

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