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 Emily Bullock shares the below content about the benefits of writing flash fiction.
There is always so much else to do, time is limited, and maybe it is your reading or writing which is the first to drop off the ‘to do list’. But flash-fiction is made for the busy writer and reader. Here are some tips to help you get started, whether you’re reading or writing.
Set a timer
It is easy for life to get in the way of reading and writing time. One way to make it count is to use a kitchen timer, or the alarm on your phone, set it for two minutes – who can’t find that amount of time in a day? Once it is set, read or write until the alarm rings. You’ll be surprised how much you can get done: the beginnings of a piece of flash writing; reading a complete flash-fiction story.
The next day set the timer to three minutes and do the same again. The aim isn’t to build up to hours a day, but to find small pockets of time and utilise them for reading or writing flash fiction.
Start at the beginning
The title is the first thing a reader will come across, make it count. It has to hook the reader – pique their curiosity, startle them. But it’s also a way to find inspiration, create or find a title for your flash-fiction first then write the story that flows from that. And if you’re reading a flash-fiction collection – choose the title you like best and start with that story.
Take chances
Starting a novel or even a short story can seem like a daunting prospect, with weeks, months of work ahead of you. That might seem like a big commitment. But flash-fiction is a place to experiment and play – seek-out outrageous voices, try that genre you’ve always avoided, turn to magic, elevate the mundane.
When you’re reading flash, pick-up things you wouldn’t normally choose, you never know where it might take you. Whether reading or writing, remember to have fun with it.
We all want something
Make your characters yearn for something, make the reader yearn for more (not a feeling of something missing but a longing to spend more time with the characters you’ve created). Remember that in a piece of flash-fiction that desire must be fulfilled or thwarted in anything from fifty words to a thousand words.
Robert Olen Butler wrote “A short short story, in its brevity, may not have a fully developed plot, but it must have the essence of a plot, yearning.”
The flash-fiction reader is your friend
This doesn’t mean you can take advantage of their presence, expect special treatment, or neglect their needs. It’s about thinking of the reader as a companion – you have a short-hand together, they don’t need all the background information, all the exposition, they know you. Don’t try to tell them too much, just enough to get them interested, to make them laugh or cry, or shout with anger. Keep the reader close but don’t smother them, let them do some of the work and they’ll thank you for it.
So, remember the reader is just as busy as the writer. They will be reading your work in one sitting (between train stops, while waiting for the kettle to boil) grab their attention with that opening line, hold them close with your character. The story is temporal, over with the turning of a page, the swipe of a screen, make those few minutes count.
Author Bio
Dr Emily Bullock won the Bristol Short Story Prize with her story ‘My Girl’, which was also broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Her short stories have been included in different anthologies including A Short Affair (Scribner, 2018). She has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia and completed her PhD at The Open University, where she is a Staff Tutor and Senior Lecturer in Creative Writing. Her debut novel, The Longest Fight, was shortlisted for the Cross Sports Book Awards, and listed in The Independent’s Paperbacks of the Year 2015. Her second novel Inside the Beautiful Inside was published in 2020, and her collection of short stories, Human Terrain, was longlisted for the Edgehill Prize 2022.
https://www.open.ac.uk/people/eb3777
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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