Flash Fiction can often be an overlooked form by writers, the all consuming lure of a best-selling novel overwhelms all else in its path.  Why would a writer even consider Flash Fiction?

Well, I think that Flash Fiction is not just an entertaining form in its own right, but also a great tool for writers and I  shall attempt to convince you with the time honoured form of a top five list….

  • It’s quick to start. You can start a flash story with one idea, or one character, or one feeling, or one sentence or even one word. There’s not as much pressure to plan a complex plot or an arc, or to map your entire characters back-story. You can just begin and write in the headlights.
  • It’s quick to finish. The blank page is often touted as the most frightening obstacle for a writer, but I think that the hardest part is not starting something, but finishing it. How many times have you got a few pages into a story and then changed your mind? Start again? Edit it? Carry on? With flash fiction the choices are simple: finish it, it won’t take you that long. If you don’t like it, try again.
  • You can explore themes, riff off ideas and create whole sequences of stories easily. You finished a flash piece, you didn’t like it, take the idea and try again. The story could be similar, it could almost be identical, but the ability to do something new with such a small commitment is liberating. Keep going until you’re happy, you might even write an entire sequence of flash stories.
  • You’ll kickstart you writing brain for longer forms of stories. Inspiration is a habit. Once you’re into the groove, thinking of ideas, then more ideas come. It’s a positive feedback loop. Some of the ideas will develop beyond a flash piece and before you know it you will be itching to write shorts or novellas.
  • It’s great promotion. There’s been a lot said and written about the decline in reading, and the topic is still up for debate. However reading email is now normality, reading on a phone is becoming easier and more commonplace, and web pages are consumed ferociously. Flash Fiction slots into that pattern nicely and can be used for a hook into your other writing projects. Readers will be more likely to commit to a longer story if they have enjoyed a bitesize chunk of your fiction.
  • And finally, the traditional bonus sixth point: it’s fun!

 

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James Bloomer has a PhD in particle physics (he worked at CERN) and has probably forgotten more physics than most people ever learn. He writes software for a living, Science Fiction for his sanity and runs the SF blog Big Dumb Object. You can find a list of his published stories on www.bigdumbobject.co.uk/jamesbloomer.