Flash Fiction Chronicles

I’m a relative newcomer to the writing scene, and it was my discovery of the online flash-fiction world that really prodded me into action.  I found one litmag, and then another, and so on until it all spiralled out of control and I was spending countless hours reading these hundreds of short-short stories, trying to figure out how the writers had managed to do so much in such a tiny space.  It was both gob-smacking and inspiring. 

The concision and the immediacy of flash fiction seemed to me to be something attainable and manageable, unlike the weave and sprawl of a novel, and so I decided to try my hand at it.  I’ve had a certain amount of success,  but, of course,  it’s a hell of a lot trickier than it looks, which only adds to my admiration for the writers who get it right.  Although I’ve a long way to go, the learning curve has been satisfyingly and exhaustingly steep, and each rejection slip teaches me something.

So that’s the short of it, but I wasn’t happy to leave it there: this September I enrolled upon an MA in creative writing, with the intention of hammering out a draft of a novel, or as much of one as I can manage in a year.  From the micro to the macro, then, in one demented leap. 

Novels were my first love as a reader, and it’s an enduring passion; so as much as I enjoy reading and writing flashes, I also want to make one of those bigger, fatter, monolithic chunks of prose, and the MA seemed like a good place to start.

The initial feedback on my workshopped pieces were much as you’d expect; coming from the get-to-the-point precision of flash fiction, all I was getting on my sample chapters was ‘Flesh it out!  Give me exposition!  Show us more setting!’  Next time round this turned to ‘You’re just rambling!  What’s the point of this?  Get to the action!’ 

So I’ve had to sit down and examine my approach, and the trick, as far as I can see right now (one semester in, three months wiser!) is to take everything you’ve learned from writing flashes, and apply it at a deeper level.  That sounds a little crazy, and it’s possible I’ve overdosed on mulled wine (it is the festive season, after all), but in flash fiction – as we know – every word has to work extremely hard and pack in a world’s worth of meaning, and so it seems more permissible and tempting, somehow, in a longer piece, to slack off when you know you’ve got the wiggle-room to elaborate and wander around the topic.  But of course that’s not so – the reader is a critical beast, and you’ve got to maintain their interest over a much greater span than, say, five hundred words.

What I think is needed, then, is to write everything in more close detail than you might in a flash – describe the room, detail the childhood, fill in the backstory, or whatever – but do this with every bit of precision and concision that you can pull from your flash fiction bag of tricks.  Flesh it out, give the reader the wealth of detail that makes a novel such a sumptuous treat, but always treat every single paragraph, every line of dialogue, as though it has to be accountable for itself, as though it has to be read aloud and examined as an entity onto itself.  It may not stand alone, plot-wise, but its language and structure and resonance should be as strong as any five hundred or two hundred word flash fiction piece that you’d ever consider subbing to a competition or a journal.

Now let’s see if I can practice what I preach, eh?

Valerie O’Riordan is an Irish writer based in Manchester, England, currently studying creative writing at the University of Manchester.  She blogs at Not Exactly True.

For most of us, writing is a somewhat solitary pursuit - after all, it’s hard to actually work on a story if you’re chatting to your Mom, IM’ing your best friend, or grabbing lunch with hubby. But there comes a time in every writer’s life when a certain kind of company becomes necessary.

A certain kind of company? I know, it sounds very Eliot Spitzer-ish. But choosing who to talk to about your baby novel is a fraught process. Will they like it? Will they hate it? Will they think it’s-actually-very-funny-or-realize-I-stole-all-my-jokes-from-ten-year-old-Leno-shows?

The best way to get talking about your novel is to start with strangers (Eliot Spitzer, I know) who write. And the best place to find them? Writing classes.

Writing classes are excellent for writers at any stage in their career. They’re a safe place to talk shop, learn tips, tricks, and techniques, and commiserate over dialogue that falls flat and characters who refuse to behave.

And, of course, it’s easy to pick apart someone else’s work. But writing classes are all about tit-for-tat, I’ll-show-you-mine-if-you-show-me-yours. So what do you do when it’s your turn to put something up for a critique?

Before you submit:

1. Polish. Spend some time ensuring your work is as polished as you can make it. This isn’t for the critiquers’ benefit–it’s for yours. If your classmates aren’t wasting time with line edits, they’re more likely to pick up plot and character issues.
2. Make a list of things you’d like your critiquers to think about. It doesn’t have to be long and detailed–even one or two points is fine. If you can, write your list on the workshop copies, or add a page about it. If you know certain people in your group have a skill set you could use, it’s okay to ask them to pay greater attention to the relevant sections (such as getting a cardiologist to help out with the details of a heart attack).

The day of:

Years after my first workshop, I still tremble when it’s my turn to get feedback. A lot of my writer friends say the same thing. What I’ve learned, though, is that the trick to getting the most out of your first workshop is two-fold:

1. Understand that you’re human, and that nobody gets everything right the first time around.
2. Understand that your classmates are human, and that nobody gets everything right the first time around.

Critiquing is an art form. There’s a fine balance to helping a writer improve their work, and tearing down everything you don’t like. It’s also a very personal thing. I may love this description:

Cathy was the sort of the person who didn’t like to slow down, who didn’t like to wait. Cathy was the sort of the person who’d skip a visit to the doctor’s even when her neck would no longer fit through the door.

Our classmate, Kathy with a K, may hate it. And that’s okay.

The point is, both Kathy with a K and I have spent time thinking about your work. Your job is to take our feedback and run with it. How? By being true to you.

When I was first writing, I’d change my manuscript at the drop of a hat. Don’t like my main character’s name? No problem, I’ll give him a new one. Think the mother is too harsh? Well, she doesn’t need to be in there anyway. And while this made my critiquers feel useful, it ruined my work. Yes, ruined–because the story was no longer mine.  Nowadays, I work by the rule of three, i.e.

1. Just one opinion? Probably no big deal.
2. Two opinions? Flag it as something to think about.
3. Three opinions? It’s a problem, and I have to make a change.

Writing classes, daunting as they are, are definitely worth the time and effort. But when all’s said and done, remember that your work is your work. Even if you, Kathy with a K, and I are all working on stories about dogs learning to fly an airplane (and who doesn’t love dog-acting-as-human tales?), they’ll never be the same. Why? Our experiences, our voices are different. And that’s just the way it should be.

Peta Jinnath Andersen is a freelance writer and editor in Cambridge, MA. Her flash fiction story, The Jar, will be appearing in an upcoming issue of  Kaleidotrope . She’s currently working on her first novel.

Mid-September of this I spent a week in Banff, Alberta at The Banff Centre Fall Writing with Style Program* taking a workshop on “Historical Fiction” in preparation for an additional four weeks in Vermont to work on my novel.  Faculty member Joan Clark, distinguished Canadian author of books for both adults and children facilitated our workshop.  Here are a few of the points made by Joan that particularly resonate with me.

Process of Circling:

And I quote: “Circling is a process of writing to yourself about the impetus of the story, why it matters to you, what you want to do with it, what you hope to achieve.  It is a process of backing off to help the writer—you—gain perspective on what preoccupies you fictionally, and prevent you from becoming locked into a structure too soon.”

Submitting too soon:

Paraphrase: A story needs to rest (did she say “like bread?”)

Revise. Revise. Revise.

 Discipline to go deeper:

Paraphrase: Don’t keep your story on a level plane.  Go deeper.  Joan uses the visual of a straight line to represent a story, but suggests that a deep gorge occur somewhere along that line.

Tension:

Paraphrase: Tension between the work and you helps to create tension between the reader and the work.

Why this story matters:

Paraphrase: A writer needs to ask herself why her story matters.  It has to matter to the writer.

What some refer to as Truth:

More direct quoting: “Credibility in fiction is tricky and variable, subject to reader response as to what is ‘true’, ‘believable’ in a story, and what isn’t.  Readers who pick up on familiar situations and human foibles in fiction are more apt to keep reading.  Recognition is a dynamic factor in reading and writing fiction.  The recognition factor aids credibility—what some refer to as truth.”

Clarity:

Paraphrase: The writer should be in control of the story and have the story clear in her mind.  Readers want to feel they can trust the writer, that they are in good hands.

 Be Flexible:

Paraphrase: Be prepared and willing to move things around in your story.  Everything should serve the story rather than to convolute the story to accomodate an idea that no longer fits the story.

Time:

Paraphrase: Time challenges in writing in terms of shaping the story.  How a writer handles time shapes structure.  Be aware of the passing of time in relationship to the whole story, when it needs to be moment to moment and when it needs to jump.

 “The secret life of the story:”

Paraphrase: The phrase above from John Gardener, but read A Passion for Narrative by Jack Hodgins for a meaningful discussion of this idea that when you start a story, you think it’s about one thing and usually it turns into something else.

*The Banff Centre’s Writing with Style Calendar with deadlines has not been posted as of this writing.  If you are interested, please check the site often.