By Lynne Curry
When I fell in love with flash fiction, seduced by the six-word story attributed to Hemingway: “For sale: baby, shoes, never worn,” I never dreamed flash would love me back.
It did, reshaping how I write and how my stories connect with readers. If you experiment with flash fiction— storytelling that delivers a complete narrative in six to fifteen hundred words—it might do the same for you.
Here’s what makes flash FLASH
Flashes deliver endings that twist or transform, leaving readers haunted by the story’s afterimages. They’re short, forcing the writer to toss wasted words.
Here’s how learning to write flash fiction transforms your writing and career:
Your writing
Learning to write a complete story in one to two pages forces you to dive straight into the story and the action. When you know you won’t have room to write “long,” you’ll find yourself carefully crafting vivid images that cut to the bone.
The secret to crafting a flash: start with an ending twist and write straight toward it. By focusing on the flashpoint first, you’ll trigger a burst of focused, creative energy. In Flight to Courage a fourteen-year-old successfully lands a small bush plane in a storm. The story starts with turbulence rocking the plane and jagged coughs that wrack the pilot before his heart attack.
Your career
When you’re in the middle of writing or pitching your novel, you can bog down in the writing-mine. You’re running a marathon, wondering if you’ll ever cross the finish line. A short, complete-in-a- page-or-two flash gives you a polished final you can offer for publication.
When I pivoted from nonfiction into fiction, I needed fiction credentials to interest agents. Short fifty-to-one-hundred-word flashes often find a home in the abundant markets for flash fiction giving you useful credits. I’ve sold nine stories, eight of them flash. In 2024, a 111-word flash prose poem garnered me a Pushcart Prize nomination, along with a nomination for Best Microfiction.
A vibrant author site or blog brimming with flash fiction draws readers into your orbit, developing your fan base for the novels or other longer fiction you write. By focusing on flash fiction, you can spice your site or blog with a fresh story every month.
Ready to Try? Here’s How:
Imagine a character or situation. What hook, stakes or intrigue will immediately draw your readers in? Dive right into the middle of the action. By plunging your character and reader into something that’s already in full swing and letting them catch up, you pull your reader right into the story’s spell. Trust your readers to sense your characters are fully formed people with pasts, living in a fully formed world that exists beyond the story moment the reader experiences.
Once you’ve started your story arc with the challenge, head straight into the crystal-clear conflict that complicates your story’s middle with high stakes and emotional tension.
Now, create the flashpoint power punch. Craft an ending twist or transformation that reframes everything. Done well, flash fiction changes how your readers see the world.
Ready? Why wait? Grab a moment, write a flash, and see where it takes you.
Bio: Alaska/Washington author Lynne Curry, a 2024 Pushcart Prize nominee and a nominee for Best Microfiction, founded Real-life Writing, and publishes a monthly Writing from the Cabin” blog, and a weekly “dear Abby of the workplace” newspaper column. Curry has published nine short stories; three poems; one article on writing craft, and six books.
