What is Flash Fiction? And How to Write It Yourself
Part 1 – Flash Fiction: An Introduction
Flash fiction has fewer than 1,500 words
Every sentence works harder than the last
As a creative exercise, they're practically perfect
Magazines and contests actively seek them out
Part 2 – How to Write Flash Fiction
Craft a satisfying story arc
Flash fiction is a type of prose narrative that takes the form of very
brief, self-contained stories. Its word count ranges from 5 to 1,000
words on average, and tops out at 1,500. Also called a short short,
micro-story, or nanotale, a work of flash fiction isn’t just a pared-
back short story. The form is unique in that, rather than focusing on
plot or character development, it focuses on movement: each sentence
(or even word) peels back a layer and progresses the story.
Maybe you’ve come across these six words:
For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
Whether they were written by Ernest Hemingway, Arthur C. Clarke, or
The Spokane Press — it doesn’t really matter. What’s important is that
they’re a premier example of everything fiction’s shortest form can
do. In flash fiction — where twist endings and enigmatic last lines
are standard practice — just six words can allude to the tragic death
of a child.
Flash fiction has fewer than 1,500 words
With roots in collections like Grimms' Fairy Tales and Aesop's Fables,
(very) short stories have been around for centuries. They fell out of
fashion for a while, but have recently made a huge comeback — not
entirely surprising for a generation that tweets 280-character
'stories' all the time.
Depending on who you ask, there are currently around five different
subcategories of flash fiction:
Flash fiction: Max 1,500 words.
Sudden fiction: Max 750 words.
Drabble, or microfiction: Max 100 words.
Twitterature: Max 280 characters.
Six-word story: Any story with a single-digit word count is a
category unto itself.
