As the name implies, flash fiction is a literary genre that completely exhausts a narrative within a twinkle of an eye. It is a full story that appears short yet contains a plot, characters, and setting. Also referred to as short-short story, sudden fiction, microstory, or microfiction, flash fiction streamlines a story while keeping readers engaged with less than 1000 words.
Continue reading this article to learn about the various techniques involved in crafting a compelling flash fiction.
How to Craft a Compelling Flash Fiction
Writing a captivating flash fiction requires creativity, clarity, and style. Here are a few ways to create flash fiction that engages the readers.
Use Symbolism
Symbolism involves the use of concrete objects, characters, colors, animals, or natural elements to represent abstract ideas, concepts, or meanings. This helps evoke the reader’s emotions, add depth to the story, and briefly convey complex ideas.
Symbolism in flash fiction paints a bright picture of the story by providing a visual representation of ideas. Some kinds of symbolism such as simile, metaphor, hyperbole, and allegory add meaning to the narrative and impact more on the reader.
Avoid Many Details
Naturally, flash fiction does not require more than a thousand words. Hence, you must avoid including too much or unnecessary details while crafting a flash story.
Whether or not you’re writing about the protagonist, do not include many details of what he/she feels, thinks, or whatever goes on inside of him/her. More so, leave out details of events that led to a current event in the story. Only feed your audience with major happenings in the story except where necessary to avoid wasting words.
Show, Don’t Tell
Show, Don’t Tell is a significant technique in flash fiction that gets readers hooked to the narrative and creates an emotional connection. It involves the use of action, imagery, and dialogue to convey meaning in a story rather than narrating an experience to the readers. This writing technique helps to compress words, thus, preventing info dumping.
Include Plot Twist
Incorporating a twist in flash fiction is an effective strategy for crafting a great story. Coming up with a surprise ending leaves your readers amazed, evokes a surge of emotions, and enhances the entire story. However, ensure that the plot twist is not only surprising but unpredictable and adds meaning to the narrative. Also, while trying to surprise your audience, be sure to keep it brief due to the nature of the genre.
Use Active Voice
Using active voice in flash fiction creates a sense of promptness in the story and puts the reader in the scene. It enhances clarity, and pace, builds suspense, and makes the narrative more descriptive and compelling. Unlike passive voice which contains an excessive number of words, active voice reduces the word count in your work.
Employ a Dramatic Beginning
Having a dramatic opening is such a unique way of hooking your readers to your flash story. Starting your story from the middle instead of the beginning keeps your readers engaged while anticipating other eventualities. This writing style helps to reduce the number of words that would have been required if the story had been written from the beginning.
Focus on the Plot
Flash stories are really short, so, you must ensure to be straightforward from the start. Focus on the main detail of your story before filling in other descriptions and substories. By focusing on the plot, you must have conveyed the most important aspect of the story while including other details till you exhaust the required word count.
Conclusion
Writing flash stories may seem a bit difficult but often comes out as an exciting literary genre. To craft a flash fiction that resonates with your audience, avoid using adverbs or prepositions as they make your story wordy. Also, ensure to edit properly to cut out unnecessary details.