Teaching Flash Fiction???

[T.Allen.Smith]

Here's a cool intro you could use...

It's said Hemingway once accepted a challenge to write a story in 6 words. This is what he came up with:

Baby shoes for sale, never worn.

There's a whole lot wrapped up in those six words. Does it tell a complete story? No, but it does convey a lot of information & emotion. To me, that's the point of flash fiction, relating as much as you can, as powerfully as you can, with as few words as possible.

 

[stephenspower]

There's actually a series of books now of six-word memoirs based on the (apocryphal) Hemingway, starting here:

The shorter you get with flash fiction, the more it tends to resemble prose poetry; the longer, a short story. But you can do a lot in 600 words, as Daily SF shows each day. I would go through a few weeks of their stories to pull out the key components, the first of which is a strong opening sentence that lays out the premise of the story.

If you need a great example, my favorite flash fiction story is "Merry Christmas God" by Larry French, which is in the Norton Anthology of Short Fiction.

 

[Ruby]

Hi Noma, if you are trying to teach how to write very short Flash fiction, you could use Twitter as a model.

Just ask your class to write a story in 140 characters or less. There are people on Twitter who do this for their regular posts. It's quite a good discipline to have to write concisely.

( The stories will be easy for you to mark, too! )

 

[Noma Galway]

Here's a cool intro you could use...

It's said Hemingway once accepted a challenge to write a story in 6 words. This is what he came up with:

Baby shoes for sale, never worn.

There's a whole lot wrapped up in those six words. Does it tell a complete story? No, but it does convey a lot of information & emotion. To me, that's the point of flash fiction, relating as much as you can, as powerfully as you can, with as few words as possible.

Thanks! I think I will use that for the workshop. It's great .

There's actually a series of books now of six-word memoirs based on the (apocryphal) Hemingway, starting here:

The shorter you get with flash fiction, the more it tends to resemble prose poetry; the longer, a short story. But you can do a lot in 600 words, as Daily SF shows each day. I would go through a few weeks of their stories to pull out the key components, the first of which is a strong opening sentence that lays out the premise of the story.

If you need a great example, my favorite flash fiction story is "Merry Christmas God" by Larry French, which is in the Norton Anthology of Short Fiction.

Thank you very much! I'll check that one out.

Hi Noma, if you are trying to teach how to write very short Flash fiction, you could use Twitter as a model.

Just ask your class to write a story in 140 characters or less. There are people on Twitter who do this for their regular posts. It's quite a good discipline to have to write concisely.

( The stories will be easy for you to mark, too! )

That's a good idea, Ruby, thanks!