Flash fiction handy hints

Today I visited a local secondary school to talk to their Year 11s (16-year-olds) about flash fiction handy hints. For their upcoming exams, they need to do a piece of creative writing of 400 to 600 words, in 40 minutes. A tall order, glad it’s not me!
During the year they’ve covered the expected elements such as structure, characters, dialogue, point of view, but their teacher asked if I could give them some ‘handy hints’ to help their work stand out.

I had two 45 minute sessions, and in the fi...