The OU is due to launch its forthcoming flash fiction competition #OU50words. The multi-award-winning campaign invites those interested to write a piece of flash fiction in no more than 50 words, in response to the university’s daily video writing prompt. To support the competition, OU academic Dr Samuel Sargeant shares the below content about the benefits of writing flash fiction.
How would you describe the ineffable? Sometimes a thought or concept is too grand or complex to be articulated through a long diatribe.
Novels, short stories, scripts these are all ways of exploring a concept or idea in greater depth, giving us the time and space to explore the complexity of a topic.
However, how often have you struggled to explain how you felt, or had an idea so complex taking the time to articulate it seems to lose the impetus of the moment?
How do we capture, for example, something so seemingly universal as “love” or loss? What might it mean to experience the loss of someone in our lives who touched so many aspects of it?
Can any number of words really capture that sensation? Sometimes, a moment is a greater indicator of a feeling than a novel. This is what flash-fiction provides: vignettes of wider narratives, moments in time that captures the urgency and palpability of feeling. That is not all that they offer, however, and the following are five potential benefits to flash fiction that might aid a burgeoning writer:
- Flash fiction is a great way to build up to larger projects. Many writers are overwhelmed by the planning and dedication needed to write a novel or play. However, flash fiction provides the opportunity to focus on a story without committing to a longer venture. These vignettes can even act as springboards for novels or scripts and you can test yourself by gradually increasing your word count.
- When you are just starting out, the blank page can be a daunting thing to face. A piece of flash fiction can be completed far quicker than a novel. That is not to say it does not require redrafting, few pieces of art are perfect in their initial conception, but you can write a piece of flash fiction in a couple of hours or a day. Whereas a novel, script and even poetry can take far longer to complete. If you are wanting to test yourself, and have a swift feeling of completion and satisfaction, writing flash fiction is a good start.
- Flash-fiction is a great opportunity to practice skills that you feel need sharpening. Should you struggle with writing dialogue, for example, you could write a piece that is entirely spoken. Alternatively, perhaps you are guilty of never describing the physicality of a scene and your characters routinely interact in grey, amorphous voids? Flash-fiction is then an opportunity to tell a story told entirely through the physicality of a scene. In either case, you can set your own limitations to force yourself to grow and develop your skills.
- Flash-fiction teaches you the value of word choice and imagery. In a story containing thousands of words, a novelist can afford to have instants with perfunctory writing. However, they still need moments where their prose truly shines, where their imagery captures the imagination of the reader and draws them into the emotions of a scene. Flash-fiction teaches those very skills. The medium encourages you to focus only on what truly matters and discard what does not. This is an invaluable skill for all mediums of writing.
- It encourages you to focus only on the most salient points. You do not have the time to spend a chapter explaining a character’s motivations or emotions. Instead, you have to pick a moment that encapsulates all that, to reduce your character to only one or two actions that provide insight into their psychology. Consider an old woman running her hands through the hair of a grandchild, or an empty kitchen filled with half finished baking. What happened here? What do these carefully selected images and sensations tell us about these people?
In short, flash-fiction is an opportunity for a writer to test themselves. To learn to use limitations to their advantage and to grow as authors. These are microcosms of wider worlds captured in amber. There is power in brevity; I encourage you to explore it.
Author Bio
Dr Samuel Sargeant is a Staff Tutor in Creative Writing at The Open University.
https://www.open.ac.uk/people/sms839
Check out the OU’s social media channels between 12 – 18 June to be in with a chance of penning a prize-winning story, selected by the OU’s Dr Gwyneth Jones. To find out more, visit https://ounews.co/arts-social-sciences/flash-fiction-literatures-delinquent-offspring/
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