Ideas abound in an author’s brain, but weaving them together into a coherent novel is taxing work. A novel is like a 3D puzzle with dozens of extraneous pieces. It’s not enough for an idea to be interesting by itself. Each piece of the story must tie into the others, advancing the plot, complicating character relationships, deepening theme.
But what about those rejected ideas, the ones you love but just can’t find a place for in your longer stories? Many of my own ideas have found homes in flash fiction— focused stories in 1000 words or less. Over the past two years, I’ve had twenty pieces of flash fiction published through the ezine Havok. My third, One Shot, was chosen for publication in Havok’s first print anthology. Flash fiction is the ideal medium through which to hone a single idea into a complete story. Writing good flash fiction, however, requires more than simply tossing a cool premise or engaging character on a sheet of paper. Although three-act structure doesn’t apply to such brief tales, considering how plot, character and theme manifest in flash fiction can greatly improve your writing. Introduce emotional stakes with compelling character relationships. Intrigue your readers with creative premises and clever plot twists. And finally, use change to communicate theme and give your story lasting significance. Characters The heart of your story lies in your characters: specifically, the relationships between them. Whether between a mother and daughter, a romantic couple, or a man and his own conscience, compelling flash fiction contains at least one relationship. True, you could a write a story about, say, a lone detective solving a mystery and rely on the cleverness of your plot to make your story entertaining, but complicating your protagonist’s crime-busting quest with a messy relationship would make it much more so. The best stories appeal to both heart and mind. So, how do you craft compelling relationships? First, keep your cast small. In general, flash fiction should have no more than three characters, or one for every 350 words. I sometimes use the following blueprint for picking my characters: a protagonist (who wants to achieve a goal), a relationship character (the reason he wants to achieve it) and an antagonist (who’s stopping him from achieving it). For example, in One Shot, my protagonist wants to kill a vampire. His friend and partner in vampire-hunting, Kray, makes his quest more personal: if he fails, the vampire will kill Kray. My antagonist, of course, is the vampire, Lord Dreadsower. These three characters are all I need to tell an engaging story. Of course, the above blueprint is a general guideline rather than an absolute rule. A character’s inner struggle, for example, could substitute for an external relationship. Whatever you do, don’t make it easy! Real relationships are never simple, and an additional layer of conflict ratchets up your story’s stakes and helps suck readers in. For example, in One Shot, the friendship between the two vampire hunters is threatened by a dangerous secret kept by the protagonist. Your protagonist needs a clear and relatable goal. In flash fiction, he should pursue that goal from the very first word. You don’t have time to introduce him in his ordinary life and then hit him with a plot event that forces him to act. Ideally, the goal should connect to a relationship character. Either he needs the other character in order to achieve his goal, or he pursues his goal because of that character. Alternatively, his goal could bring him into conflict with someone he loves, and he’s torn between the two of them— in this case the relationship character and antagonist could one and the same. Plot Say you have a dynamic duo for your story— a father and son on a quest to slay a dragon. They want to slay the dragon to prevent it from eating all their cows and causing their family to starve to death in the winter. Relatable, right? Now, you could simply write the story as one big fight scene, ending with the dragon’s death. However, such a straightforward plot is boring. While relatable characters help engage reader’s emotions, a creative plot engages the intellect. Most readers have heard tales of heroes slaying monsters before. Give them something more complex. Maybe both the son and the dragon are seriously injured, and the father must choose between saving his son or finishing his foe. Or maybe a seemingly insignificant piece of information from the first few paragraphs turns out to the key to defeating the dragon. Foreshadow plot twists early. An unexplained reference in the first or second paragraph will raise questions in your readers’ minds and make them want to read more. If your plot twist is that water dissolves the dragon’s armor, weave a subtle hint into the narrative. Perhaps your protagonist notices that none of the villages by the lakeside have been ravaged and sends his family to take refuge there. Keep it simple. Typically, flash fiction only has room for one major plot twist. If you want to reveal that the dragon dies to water and your hero’s long-lost brother is alive and have his son be mortally wounded by the dragon’s talons, you’re looking at seeds of a short story or novella. A unique plot makes your story stand out. If you combine one with a compelling character relationship, you have the core components for a powerful piece of flash fiction. Theme Just because you spend relatively little time with the characters and setting of flash fiction doesn’t mean they should stay the same. Change is the engine through which your story’s theme plays out. Through change, you elevate your story from mere entertainment to something that makes a lasting impact in the lives of your readers. In flash fiction, you don’t have time to carry out a whole character arc, so choose a moment of crisis for your story. Introduce your protagonist in a situation where he will be forced to make an irreversible decision. Whether a father sacrificing his life for his children, or a lover revealing a secret he fears will jeopardize his relationship, these moments of intense transformation sear themselves into our minds, not only when we experience them personally, but when we vicariously experience them through fiction. Your character doesn’t have to undergo a major change in his beliefs every time, but if he doesn’t, his beliefs should change his circumstances. Maybe he resists a corrupt government— and receives a death sentence. Or maybe he witnesses the heroism of a martyr and is inspired to also resist tyranny. A general rule for all storytelling, not just flash fiction, is this: If your characters are virtuous, make them suffer. If not, make them change— either by embracing goodness and abandoning their old lifestyle, or by spiraling deeper into corruption and reaping the consequences. Not every flash fiction needs dramatic decisions and huge personal stakes. You could write a lighthearted tale and do just fine. In general, however, stories with greater tension will leave a stronger impression on your readers. Humor strengthens any story. Melding it with a serious crisis can produce in just 1000 words is difficult, but if done well, results in an immensely memorable story. I’ve found an excellent example in an early Havok story, A.R Hildebrand’s Of Life and Breakfast, which uses an absentminded Grim Reaper to drive home the importance of using our limited time well— and too make us laugh. Without change, the theme of any story will fall flat. With flash fiction, you can distill a theme into one choice and the consequences of that choice. Show how either your protagonist changes, or how his decisions change the world around him. In doing so you have an opportunity to exhort your readers to joy and virtue and warn them away from wickedness, and in doing so change your own world for the better. Conclusion A couple of relatable characters. A clever plot twist or creative premise. An irreversible decision and its fallout. With these, you have the bones of an evocative piece of flash fiction. True, staying concise while including enough details to entice readers is a tricky art to master. However, with flash fiction even more so than other mediums, failure is an option. A entire story can be written in a day, and each failed draft only contributes to your overall skill. So I encourage you, the next time you have a good idea that just don’t fit into any of your longer projects, don’t throw it away. Instead, see if you can meld those outcast characters and discarded plot devices into something new, and perhaps you’ll end up with a piece of flash fiction you can be proud of.
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Progress on Doombear, Rough draft:10%
Progress on The Lore of Yore, third draft:
100%
"In truth, by leaving, I was seeking only one thing. A journey."
-Oathbringer, pg 981 Types of blog posts:
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