KULIAH TAMBAHAN 27.2.

2023

Key Elements Of Flash Fiction

Flash fiction has certain key elements. One of the elements of flash is its ability to surprise,
and the continuous development of the form, creating new writing challenges and new ways
of thinking about storytelling.

Story Plot

Here are some general guidelines on how to create flash fiction, part of a range of
techniques that go into creating short short stories:

 A piece of flash fiction isn’t a scene from a larger piece of fiction, or an extract. It is a
stand-alone, and a complete story. 
 Flash isn’t usually a ‘moment in time’ like a prose poem could be, or a discussion of
the narrator’s opinion on something. It has narrative drive. 
 Most flash fiction stories have a beginning, middle and end. This is possible even
with the shortest short stories, like Blake Morrison’s “Womb. Bloom. Groom. Gloom.
Rheum. Tomb.”
 But the shorter the flash gets, the more likely it is to use Jim Crace’s “See that
shadow? (It’s not yours.)”  technique and to require the reader to create the complete
story for themselves, through implication. 
 Morrison and Crace both provide us with a guide to plotting flash: 1) begin, grow,
develop, make things get bad, provide resolution, and 2) make the reader form the
story in their own mind.

Few Characters

 Keep the number of characters in your flashes to a minimum. Often, you’ll only use
one character, or two, as protagonist and antagonist.
 As you only have a few words available you can’t dwell on anything very much, and
that includes character development.
 To create characters, you can use brief but pertinent descriptions (he wore his best
suit trousers over his broken leg), unusual connections (petunias always make the
best guard dogs), suggestive statements connecting place and character (he worked
as a stripper at the fire station) or assumptions (I didn’t fit in and neither did my
imaginary friend).

A Hook

It’s important to start strongly when writing flash fiction. You don’t have time for explanations.
The aim is to ‘hook’ your reader in, engaging them from the first few words. When Tania
Hershman starts a story with ‘My mother was an upright piano’, from a collection of the same
name, we’re hooked in by the unusual image, which hints at conflict with the narrator. Create
your ‘hook’ from conflict because stories thrive on conflict.

With fiction, the stage is the reader’s mind. 1) Plunge right into the action, cutting extraneous
introductions, and 2) create a picture in the mind of the reader using as few words as
possible. Don’t do one without the other.

Strong Finish
Flash fiction writers often use a twist or (more loosely) an unexpected ending. The
unexpected ending is like a punchline, it emphasises the ending. They make the ending live
on in the readers’ memory, aiding the sense of the reader creating the story in their own
mind.

A slam-bang finish. Remember what I said about flash fiction needing an ending? A lot of
successful flash pieces employ a twist at the end. Think of structuring your story as you
would a joke; although your ending doesn’t need to be funny, it ought to be something that
the reader didn’t see coming.

TASK
In groups OF 4/5, choose a flash fiction of below 1000 words and identify its key features.
Present your work in Stream GC. Include excerpts from the flash fiction to support your
answers.
List other key features that are not mentioned above.