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Mary Rosenblum
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Hello all.
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Mary Rosenblum
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I hope you have a very nice
week. I missed you all, last Sunday at our open chat, but I was somewhere
high up in the sky about then. :-)
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Mary Rosenblum
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On my way back from the World
Fantasy Conference in Saratoga Springs, NY.
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Mary Rosenblum
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I wanted to talk about Flash
Fiction tonight for a couple of reasons.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Not on is the Flash Fiction
market alive, well and growing, it is a very nice home for those short short
early LR assignments.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Essentially, Flash Fiction
includes work of 1000 words or less.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Some markets cap the limit at
even fewer words.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Some markets do pay, many do
not, but it's a very nice exercise for anyone.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Writing short requires you to
write very tight prose...extra words, convoluted and flabby prose,
overwriting, all run you out of words before you can do much.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Just figuring out how to do
more with less will improve your prose overall.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Strong writing is the maximum reader
impact in the minimum number of words.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Some of the markets, such as Flashquake,
offer comments if they reject you.
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Mary Rosenblum
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If you have any interest in
the flash fiction market or flash fiction in general
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Mary Rosenblum
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I suggest you read Pam Casto's
article on the LR Website in Writing Craft: New Market Updates. She puts
out a sporadic newsletter including reviews of flash fiction
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Mary Rosenblum
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markets as well as new
markets, both paying and nonpaying.
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Mary Rosenblum
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And many of the flash fiction
markets, such as Flashquake, are quite well respected.
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Mary Rosenblum
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They make nice clips.
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Mary Rosenblum
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The flash fiction market is a
great place for vignettes.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Your actual words on the page
may imply a much larger story arc and an ending that will take place in the
future.
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Mary Rosenblum
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If you've been reading the
submissions to the prompts in the LR newsletter, you'll have noticed that
many of those little 250 word pieces are actual stories
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Mary Rosenblum
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with a conflict, a resolution,
a beginning, middle, end, and even character change.
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Mary Rosenblum
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And most imply such a story
arc, even if it's not all included in the prose.
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Mary Rosenblum
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One of the benefits to you as
a fiction writer is that the better you get at implying story or character,
the less you have to spell it out on the page.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Thus you end up with more story
in fewer words in effect.
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Mary Rosenblum
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One of the ways in which you
can imply that larger story arc is simply to begin a short short piece
quite close to or even at the climax of the story arc.
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Mary Rosenblum
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It will be very difficult
(although not impossible) to include that entire arc within the 1000 words
or less.
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Mary Rosenblum
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But you can imply the start of
the story arc through backstory revealed in dialogue or internal narrative,
place the readers in the climax, and imply the end, again through the
action/dialogue/internal narrative of the climax without actually placing
the readers there.
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Mary Rosenblum
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The short short form requires
that you reveal character in very few words.
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Mary Rosenblum
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You certainly don't have
enough words to tell the readers all about your character's past...a very
common weakness in a lot of novice fiction.
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quixote
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wouldn't it be better technique
to have a good flash ending and imply the beginning?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Could be. Depends on how you
set it up. Anything is possible.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Generally, your climax
involves the dramatic high point of the plot arc and often events will suggest a
cascade of subsequent events to the readers...
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Mary Rosenblum
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BUT....it also leaves some
wiggle room for readers to ponder possible alternative outcomes.
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Mary Rosenblum
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If you actually place the
readers in the end and imply the initial conflict and the climax, you may
not be able to achieve quite the dramatic tension.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Try it both ways and see which
way works better for you.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Readers seem to be a bit more
tolerant of a 'lady or tiger' end in a flash fiction piece.
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Mary Rosenblum
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That might be because they
have much less invested in such a short story, so knowing the outcome for certain
isn't so imperative.
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Mary Rosenblum
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And you really do NOT have to
do a complete story.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Vignettes..a slice of
life....work fine for flash fiction.
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chatty lady
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What do you think of books
leaving the ending to the reader?
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Mary Rosenblum
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I find them highly annoying
and so do most readers.
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Mary Rosenblum
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I always feel that the author
has a: Not done his or her job and b: is copying the famous 'lady and
tiger' story.
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Mary Rosenblum
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That ending will not impress
editors most of the time. FYI.
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Mary Rosenblum
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BUT...that said...you can do
it more subtly and get away with it just fine. :-)
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Mary Rosenblum
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You can imply one ending, but
leave it less than certain.
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destiny8
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Sorry. . ."lady and
tiger"?
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Mary Rosenblum
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The ending is left to the
readers. A man has two doors to open, one with a tiger behind it, one with
a beautiful woman, and his former lover, the Queen, has told him secretly
to open one door.
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Mary Rosenblum
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The reader has to decide if
she told him to open the door with her rival behind it, or the door with
the tiger.
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Mary Rosenblum
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You can read it online:
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Mary Rosenblum
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http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/LadyTige.shtml
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johnw
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So what's the best way to get
going w/ ff? Write a "vignette" several different ways?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Or just start with a question.
The girl is taking a shortcut through the park. What happens?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Use something you see as you
go through your day.
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Mary Rosenblum
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That gloomy looking man is
weeding the flower planters on the bus mall. Why?
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Mary Rosenblum
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This is actually an exercise I
use in writing workshops and will probably use when I teach the Clarion
West Workshop this summer. :-)
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Mary Rosenblum
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Observe a bit of behavior and
write a short short piece to reveal the reasons for it.
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johnw
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He's gloomy because he's out on
Huber and has to go back "home" when he's done--on the Sheriff's
bus
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Mary Rosenblum
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That's a good one. :-)
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Mary Rosenblum
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Or he's the retired head
gardener of the Queen who has ended up in another country on skid road.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Or he sees fairies dance there
at night and likes to keep the planters neat for them.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Each of these small
revelations of 'why' will make a flash fiction story.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Here, it's not the resolution
of a conflict that will power the piece, it's simply the revelation of the
'why' behind that behavior
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Mary Rosenblum
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that will engage the readers'
interest. That's 'vignette'. Slice of life.
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info
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Maybe he lost the love of his
life who's flower bed he carefully tended to with love and lost the home
after her death.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Another good one.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Flash fiction lends itself
very well to 'picture challenges'. Look at a picture and decide what is
going on.
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Mary Rosenblum
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I play this game every time I
get stuck on a long bus ride across town.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Come up with a quick story
behind some behavior. If it's a really long bus ride, I may do six or seven
stories in my head.
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johnw
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Ahhh -- people watching
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Mary Rosenblum
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The essence of
characterization. :-)
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quixote
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a surprise - unexpected turn:
wouldn't that be most effective?
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Mary Rosenblum
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It can be. It doesn't have to
be.
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Mary Rosenblum
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It can be an implied
conflict/resolution. It can be an unexpected twist, or it can simply be a
revelation of the reasons behind the behavior.
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Mary Rosenblum
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The fun part of flash fiction
is that it just doesn't take long. You can whip off a rough draft with an
hour to kill.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Then polish them. Spend some
time to pare away as many unneeded words as you can, replacing some with
stronger, more vivid words, leaving others out
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Mary Rosenblum
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because they're just not
necessary.
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Mary Rosenblum
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You'll rapidly get better and better
at doing more with less and that will carry over to your other writing.
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janecj333
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The hardest part of flash
fiction for me, and also in longer fiction, is the last sentence, the last
few sentences, getting them to ring with some kind of truth that most
everyone can relate to but not appear maudlin.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Ends are always hard. As are
beginnings.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Sometimes the action that
implies an ending works very well.
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chatty lady
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Ever tried the exercise, write something
then go back
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chatty lady
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crossing out every second word?
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Mary Rosenblum
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That's pretty mechanical,
Chatty. A more effective exercise is to reduce it by, say, half instead.
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Mary Rosenblum
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You choose which words to take
out, but you have to take out half.
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writeaway
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Postcard fiction is fun, too.
Usually 50 words or less.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Yeah, you find all forms of
it. :-)
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johnw
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Where/when did this ff genre get
its start or has it always been around?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Oh, I think it has always been
around, but it didn't really take a 'center stage' before the internet.
Before that, short shorts like that ended up as 'filler' in magazines with
longer work or in anthologies.
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Mary Rosenblum
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But now we seem to be in a
trend where people without a lot of reading time like these 'small bite'
pieces.
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quixote
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more recently - mobile phones?
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Mary Rosenblum
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Probably. :-)
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Mary Rosenblum
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It's worth playing with. Make
it a weekly writing exercise.
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Mary Rosenblum
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If you do a bus commute or end
up sitting in a waiting room, spend your waiting time coming up with a
flash fiction piece using something you have noticed.
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charie'
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Is there a category of fiction
for picture captions - lightning flash fiction, perhaps?
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Mary Rosenblum
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I don't know that it's a
category, but you can probably find a website somewhere where people post
something like that. :-)
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Mary Rosenblum
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I suspect all forms you can
think of, down to license plates, exist.
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chatty lady
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Check out flash fiction:
submissions@vestalreview.net
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Mary Rosenblum
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Thanks, Chatty. I just took a
quick peek at that webzine.
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Mary Rosenblum
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It's another flash fiction ezine
like Flashquake.
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Mary Rosenblum
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http://vestalreview.net/
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Mary Rosenblum
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I have heard of Vestal Review before
and they pay 10 cents a words.
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johnw
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You have written 60 short
stories. Did any of them start out as ff and then you went back and ADDED
or expanded the original vignette?
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Mary Rosenblum
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No, John. I tend to be a long
writer and flash fiction was a wonderful exercise for me because of it. But
I have expanded several of my short stories into novels. :-)
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Mary Rosenblum
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All my flash fiction pieces
have implied larger stories, but so far, I haven't followed up on any of
them, as I recall.
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janecj333
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I remember you being critical of
novels that start with three battle scenes that wear out the reader, and I
wonder how flash fiction measures up with just its one scene.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Well, the nice thing about
flash is that you aren't going to wear the reader out with anything in 1000
words or less.
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Mary Rosenblum
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The challenge in Flash is to
see how much complexity you can layer into that 1000 words.
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Mary Rosenblum
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In a flash fiction workshop I taught
up in Seattle last year, one of the participants ended up with a very
elegant little SF story of 1000 words.
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Mary Rosenblum
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I actually counted his words
because I couldn't believe that it was that short. :-)
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Mary Rosenblum
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It was actually a very large
idea, but the flash story gave the readers a keyhole view of that larger
idea.
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Mary Rosenblum
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I recommend you read the flash
ezines -- Vestal Review or Flashquake http://www.flashquake.org/index.html
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Mary Rosenblum
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You'll read a wide range of
flash fiction. Then give it a try.
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Mary Rosenblum
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I'ts a great way to get over
'telling' the reader things.
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Mary Rosenblum
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It is also a great way to
begin to understand the core of 'story'.
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Mary Rosenblum
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If you think of a story arc,
what is the smallest bit that you can include and still imply the story.
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Mary Rosenblum
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That's the core.
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janecj333
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Small ideas on a small scale,
but big with implications are amazing to read when done well.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Absolutely. :-)
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Mary Rosenblum
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Writing short fiction well is
very difficult.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Writing short short fiction
well is even more difficult.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Not every piece you read is outstanding,
but the ones where everything simply works are pretty impressive.
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Mary Rosenblum
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For those of you who came in
late, Pam Casto has an article on flash fiction with quite a few useful
links
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Mary Rosenblum
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on the LR Website in Writing
Craft New Market Listings:
http://www.longridgewritersgroup.com/rx/wc08/pam_casto.shtml
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Mary Rosenblum
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So next time you're waiting in
line, on the bus, at the airport, or strolling around at the mall or
downtown, pay attention
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Mary Rosenblum
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to what is going on around you
and ask yourself 'why is that happening'?
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Mary Rosenblum
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I used to meet a couple of
writer friends for lunch at outdoor places in the summer and we did flash
fiction stories on the fly, coming up with stories about people strolling
by.
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Mary Rosenblum
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It was loads of fun and a
great exercise.
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johnw
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I will be looking for that
gloomy gardener
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Mary Rosenblum
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Interesting characters are all
over the place. You simply have to look. :-) And then imagine their
stories.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Well, have a great weekend,
all!
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Mary Rosenblum
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Do join us on Sunday for our
casual chat.
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Mary Rosenblum
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Same time as this Forum, but
we just hang out and talk about whatever.
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Mary Rosenblum
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I'll post the transcripts in
the usual place:
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Mary Rosenblum
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Writing Craft: Forum
Transcripts.
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Mary Rosenblum
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See you Sunday!
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Mary Rosenblum
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And I'll be starting a new
prompt in the LR newsletter this week! Stay tuned.
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