The Art of Telling It Quick #flashfiction #shortstories

I recently had the unique pleasure of reading submissions for a writing contest. The subject: adult fiction short story and adult flash fiction.

First and foremost, I must give huge credit to these brave writers. Trying to create a story within a limited word count (500 words for flash fiction/5000 for short) is a daunting challenge to begin with, yet these stalwart souls managed to do just that and do it well.

Me and short stories tend not to see eye-to-eye. I find it difficult to craft a solid story arc within a limited space. Much like Twitter limiting my pontifications to 140 characters…serious challenge.

After indulging in the entries of our mini-ink slingers, I noticed a few things that made certain stories stand out and haunt my curiosity long after I put the pages down.

1. The main character–no matter what the setting or conflict, if the main character didn’t come out of the gate with a memorable presence, the story just couldn’t hold me.  Not that you’d get every aspect of who the character was, but you got the most interesting part of their personality–and why it was so interesting.  (I’d give examples, but I don’t want any spoilers for this particular contest.)

2. Clean writing–if you consider submitting any of your writing to a contest of any length, please, please ensure you’ve ironed out the misspellings, verb agreements, and punctuation errors, just as if you were submitted to the all-holy editor/agent. Nothing pulls a reader out of a story like a misspelled word or misplaced punctuation.

3.  Simple, concise story conflict–there is limited space to explore your story with short fiction, even more microscopic space if it’s flash fiction. The story’s conflict must be diamond bright and polished–get that sucker down to a jeweled nugget–gives you more room to flesh your character and detail your setting.

4.  Don’t answer every reader question–keep a few nibbles out there, it gives us (the readers) something to ponder. Did the character mean to do/say that? What could possibly motivated them to make that decision? While the main story issues may be addressed, those little questions, those are the ones that stick with your reader and bring them back for more.

Now I turn to you, my lovely readers and followers, what makes short stories or flash fiction stick with you? What do you enjoy? What makes you want to scream in frustration if not done right?