As we come into April I’ll be sharing prompts designed to help you warm up for the 12th Annual StoryADay May (can you believe it?!). This week: what can you capture in a flash?
Write a Flash Fiction story in 500 words, inspired by a vivid moment like the one in the photo, above.
How did you get on yesterday? Did you write a story?
Remember, set your own rules, and stick to them. If you miss a day, don’t try to catch up. Just keep moving forward!
Chances are, most of the stories you’ve written so far would qualify as Flash Fiction if all we meant was “under 1200 words”.
But Flash is more than that. It is deliberately taut, vivid, and short. It should contain one or two vivid moments or images that stay with the reader long after they’ve gone.
Write your story of 1000 words today, and work on making it flash.
Steve Almond, Stop
Erin Morgenstern, The Cat and The Fiddle
Ariel Berry, Useless Things
Naomi Kritzer, Paradox
Josh McColough, Meteor
Jennifer Wortman, Theories of the Point of View Shift in AC/DC’s ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’
Rachel Engelman, Joan of Arc Sits Naked In Her Dorm Room
Julie Duffy, The Girl Who Circumnavigated The Earth In An Act of Her Own Making
Go!
Check back every day for more prompts, and don’t forget to come back and leave a comment to celebrate your writing successes, every day!
Since we’re all about Flash Fiction here at StoryADay during February, I’m going to be highlighting some flash stories here in the Reading Room. This story comes from 100WordStory.com, a project from NaNoWriMo’s Grant Faulker, and partners.
Useless Things by Ariel Berry caught my eye because of its mix of big ideas and mundane moments in life. It does what short fiction is supposed to do: make us stop, figure out what’s happening, and think about how we might deal with a similar situation in our life.
Continue reading “[Reading Room] Useless Things by Ariel Berry”This is a flash piece I stumbled across on Twitter.
It was an interesting format: a screenshot/image of a formatted short story, attached to a tweet.
And it’s really odd. Delightfully odd. It’s the kind of thing that makes me go: Yes! See this? THIS is why I love short stories.
Normally I try to provide some Lessons For Writers with this little reviews, but today I think I’m just going to say: go and read this. It’ll take you a minute.
I particularly like the way he promises one thing, delivers something else, but doesn’t forget his promise.
Sometimes writing (and reading) are just…fun.
What do you think of the story? Leave a comment
By continuing to use the site, you agree to the use of cookies. more information
The cookie settings on this website are set to "allow cookies" to give you the best browsing experience possible. If you continue to use this website without changing your cookie settings or you click "Accept" below then you are consenting to this.
