Pop-Up #12 Now Available…
How to Write Successful Flash Fiction…
We tried to come up with a way to make this into a full workshop, but just not enough. But it fit perfectly in a Pop-Up.
And the fun story prompt on this one is to see if you can write a piece of flash fiction for Pulphouse Fiction Magazine. That’s right, I buy flash fiction at Pulphouse, but never much see it. So for this one Pop-Up, inside the deadline of the Pop-Up, if you write a piece of flash fiction that I think fits Pulphouse, I will make you an offer.
Only one chance, one story per person, and must be inside the deadline, which is fairly tight.
So grab this Pop-Up, learn what it takes and how to write successful Flash Fiction, and then see if I will buy your attempt for Pulphouse.
And if you don’t know what a Pulphouse Fiction Magazine type story is, might want to grab an issue, maybe Issue Zero, and read it. Just saying.
Sign up for the Pop-Up #12 on Teachable.
Get Issue Zero of Pulphouse Fiction Magazine, or any issue or any of the Pulphouse books here…
Just as a point of interest, writing flash fiction is also a ton of fun. And instructive.
Imagine you’re looking at the components of fiction (character[s], setting, conflict and resolution) in a clear container. Maybe those components are goldfish milling about.
If a short story provides the opportunity to see the interaction of those components in a five-gallon bucket, flash fiction provides that same opportunity in a one-gallon jar.
Back in the early ’90s, I was fortunate to have one of my flash fiction stories (the 55-word “At Confession”) made into a short film three separate times by three separate producer/directors. Great fun.
Dean, by “definition” is a flash fiction story under 2,000 words?
Because after reading this blog post, I grabbed a few flash fiction anthologies on Kindle last night and really liked the form. They seem to provoke thought more than anything else. Don’t know why I ignored the form all this while, but I’m glad you posted this.
Today I tried to push through all the life rolls I’ve suffered through this year and found myself having a blast writing these short-shorts.
Maybe I’ll try this Pop-Up.
Mark
Depends on who you talk to about length. Most tend to be under 1,000 words, or in that range. You get up to 2,000 words and you are in regular short stories. But again, totally depends on who you talk with on length. In this Pop-Up I used 1,000 words and under.
Mark, what Dean said. It depends on the contest or publication guidelines. One major FF publisher held writers to 55 words including the title. (grin)
For another take, view the topic on my blog post at https://hestanbrough.com/the-daily-journal-saturday-august-3/.
55 words is not a story. That’s a poem.
As far as paying pro markets for flash go (and there are quite a few) the max any of them take is 1500 words. Most have a max of 1000 to 1250.
One great thing about Flash Fic (assuming you write actual stories and not just vignettes or something) is that I can get a lot of writing practice (beginnings, middles, ends, dialogue, setting, everything), over and over, fairly quickly. Try things. Read them. Let other people read them. See how I did. Try something else. I can cycle through them much faster than, say, novels while I’m building story muscles. It’s especially helpful when I’m trying to concentrate on something in particular. It’s easier to convince myself it’s okay to take risks, since the investment is low.
Or, for those of us newbies who sometimes have a little trouble letting go of one novel before starting the next one (is it just me?), a week of flash fiction can shake an old plot loose from my grabby hands and prime me for new things. Like hors d’oeuvres.