Thursday, April 25, 2013

Finally at Home: My Flash Fiction Collection

I've been dabbling in flash fiction at several sites over the last few months. They provide a brief change of pace from the big multi-chapter works of original fiction I've writing for months.

The restrictions vary by site, but are generally:

1) write to a specified prompt;
2) employ a theme if specified;
3) compose within word count limits generally of 100 to 300 words; and
4) submit by the deadline.

My biggest personal challenge is writing to prompts. Some prompts simply do not move me to write. Other times the prompt is so juicy I have difficulty shutting down the muse. After years of writing to mandatory prompts — write this nonfiction report to satisfy this business requirement — I'm frustrated by the whimsical nature of my fiction muse. As with so many things in life, practice helps; I'm getting better at this.

I hope in the big picture it helps me write better larger works of fiction.

I'm republishing some of the flash fiction I've written under my Fiction page (link in navigation bar at right); it's all tagged as flash fiction to ease the search.

Finally, all my little works are coming home. There's a handful of pieces left in the archives that I'll post over the next week. As I write and submit new ones, I'll cross-post them here.

Do you write or read flash fiction? What do you think of it in comparison to longer formats?

[Shout out here to NANO Fiction, a lovely journal advocating and promoting flash fiction. Follow them at http://twitter.com/NANOFiction]