short and sweet, pt. 2: resources for writing flash fiction
Good morning!
How is it May already?! Here I was hoping that 2021 would be less slippery than 2020, but alas—time has become a flat circle and we’re all here just clowning around with our schedules and pretending the antiquated calendar still works. At least the weather is warming up and the seasonal allergies are (hopefully) subsiding!
I've got a lot to chat about this month so let's hop to it!
“The Samundar Can Be Any Color,” Fatima Taqvi: a bite-sized fairy tale that ends with a satisfying splash. (Pun unintended.) I love a good flash piece driven by yearning, and Taqvi does not disappoint.
“Waiting for Beauty,” Marie Brennan: a dark Beauty and the Beast retelling. I had no idea it would rip my heart out in less than 1000 words. Highly recommend.
Going Short: An Invitation to Flash Fiction, Nancy Stohlman: I’ll talk more about this below, but this was one of the best craft books I’ve read in a while!
Sudden Fiction Latino: Like any anthology, this will have its hits and misses for every reader, but I’ve already gotten cut by some sharp gems in this one. “Everyone’s Abuelo Can’t Have Ridden with Pancho Villa” by Andrea Saenz made me burst into tears. And I don’t mean a cute little teary moment, I mean stuffing a pillow into my face to keep my sobs quiet because my husband was on a work call. Just 1260 words, full on ugly cry. Incredible stuff.
“Los Huesos,” Dani Martín and Juanes: this captures the precise vibes of the main character of the novel I'm currently brainstorming and is at the top of my playlist for that project. I’ve been obsessed with Juanes since I was about 14 and this jam is no exception.
THE HACIENDA will be published in Spring 2022.
Thank you all for your enthusiasm in response to my book announcement! I’m overwhelmed and over the moon and headed right back to work—this time, on the second book in my contract.
I am (un)happy to report that yes, the sky is blue, and yes (just like everyone always says), the sophomore novel is really, really difficult.
My Book 2 is set 25 years after the action of THE HACIENDA. Two decades in nineteenth-century Mexican history makes a massive difference. Twenty-five years takes us from the raw aftermath of the War of Independence and early years of the Republic to the 1846-48 invasion of North American troops on Mexican soil—what is called the Mexican-American war in U.S. historiography and la intervención o invasión norteamericana in Mexican historiography. I’ve been swimming in research this week trying to follow the movements of guerrilla armies within the action of the end of the war in 1848. I think I’m slowly starting to find my footing, but has not been easy or comfortable.
Naturally, when the going gets tough, I want to pitch everything out the window and work on something else. So for fun, I have been dabbling in what is perhaps the opposite of the novel: flash fiction.
Turns out I’m pretty bad at it. This surprises *checks notes* precisely no one in my Clarion West class. (A moment of silence for the week I promised my story for their critique was going to be 8k, only to turn up with a 13k novelette…) Anyway, I posted on Twitter and in a writers’ Slack asking for advice on writing the short short story. I was happily stunned by the responses I received!
For the uninitiated, flash fiction is the fashionable term for stories that are between ~500-1000 words long—only a few pages, double spaced. This featherweight form punches well above its word count: brevity is the soul of its wit, of course, but so is devastatingly precise language and rich emotional resonance.
But it's so short. Sound easy to write to you? It shouldn’t. Unless you’re a bit dumb. *sheepishly raises own hand* My first few attempts knocked me on my tush.
Attempt #1: a micro fiction I wrote in 2013, published under a different pen name in a publication I though had vanished from the internet. I just hunted it down and reread it for the first time in, uh, seven years? Eight? Eight. Yikes. It's not terrible, but it's cringe-y enough that I am not sharing with the class!
Attempt #2: While at Clarion West, I attempted the sub-1000 sprint and ended up with 4300 words to edit. Whoops.
Attempt #3: I tried to write a poem and ended up with a 300-odd word fantasy micro-fiction… or is it a prose poem? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Idk! (Either way, “At the Frayed Edges of the Night” was published in Frozen Wavelets #1 in December 2019.)
I think my problem was that I wasn’t reading enough flash fiction. Nor was I reading about it. Craft deep dives are one of my favorite things to do, but whenever I tried in the past, I found myself dissatisfied. Every class or blog post I found on the subject of flash boiled down to “have you tried writing shorter?”
Well, yes. I have. That’s literally my problem. (See above: 4300-word attempt.) Overcome by frustration, I have often pitched the short-lived short short fiction obsession overboard and resumed writing long things.
This time, however, thanks to some crowd-sourced guidance from the brilliant denizens of the internet and some recent publications, I found some incredible stuff on my research deep dive! A very warm thank you to all who saw my online whining and chimed in with excellent recommendations for books, blogs, short stories, and classes!
One thing Nancy Stohlman (more on her below) recommends when approaching flash fiction for the first time is to remember that you are a beginner. I happily accept this about myself. Yes, I have been writing since I was about ten or eleven. Yes, I have a novel coming out and some short story publications under my belt. And yes, I am also a beginner.
Being a beginner means many things: less pressure, room to reinvent oneself. Space to play. And most importantly, miles and miles of room to grow. I have given my writing brain a new muscle to work. Of course that comes with soreness, but now, writing short feels fresh to me. I’ve recaptured the sense of fun and discovery I thought I had lost while I was swimming through heavy novelette after novelette (7,500-17,500 words). I’m not great at flash fiction now, but I’m practicing, learning, and thinking hard about my craft from a different angle. I feel like a painter with a blank canvas and all her paints whose brushes have been taken away. Let’s grab the colors and have at it anyway, finger-painting style!
Because I’m a beginner, I’m not going to sit here in your inbox and pontificate about what makes good flash and what doesn’t. Instead, I’m going to share all the materials I discovered or was recommended over the course of my recent research deep dive. It’s more-or-less tidily organized into General Reading, Craft Books, Podcasts, Classes, and info on the novella-in-flash and flash novel.
If flash fiction is new to you, I hope you enjoy exploring and embracing being a beginner with as much gusto as I have!
General Reading
Craft Books
Podcasts
Classes
Selected Flash Pieces
Wait, I thought we were talking about short short fiction—when did novels and novellas enter the equation? The novella-in-flash (NiF) and flash novel are forms that have gained steam and apostles in the last 10-15 years or so. I just recently discovered them, and I have to admit, I’m really intrigued by the former!
Stohlman is the loudest voice I have heard in defense of the flash novel, which she defines rather fuzzily in Going Short:
The novella-in-flash has a more cut-and-dry definition. It is a novella-length narrative composed of chapters that are (1) all under 1000 words, and (2) could hypothetically stand on their own as short short stories. It takes the flash fiction collection and gives it a strong narrative bend, for example, if all the flash stories are about the same character or the same place. Or it's intentionally crafted to be a longer narrative with incisive, urgent, self-contained chapters of under 1000 words each. Choose your own adventure.
The chief internet authority on this form is Michael Loveday, who has written essays in SmokeLong about the novella-in-flash and judges the annual Bath Flash Fiction Award. He also teaches classes that I am very tempted by (see above).
In 2014, Rose Metal Press published an anthology of novellas-in-flash called My Very End of the Universe. The term “novella” here might be a bit of a misnomer in the eyes of the SFF crowd; we god-fearing SFWA folk define the novella as 17,500-40,000 words, and the authors of these novellas-in-flash happily swing anywhere between 7,000 and 30,000 words. The anthology also includes short essays on the craft of the novella-in-flash by the editors and by each of the five authors whose work the anthology showcases.
One classic text that novella-in-flash crowd often grandfathers into its fold is the classic The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. Cisneros is pretty hit or miss for me personally, but if you’re interested in the form, this ~30,000 word offering can give you a further idea of what kind of character arcs and structures are possible.
Further reading on the novella-in flash and examples can be found on Michael Loveday’s website.
Phew, that was a lot of links! I’ll close by sharing a word of flash structure advice that I heard on Twitter from the incredibly insightful Monica Segura:
There you have it. Go forth and cut mercilessly, my friends!
Until the next one! xx
How is it May already?! Here I was hoping that 2021 would be less slippery than 2020, but alas—time has become a flat circle and we’re all here just clowning around with our schedules and pretending the antiquated calendar still works. At least the weather is warming up and the seasonal allergies are (hopefully) subsiding!
I've got a lot to chat about this month so let's hop to it!
April Favorites | books, stories, and music I disappeared into over the last month
Vaccine, vaccine, vaccine, vacciiiiii-ii-iiiine: I got both doses of Pfizer this month and could not be happier (alas that I could not get Moderna and make endless Dolly Parton jokes!). Many of my family members have gotten first and second jabs in the last few weeks and I am so relieved. Soon I’ll be able to travel to see my family and tackle my baby sister and brother and cry harder than I have in a year when I see my mom and grandparents. I cannot wait.“The Samundar Can Be Any Color,” Fatima Taqvi: a bite-sized fairy tale that ends with a satisfying splash. (Pun unintended.) I love a good flash piece driven by yearning, and Taqvi does not disappoint.
“Waiting for Beauty,” Marie Brennan: a dark Beauty and the Beast retelling. I had no idea it would rip my heart out in less than 1000 words. Highly recommend.
Going Short: An Invitation to Flash Fiction, Nancy Stohlman: I’ll talk more about this below, but this was one of the best craft books I’ve read in a while!
Sudden Fiction Latino: Like any anthology, this will have its hits and misses for every reader, but I’ve already gotten cut by some sharp gems in this one. “Everyone’s Abuelo Can’t Have Ridden with Pancho Villa” by Andrea Saenz made me burst into tears. And I don’t mean a cute little teary moment, I mean stuffing a pillow into my face to keep my sobs quiet because my husband was on a work call. Just 1260 words, full on ugly cry. Incredible stuff.
“Los Huesos,” Dani Martín and Juanes: this captures the precise vibes of the main character of the novel I'm currently brainstorming and is at the top of my playlist for that project. I’ve been obsessed with Juanes since I was about 14 and this jam is no exception.
News
In case you missed it, my very Gothic, very spooky, very anti-colonial debut THE HACIENDA was formally announced last week! I got a shout out in Publishers Weekly and could not be happier. It’s already up on Goodreads if you would like to add it to your To Read shelves. More information (and a cover reveal!) will come this summer as we inch closer to publication. You’ll hear any and all updates in the interim here first.THE HACIENDA will be published in Spring 2022.
Thank you all for your enthusiasm in response to my book announcement! I’m overwhelmed and over the moon and headed right back to work—this time, on the second book in my contract.
I am (un)happy to report that yes, the sky is blue, and yes (just like everyone always says), the sophomore novel is really, really difficult.
My Book 2 is set 25 years after the action of THE HACIENDA. Two decades in nineteenth-century Mexican history makes a massive difference. Twenty-five years takes us from the raw aftermath of the War of Independence and early years of the Republic to the 1846-48 invasion of North American troops on Mexican soil—what is called the Mexican-American war in U.S. historiography and la intervención o invasión norteamericana in Mexican historiography. I’ve been swimming in research this week trying to follow the movements of guerrilla armies within the action of the end of the war in 1848. I think I’m slowly starting to find my footing, but has not been easy or comfortable.
Naturally, when the going gets tough, I want to pitch everything out the window and work on something else. So for fun, I have been dabbling in what is perhaps the opposite of the novel: flash fiction.
Turns out I’m pretty bad at it. This surprises *checks notes* precisely no one in my Clarion West class. (A moment of silence for the week I promised my story for their critique was going to be 8k, only to turn up with a 13k novelette…) Anyway, I posted on Twitter and in a writers’ Slack asking for advice on writing the short short story. I was happily stunned by the responses I received!
For the uninitiated, flash fiction is the fashionable term for stories that are between ~500-1000 words long—only a few pages, double spaced. This featherweight form punches well above its word count: brevity is the soul of its wit, of course, but so is devastatingly precise language and rich emotional resonance.
But it's so short. Sound easy to write to you? It shouldn’t. Unless you’re a bit dumb. *sheepishly raises own hand* My first few attempts knocked me on my tush.
Attempt #1: a micro fiction I wrote in 2013, published under a different pen name in a publication I though had vanished from the internet. I just hunted it down and reread it for the first time in, uh, seven years? Eight? Eight. Yikes. It's not terrible, but it's cringe-y enough that I am not sharing with the class!
Attempt #2: While at Clarion West, I attempted the sub-1000 sprint and ended up with 4300 words to edit. Whoops.
Attempt #3: I tried to write a poem and ended up with a 300-odd word fantasy micro-fiction… or is it a prose poem? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Idk! (Either way, “At the Frayed Edges of the Night” was published in Frozen Wavelets #1 in December 2019.)
I think my problem was that I wasn’t reading enough flash fiction. Nor was I reading about it. Craft deep dives are one of my favorite things to do, but whenever I tried in the past, I found myself dissatisfied. Every class or blog post I found on the subject of flash boiled down to “have you tried writing shorter?”
Well, yes. I have. That’s literally my problem. (See above: 4300-word attempt.) Overcome by frustration, I have often pitched the short-lived short short fiction obsession overboard and resumed writing long things.
This time, however, thanks to some crowd-sourced guidance from the brilliant denizens of the internet and some recent publications, I found some incredible stuff on my research deep dive! A very warm thank you to all who saw my online whining and chimed in with excellent recommendations for books, blogs, short stories, and classes!
One thing Nancy Stohlman (more on her below) recommends when approaching flash fiction for the first time is to remember that you are a beginner. I happily accept this about myself. Yes, I have been writing since I was about ten or eleven. Yes, I have a novel coming out and some short story publications under my belt. And yes, I am also a beginner.
Being a beginner means many things: less pressure, room to reinvent oneself. Space to play. And most importantly, miles and miles of room to grow. I have given my writing brain a new muscle to work. Of course that comes with soreness, but now, writing short feels fresh to me. I’ve recaptured the sense of fun and discovery I thought I had lost while I was swimming through heavy novelette after novelette (7,500-17,500 words). I’m not great at flash fiction now, but I’m practicing, learning, and thinking hard about my craft from a different angle. I feel like a painter with a blank canvas and all her paints whose brushes have been taken away. Let’s grab the colors and have at it anyway, finger-painting style!
Because I’m a beginner, I’m not going to sit here in your inbox and pontificate about what makes good flash and what doesn’t. Instead, I’m going to share all the materials I discovered or was recommended over the course of my recent research deep dive. It’s more-or-less tidily organized into General Reading, Craft Books, Podcasts, Classes, and info on the novella-in-flash and flash novel.
If flash fiction is new to you, I hope you enjoy exploring and embracing being a beginner with as much gusto as I have!
General Reading
- 13 Tips for Writing Flash Fiction, Flash Fiction Online
- Nancy Stohlman: Creativity in Flash, Writer’s Digest
- Flash Fiction: A Primer, Stewart Baker, Dream Foundry
- The Flash Fiction Special Collection, Seaborne Library, University of Chester, is the world’s largest archive of flash-fiction anthologies, collections, magazines, and secondary texts. Check out the bibliography they put together here.
- FlashFiction.net has an excellent index of articles. Search under “c” for craft and you’ll find about two dozen articles on the subject.
- Expert tips for writing the best flash fiction, Jack Smith, The Writer.
- The widely-anthologized Kathy Fish has a monthly Substack newsletter.
- The significance of plot without conflict, still eating oranges: a gold-tier classic Tumblr post on Kishōtenketsu, the four-act structure composed of 1) introduction, 2) development, 3) twist, and 4) reconciliation.
Craft Books
- The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Flash Fiction: essays, exercises, and insights from a variety of short short fiction writers. I bought this ebook years ago (in 2014?) and rediscovered it during my research deep dive. I have since read it cover to cover twice trying to absorb all its wisdom via osmosis.
- Going Short: An Invitation to Flash Fiction, Nancy Stolhman: Stohlman is a gem I recently found while rummaging through the internet and I could not be more happy to have discovered her brand new craft book. Teaching craft is a tricky thing. Being a student of craft is a tricky thing. Some teachers’ methods can bounce right off you no matter how many times you try them (Cat Rambo’s oft-recommended flash fiction course, for example, drove me batty with frustration). Finding the right teacher can be a game of Goldilocks musical chairs; my approach is when I find a chair that fits, I sit my butt down and keep it. Stohlman’s methodology, voice, and insight on the subject of flash in particular just worked for me. I first encountered her work on the podcast Writing Remix and tested out the opening pages of her Going Short via an ebook free sample. I bought it immediately and devoured it in nearly one sitting. If my recommendations have worked for you before, please consider picking this one up. It might be a home run. But if you’re not sure yet…
Podcasts
- Writing Remix Podcast, Episode 54: Going Short with Nancy Stolhman: ...try this podcast to see if the teaching boot fits. This episode features Stolhman in conversation with two creative writing instructors from USC. She introduces some of the main concepts in her book and goes through an exercise where she reads a story she wrote (and published) that was 1000 words long. Then she halved it to 500 words. Then again to 250 words. This demonstration of the power of brutal concision really blew my mind.
- For the SFF crowd: this might be low-hanging fruit for the flash initiated, but for let it be an FYI for everyone else. The Escape Artists podcast magazines—EscapePod for sci-fi, PodCastle for fantasy, PseudoPod for horror, and Cast of Wonders for YA of all SFF genres—have annual flash fiction contests and publish the winners in special episodes.
Classes
- Nancy Stohlman teaches online workshops on flash fiction and the flash novel. She urges writers to sign up for her newsletter for information on upcoming workshop dates and pricing. She also has a newsletter for FlashNaNo, in which she and other writers buck the traditional National Novel Writing Month format and write a flash fiction story per day over the course of November.
- Kathy Fish teaches several flash fiction workshops online, including Classic Fast Flash and a Flash Fiction Memoir Weekend Intensive.
- Fish also has a class on Skillshare that I’m trying out, but thus far, I’m not 100% certain it’s for me. While it has useful material, it discusses imagery and revision based on the assumption that the student already knows how to write short, which we all know I struggle with. Others may find it more useful than me! (Psst: Fish has a link for 14-day free trial to Skillshare at the bottom of her workshop information page!)
- Michael Loveday, chief evangelist of the novella-in-flash (see below), teaches online classes on the subject that can be taken at your own pace and include Zoom coaching sessions (so cool!). He also provides a short (and cheaper) version of this course if you just want to dip your toes in.
- Cat Rambo’s on-demand class Writing Flash Fiction didn’t work for me, but may serve as a good introduction for other writers. And who can argue with the $9 price point?
Selected Flash Pieces
- “Death Comes for the Microbot,” Aimee Picchi: a stone-cold classic. I always come back to it when I want to remind myself how deeply stories under 1000 words can make the reader feel. If you read nothing else I recommend in this newsletter, please read this. You’ll never forget Bee.
- “Five Courses on Ganymede,” PH Lee: a master class in letting dialog lead the way. I have no idea how Lee pulled this off, but it's one of my newfound favorites!
- Flash Fiction Online Magazine: this has been my go-to publication for reading flash fiction for years. Unlike literary magazines that specialize in flash (SmokeLong Quarterly, Cease, Cows!, wigleaf, etc—there are many, and they all have awesome names), FFO runs the gamut in terms of genre. Here you will find soulful sci-fi (like B. Pladek’s “The Order Taker”), heart-wrenching fantasy, slipstream, magical realism, surrealism, and everything in between. I find that FFO has a keen eye for stories that punch far above their weight in terms of emotional resonance. If you are unfamiliar with either the world of short short stories or SFF publications, I could not recommend a more solid place to start.
Wait, I thought we were talking about short short fiction—when did novels and novellas enter the equation? The novella-in-flash (NiF) and flash novel are forms that have gained steam and apostles in the last 10-15 years or so. I just recently discovered them, and I have to admit, I’m really intrigued by the former!
Stohlman is the loudest voice I have heard in defense of the flash novel, which she defines rather fuzzily in Going Short:
...not 100% sure what that means besides "well-paced, experimental short novel," but hey! It certainly sounds sexy!The flash novel is an impulse born out of flash fiction, an impulse toward brevity, implication, compression, and experimentation. The flash novel is not accidentally short, it’s intentionally short. While it may be comprised of flash chapters, it doesn’t have to be. The entire book, however, has the urgency and ingenuity of flash fiction. In this way the flash novel can’t really be called a novella even though they may share length. The flash novel is a different beast born out of different intentions: maybe you chop your novel in half. Maybe you zoom or use found forms. Maybe you gather flash pieces into a mosaic. Maybe you thread together a novel-scope concept album.
The novella-in-flash has a more cut-and-dry definition. It is a novella-length narrative composed of chapters that are (1) all under 1000 words, and (2) could hypothetically stand on their own as short short stories. It takes the flash fiction collection and gives it a strong narrative bend, for example, if all the flash stories are about the same character or the same place. Or it's intentionally crafted to be a longer narrative with incisive, urgent, self-contained chapters of under 1000 words each. Choose your own adventure.
The chief internet authority on this form is Michael Loveday, who has written essays in SmokeLong about the novella-in-flash and judges the annual Bath Flash Fiction Award. He also teaches classes that I am very tempted by (see above).
In 2014, Rose Metal Press published an anthology of novellas-in-flash called My Very End of the Universe. The term “novella” here might be a bit of a misnomer in the eyes of the SFF crowd; we god-fearing SFWA folk define the novella as 17,500-40,000 words, and the authors of these novellas-in-flash happily swing anywhere between 7,000 and 30,000 words. The anthology also includes short essays on the craft of the novella-in-flash by the editors and by each of the five authors whose work the anthology showcases.
One classic text that novella-in-flash crowd often grandfathers into its fold is the classic The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. Cisneros is pretty hit or miss for me personally, but if you’re interested in the form, this ~30,000 word offering can give you a further idea of what kind of character arcs and structures are possible.
Further reading on the novella-in flash and examples can be found on Michael Loveday’s website.
Phew, that was a lot of links! I’ll close by sharing a word of flash structure advice that I heard on Twitter from the incredibly insightful Monica Segura:
I took a course with Adeena Reitberger who does awesome flash fiction. One simple formula to start with is “a moment divided by memories” Also, cut mercilessly. Every word has to earn its way onto the page.
— Monica Segura (@monicasegura)
— Monica Segura (@monicasegura)
There you have it. Go forth and cut mercilessly, my friends!
Until the next one! xx
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