How To Write Flash Fiction: 7 Crucial Steps

Historically, many readers have viewed short stories, and one of its categories, flash fiction, as a lesser form of prose. Readers often favor novels and longer pieces. But, plot twist, learning how to write flash fiction offers unique teaching aspects longer form writing simply can’t (or makes it much more difficult).

Not only is learning how to write flash fiction fun, but it’s an amazing form for writers to make rapid progress. It’s a faster way to receive feedback and easier to focus on specific writing skills.

Learning how to write flash fiction allows you to focus on perfecting your writing at a micro level, as opposed to dealing with 50,000 to 100,000 words in a full-length book. Let’s look at what a flash fiction is, what it’s made of, and how to write flash fiction utilizing imagery, brevity, and editing!

Flash fiction: what you learn

• What is flash fiction? 
• What is the structure of a flash fiction story?
• How do you start a flash fiction?
• Is flash fiction hard to write?

What is flash fiction?

A flash fiction is a short story that is typically under 1,500 words. Very small flash fictions (under 75 words) are called micro fictions. One of the most well-known flashes is the micro fiction: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

Flash fiction is a fun format to write because it’s a real challenge to fit a plot and strong characterization into such a small space. Writing flash fiction teaches the importance of making every word the most impactful it can be. Because of this focus, practicing with flash fiction will improve your writing in all forms.

What is the structure of a flash fiction story?

The main elements to note when learning how to write flash fiction are the length, the character, and including a bit of a twist at the end. First, length is obvious. The whole point of a flash fiction is that it’s short, very short. Flash fiction can be as short as a sentence if you want.

Again, character is obvious. Characters are the core element of any story. Since this type of fiction is really short, the characterization will really be developed through very concrete imagery of that character’s perspective. Despite flash fiction’s brevity, character development is still a crucial element.

Finally, by “twist,” I mean the ending should be very impactful, and usually surprising. Your last line should be a bit of a stab to the heart. Most flash fictions are going to be sad or tragic. For the tiny space to have any meaning, it has to carry a very big emotion. Tragedy does this well. However, you can utilize any themes or emotions you’d like.

How do you start flash fiction?

Because flash fiction is so short, you must start by plunging your reader right into the story. Let’s break down seven elements of how to write flash fiction so you can gain a deeper understanding.

Not necessarily all stories need every one of these, and you can probably add several to the list, but these seven are a great starting place if you have no idea how to write flash fiction.

1. Emotion

What do you want your story to make your reader feel? Your last line should reverberate with this emotion. In my story, What Remains, I was advised to cut the line, “She imagined her son with the raccoon, swaddled in the dirt,” to, “The mud she stomped off her boots, the sand in the park” as the last line.

Their reasoning was that it was a stronger image. While it may be easier to picture, it has significantly less emotional value—and the feeling and thought you leave your reader with is very important for your story to be a success.

2. Character

Who is your story about? Learning how to write flash fiction starts with understanding the importance of cutting back on your characters. Don’t use too many—you should really only have one character in focus. Don’t make it too complicated—focus on one central theme, idea, or message. Don’t try to pack in too much.

3. Imagery

What strong, iconic imagery will your story use? Using imagery in your writing means writing tangibly with the five senses. Instead of just describing sights and sounds, you can get a little more into it with smells and tastes and feelings. You can combine and cross them, and you can work on using relatable imagery.

When you use imagery of something familiar to someone, it will elicit certain emotions from them. For example, if someone had a younger sibling and you describe the smell of baby powder in a story, that’s a very strong olfactory memory, and they’ll likely have memories of their childhood.

If there’s a new baby in the house, what do older children typically feel? Usually either happiness or jealousy. So depending on how you frame it and use tone, you can purposely make certain readers feel something you want them to feel.

The easiest way to practice writing imagery is to show instead of tell. This is one of the strongest writing skills you can develop. Once you really understand what this means, your prose will improve. Showing is especially important in shorter pieces because every sentence and word has to carry more weight.

Telling is when you explain to the reader how to understand or feel something, instead of letting them experience it. Showing is using description to convey the same things, but in a subtler and more impactful way.

4. Inciting incident

Where will you start your story? Learning how to write flash fiction means starting in the middle of your story. Maybe show something strange your character is doing to spark interest.

Here are a few tips for cutting words to give your inciting incident more page time:

• Use strong nouns and strong verbs rather than excessive adverbs and adjectives.
• Be critical of adverbs and adjectives. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with adverbs and adjectives, but you should make sure they’re necessary. If the adjective or adverb explains something that the word it’s modifying already implies, it’s not necessary. For example, if you write, “a quiet whisper,” the adjective “quiet” doesn’t bring anything to the noun “whisper.” All whispers are quiet. But “a harsh whisper” does bring something to it—not all whispers are harsh.
• Edit for redundant phrasing and concepts.
• Cut most of your articles. Articles are a, an, and the, and they are almost always unnecessary. Amateur writers tend to slip in unnecessary articles without even noticing, so cut an article and read the sentence out loud. If it still makes sense, leave it out.

As with all fiction, a good rule of thumb is to start late and end early.

5. Hook ending

What will your twist be? To help you visualize these elements a bit better, particularly the twist, I’ve broken down one of my own flash fictions from Little Birds.

• Emotion: tragic sadness/regret
• Character: an older woman who lives alone
• Imagery: dark, dead animals, rundown house
• Inciting incident: woman collecting roadkill
• Hook ending: let’s read the story and see what happens!

You can see the above elements and how they’re used in this story. The twist ending was that she collects dead animals to give them proper burials. Why? To console herself about not being able to bury her infant son after he burned in a house fire.

6. Complete plot

This may go without saying, but you want your readers to feel a sense of settledness. Don’t try to write a flash-sized story in the first go. Write it as long as you need, then focus on cutting back to the best of it in editing.

7. Heavily edited

Speaking of your plot, don’t focus too much on writing concisely in the first draft. Write your story however you need to. Most of the process for creating a flash fiction is spent in editing. There are two basic categories of edits to make on a flash fiction.

How to write flash fiction: condensing

To clip your story into a compacted, impactful piece, you should cut unnecessary words, use impactful synonyms, and make your writing as sharp as possible.

However, you should watch out for superfluous synonyms—the most elaborate are not always the best. Go for precision, not most obscure. A lot of new writers tend to use the most complicated words they can, which can make your writing seem forced and unnatural, and often confuse the meaning. Sometimes simplest is best!

How to write flash fiction: polishing

After you’ve left only the necessary words, make the words you do keep as effective as you can. Try out different synonyms, pay attention to connotation, and layer with subtext. Here’s a video of live flash fiction edits that can show how different a story becomes post-edit.

Is flash fiction hard to write?

The main point of flash fiction is that it’s short—that’s what makes it flash. Writing in a small space is a big challenge. Earlier, I mentioned the six-word story about baby shoes. That’s a micro fiction.

A couple other examples of micro fictions are:

• He showered her with roses, but never asked her favorite flower. —Dandelions, Actually, R. Gatwood
• We came around the corner and there they were: young lovers, hands clasped. I drew the outline, Joe directed the crowd. —Love is Forever, Merrilee Faber

You can see from these examples that the titles of micro fictions can bring a lot to the story, so keep that in mind. Your first impression might be that writing micro fiction is easier than writing longer flash fictions, but it’s probably the opposite. It’s often harder to fit a story into twenty words than into 300 words.

How to publish flash fiction

Once you learn how to write flash fiction effectively, you might consider submitting it for publication! You can publish stories individually, or you can publish them as a collection.

A great resource for individual submissions is Submittable. It’s free to use, and you can filter submission calls by genre, length, topic, theme, etc. It’s quick to find and track submissions and easy to use.

Traditionally publishing a collection of shorts, especially for an emerging writer, is extremely difficult and rare to accomplish. But if your heart is set on publishing a collection of shorts, good news! Self-publishing exists!

I successfully self-published my first collection, Little Birds, and I can definitely recommend that route. Remember that when learning how to publish, utilize your title, but don’t let it give away the ending!

How to write flash fiction: take your next step today

Now that you know how to write flash fiction, the crucial elements of these stories, how to craft them in intentional and impactful ways, and some options for publication…it’s time to go write some stories. Use these Fiction Writing Prompts as you learn how to write flash fiction that excites you and keeps your readers engaged!