Flash Fiction And The Necessary Ingredients For Great Story Telling!

Writing is writing in my opinion. I happen to like writing flash fiction. I've actually had ideas for a novel and for short stories too from very abreviated flash pieces.  Yes, I think it can work and work well. After all, flash has all of the story requirements: plot, characters--a beginning, middle and an end.

I think we can try out ideas and see how they fly with a flash piece. And actually if you think about it, flash fiction 'cuts to the chase.' It permits no wandering, no day dreaming or padding or beating about the proverbial bush. It works or it doesn't.

Here's a test I thought of! Take a good, well-written dramatic scene from a novel and see if it would make good flash fiction. The novel that immediately comes to mind for me is Eye of the Needle by Ken Follett.

You have a crippled, embittered RAF pilot and his love-starved wife living on a remote Scotish island. It is self-imposed exile for the husband, but it's more. It's a grim abyss he has sunk into. To all intents and purposes it's his brand of hell that his wife and child inhabit with him.

Also included in the story is the very best, most efficient killing machine in the shape of 'Der Nadel' who must get back to Germany with information that will wreck the Allied Invasion of Europe. Just one problem: before this master spy can deliver the goods to Hitler, he gets shipwrecked. I just set the scene okay? Now for the flash piece!

If this was flash fiction it would begin here. The reader would see this nazi spy collapsed outside this remote home. They would know from some good concise writing who he is and what the circumstances are. Just good sparse writing would be enough for the reader (without any 'telling' whatsoever) to understand the entire situation. Just from dialogue and good descriptions the reader would know what is going on and would naturally understand what is at stake.

I think that's a pretty good example of flash fiction working very well to tell a gripping story in a brief but powerful way. I've bared it down deliberately to make my point. So yes, this kind of fiction works very well, in my opinion for the writer.

Flash... and its all over

OK, dear readers, for those of you who thought I had forgotten the subject of my last post… I shall explicitly start with the question: “Does Flash Fiction work to your advantage as a novel writer?”

From my POV (Urrgghh, don’t you just hate acronyms?) the answer must be a most definite “yes” to FF (Urrggh, again!)

Flash Fiction is tool in our authorial tool box. Let me explain; though, if you will forgive me this week, my post is necessarily brief as I have some unexpected challenges to face. I will explain through a review of some earlier posts.

Those of you who recall my post from July last year, may well remember my thoughts on how useful Flash Fiction can be for the author. Of course, for those of you who don’t recall, may I guide you to the appropriate spot in our illustrious archive!

A VERY PUBLIC ENCOUNTER…
http://thewickedwriters.blogspot.com/2010/07/very-public-encounter_15.html

Oh, and before any of you say “Oi! Isn’t that CJ’s post?”, lest I be accused of plagiarism… Well, the vagaries of the systemic move of our blog from Wordpress to Blogspot – a feat undertaken by our hard-working friend – meant that most of the archived posts appear in her name…

Well, my Very Public Encounter made what I considered (to me at least) a novel (oops, Pun alert) use of my first ever piece of Flash Fiction:

JUST A THOUGHT...
http://thewickedwriters.blogspot.com/2010/06/just-thought_09.html

When faced with a public audience: a book signing, a talk, a literary lunch, show casing a reading of a piece of Flash Fiction is a great ice breaker – as I did with Just a Thought… It also had the great advantage of of providing a reading that did not act as a spoiler.

And guess what? I have C.J. and all my friends here at WW to thank for that idea, for if it were not for WW and the blog topic of the week, I would never have written Just a Thought and I would never have ventured forth with its reading in public.

But, watch out for the unexpected…

My reading of Flash Fiction went so well at the literary lunch that I thought it would be great to do it on the radio. In September last year I got called in to do two Sunday Paper reviews within two weeks of each other, on two different morning shows. I did not want to be repetitive, so I suggested to one of the presenters that I read my piece “Just a Thought”. The presenter agreed – she thought it a good idea. I even e-mailed a copy of the text to her, so she could check through it.

The Sunday in question arrived. And I arrived at studios at the appointed thirty minutes beforehand, to collect a cup of BBC coffee and select half a dozen stories from the National papers before going on air…

There I sat, when, ten minutes before I went on air, the show’s producer came out to me and said:

‘David, we’ve run your story through the script reader and it’s too long…’

Not unsurprisingly, there was a pause…

‘…can you shorten it? By half?’ she said.

Bl**dy h*ll, I thought, ‘…of course,’ I said.

Ten minutes… TEN MINUTES! Just half a Thought?

Out came my printed copy and a pen, desperately looking to slash paragraphs. Try taking a 1000 word flash down to five hundred words in ten minutes. I was praying that, unlike a previous occasion when the producer thought one of my selected news stories was too political for the day, she would not also want me to find another story for the list I had given her.

Sigh of relief; the producer was happy with the list of stories I had chosen and I could concentrate the whole of the allotted time to my task of editing!

For me Flash Fiction is a challenge. A complete story in so many words. But it is also a great framework around which a blog post can be written. Writing Flash is good for practice. And I am with Greg here, Flash is around 500 to 1000 words. What is it with fifty words?

Give it a go!

THE MANDARIN SEGMENT...
http://thewickedwriters.blogspot.com/2010/08/mandarin-segment_11.html

And the radio show? Did I get the story short enough? Did I read it on air?
Yes! And there was me thinking this post was going to be brief… :)

Has anyone else used flash fiction in a public reading? Do drop me a note with me your story.

The Mandarin Segment...

Something completely different?

OK, so, out of all the elements that make up a good story – which would I tell a novice they should take the time to study up on? You’re asking me? Really?

English usage? Strike one – C.J. gone done that one – fair‘n’square…

Plausibility, or, if your name is Greg: Keeping it real… damn it, Greg! Strike two!

No, please… Sharon, must you? Strike three… Out? Failed on account of characters?

But, in (my) reality all of the above and more ARE required. Now that really IS a problem for the novice writer.  So let me cast my mind back to when I had a story idea for a novel. What pragmatic advice would have helped me with the daunting task ahead of me? In fact, what was the first thing I wanted to find out about that ACTUALLY got me through the process of getting the idea down on paper?

Well, if you will bear with me – perhaps even read a little “flash” of inspiration… then maybe, just maybe, I’ll tell you…

The Mandarin Segment...

“Bye, honey,” she said “...don’t forget to eat something. It’s breakfast time! There’s a bowl of fruit on the table.”

With that his wife disappeared from view, on her way to the beach – his young son skipping gaily in-hand.

The writer sat at the small desk of the hotel they had checked into early that morning. It was the start of his holiday, but he had made a commitment. This last project, then he would relax. He had promised. He’d promised himself, promised his wife and child. He was an honourable man; promises were that: responsibilities to be met.

Sweat poured from his brow as the heat of the rising tropic sun screamed in through the open window. The gentle sea-breeze offered no respite. The effects of a sleepless early morning flight crowded his thoughts. Inspiration, that ghost of fancy, slipped from his grasp – that drowning muse parted his metaphoric grip as he, the sole survivor in his boat of life, looked helplessly, listlessly on.

Where to start?  It was his first novel... the commitment made to himself...  an outline of the story! A plan! Yes, damn it, he’d already qualified himself as a writer – but this was different... a novel? Eighty thousand words, he told himself... over three hundred pages. The thought scared him. Where to start?

He stood; he sat; he fidgeted.

The mid-day sun rose to its zenith... then fell.

Hunger avoided him as a plague.

The disappearance of his muse had long ceased to be that faded ripple on the outgoing tide of his consciousness. Oh yes! ...he still had the idea ...that glimmer of story hope that teased him into continuing his purgatory existence. But ...eighty thousand words?

The deadline, the end of this day, loomed ominously. Soon, they would return: promises to fulfil.

He paced the room. Desperation rose as a geyser from the bottom of his soul. Bile kissed the back of his throat. Panic began to consume him.

His eyes, heavy in desperation, rolled downward. His glance set upon the bowl of fruit. Atop the bananas, apples and grapes stood a single mandarin. The small orange fruit melded with the colour of the now setting sun. The mandarin became one with nature, growing in stature as his vision occluded all else before him.

He stood, mesmerised by the immense vision of the mandarin that became the world before him.

He stooped forward. Reaching down with his left hand he picked the fruit from the bowl, surprised at its lightness, given the sense that it seemed, at that moment, to hold the source of all energy. The fruit became all.

Involuntarily, his right hand met his left, trapping the soft fruit between them. It radiated inspiration. It controlled his movements. He knew not why his thumb pierced the orange skin at that precise time. He knew not why the skin fell cleanly away as, caressed by his touch, the fruit rotated against the sharpness of his nail. He knew none of these things. He knew only that he now held the mandarin, its fleshy nakedness exposed. Its pithy segmentation beckoned him.

The fruit was whole, it invited him to enter... to consume, not be consumed, but where? Where to begin?

And then he knew. ...A plan!

He smiled. He would break his story into segments. Each segment would begin as almost uniform, manageable scenes. Pithy links would bring the segments together, to realise the whole – an arc of enlightenment; from beginning to end.

He slid his finger into the mandarin... and breathed life, wishing he’d been hungrier, earlier.

****

And my point?

Pace.

The challenge, should you accept it, is to pace the story idea across something like 300 pages without letting the reader down. The writer must carry the reader on a journey through place, time and characterization, using effective language, well written and grounded in a reality that allows the reader to relax when the going gets tough. To my mind this takes a plan. It is a big challenge and, for the novice, breaking the story into manageable scenes is a great place to start.

Happy writing, mon braves! (...with no apologies to Richard Condon) :)

A Very Public Encounter

Dylan Who? Not Bob, surely? A good friend suggested, when I mentioned that I was about to attend my first literary luncheon as a published author, that I should do a “Dylan Thomas” –

[caption id="attachment_2945" align="alignright" width="129" caption="No, not Bob!"][/caption]

“Just wear a scarf, drink a lot of alcohol, and you’ll be OK,” she said. Except that I don’t have a Welsh accent. Good advice, I thought. (And thank you, Kate :) )

I did also think about a donning a black felt fedora… I do wear a hat, on a regular basis… and it is black, felt and fedora-like. But, despite my love of hats, I couldn’t help thinking that, as a relatively unknown author (so far – but I do have appropriate aspirations, I assure you) then I could easily be wrongly labelled as trying to copy that great British author – Sir Terry Pratchett.

[caption id="attachment_2946" align="alignleft" width="149" caption="Love the hat, Sir Terry!"][/caption]

So, before I go further, I will take this opportunity to state that I will, at an appropriate time in my authorial career, let my love of wearing hats resurface! I will come-out of the hat closet and reveal all… (But, as readers of my posts will know by now, I am prone to digression… so back to the post in hand!)

Given the free nature of this week’s subject matter, I suggested to C.J. (rather requested, and she – who is the font of all schedule wisdom – kindly agreed) that I post on Friday this week, so that I could write on the experience of my first literary lunch. So, here goes…

The week my book was published, a local paper carried news of an excellent Delicatessen and Tea-room’s launch of a monthly literary lunch. Lunch guests could sit and enjoy an aperitif and three-course lunch, while listening to author’s talk about their work.

“Wow!” thinks I. “What a great way to get some exposure for my newly published book!”

So I called, before the organisers had time to realise I wasn’t well known! What a coup – they booked me in for July 15^th, 2010. That was around four month’s ago! Plenty of time to prepare, I thought!

[caption id="attachment_2952" align="alignright" width="93" caption="Much ado..."][/caption]

Then my ‘redundant’ employment situation came to a welcome, but unexpected end… and, lo and behold, I found myself with little time to do much ado about anything! (The slight hint of Shakespeare is purely intentional, dear readers.)

In the public eye?

I’ve now experienced radio on quite a few occasions. This time, though, I was to appear in front of people who had actually paid real money to come and listen to me! The pressure was on!

I then realised, a while ago, that there was little advertising of the event. “Strange,” I thought, “maybe I have been found out!” Until the publicity consultant contacted me to tell me the event was a sell-out. They had reigned back on publicity, in order not to disappoint any further potential guests.

[caption id="attachment_2947" align="alignright" width="132" caption="Who goes there?"][/caption]

More pressure! Not only were there going to be real people, but the room was going to be full! But who were these mystery guests going to be?

This is problematic, how can you prepare something, if you don’t know your audience? So, under pressure, the night before the talk came this week, faster than I had thought possible. (And in entirely indecent haste, in my humble opinion.) Nothing prepared. What to do!

I have never believed in re-inventing wheels. Interviews work well… I have been interviewed on radio, and in print... Why not take an interview format?

A Brilliant idea!

I don’t ad-lib… I have never ad-libbed… But, I reckon, if you ask any author a question about their book, then they will wax lyrical! Indeed, I have done so. The trick, then, was to come up with a set of one-word questions which would provide the catalyst to 30 to 45 minutes of un-rehearsed monologue! Add a couple of readings, and, hey-presto, a format for my talk.

[caption id="attachment_2948" align="alignleft" width="114" caption="Oops! Did I do that?"][/caption]

Well, here is something for you to think about if you find yourself in the same position… FLASH FICTION! (And thank you, the person who suggested the theme a few weeks ago… despite my having never tried it.)

A 500 word short story is an ideal ice-breaker in a public reading. It is a show-case of writing skill – a chance for an audience, who may never have actually read your work, to see how you handle a beginning, a middle, and an end! A normal reading just does not allow that, and can easily act as a spoiler.

OK, so the tea-room was small – at around 16 guests, the room was fully packed – but the audience was a gem! Quality, not quantity! They listened to ‘Just a thought’ intently. And a strange thing happened…

[caption id="attachment_2949" align="alignright" width="100" caption="I said "spontaneous"!"][/caption]

Within two minutes of me being introduced… the audience had broken out into spontaneous applause!  That has not happened to me before, ever! I can tell you!

The ice broken, the rest was a pure pleasure: a bit about me (needed no one word question as a prompt), and I introduced the book. (I had ascertained that only one guest had actually read it prior to the lunch.) Here, I made good use of a review, rather than my own words, and then I read the short opening scene from ‘River of Judgement’.

One more time?

By this time, the audience were engaged with me. And, although they did not applause after the second reading (I was not disappointed) my set of questions went out of the metaphoric window as I checked that I now only had ten minutes left! Where had the time gone?

The audience seemed attentive, interested and waiting for more! Do they want more? Really?

I asked them… “I have another reading, if you would like?”

Affirmative nods, and some murmurs of ascent! Even an audible ‘yes’ or two! (I had, fortunately, printed off the opening scene from the sequel, freshly written.)

“Will it spoil our reading of the first book,” came a very interested, if slightly concerned voice.

(Note: if you are in business, selling, this would be considered a very strong “buy” signal… time to close the deal!)

“No,” says I. “There were a bunch of obvious crooks in the first book; I am only giving the name of one in the reading.”

More murmurs of approval. So I delivered the opening scene of the unnamed sequel. I did warn my audience that it would be twice as long to read – 1000 words! But they were not shaken!

“Thank you,” I finally announce.

And a lovely lunch was served, during which I spoke to some lovely guests who were really interesting to talk to, and who were really interested in what I had had to say.

“Do you think it went well?” asked one lady who, together with her partner, had been there because their tickets had been booked by a family member in Australia.

“Yes,” I said, with a smile.

“…because it has persuaded me to buy three copies of your book for our friends,” she said.

That one sentence, from that one lady, made the whole thing worthwhile! And I think around half the audience left with at least one signed copy of the book.

[caption id="attachment_2950" align="alignleft" width="133" caption="You can't get enough!"][/caption]

As writers, both self-published, and those with publishers, we need to be able to get out there and engage with those we want to buy our books! We cannot be complacent. Every opportunity for publicity must be grabbed with both hands and pursued. We must take every opportunity and maximise its impact. And, if this little story helps show how a previously unknown situation can resolve itself, then I am happy to have had the opportunity to relate it!

Happy writing! (And speaking!)  :)

Just a Thought?

Well, here I go, straight into my first piece of Flash Fiction. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you do, I could be tempted to write more. Though I still think a short story should last longer that a pot of coffee!

:)

Just a Thought?

His eyes had been closed a while. Opening them slowly, he looked up. Immediately, he caught her gaze again.

She smiled. Her eyes shone with a brightness that sliced through the overcast day. They cut into his drab existence, as if a razor had been drawn quickly over the skin of a ripe peach – sweetness oozed; a perfume of palpable intensity flowed over his soul.

Who was she?

The train thundered down the track, continuing its inexorable progress. In one hour, he thought, they’d reach the end of the line... it would be over.

He smiled a short, sheepish acknowledgement, not wanting to give the slightest impression that he was consumed by her presence.

Her smile… he’d never seen such a lovely smile. He had, of course! But, right now, at this instant, he held no memory of such another. It was the only thing he could focus upon – the only thing that seemed to him to be real.

She’d entered from behind him, walking the length of the near-empty carriage, before turning. She retraced her steps in his direction and, on catching his upward glance, she took the seat opposite his. Now she sat across the small table that separated them, smiling – as if she knew something.

Earlier, as she first took her seat, he’d averted his eyes – closed them. He’d allowed the rhythmic swaying of the carriage to draw him into its succour. As the heavy engine drew forward its tail of wanton, rumbling followers, the rhythm drew him into temporary sleep – the vision of the women’s face etched into his mind.

But now, though, he was awake. Awake to her attention, awake to the caress of that smile.

The women moved her arm with graceful ease, sliding her hand deftly within her purse, withdrawing her mobile phone.

He looked on, trying hard not to stare at her perfectly painted finger nails as she tapped out a text. He wished, not for the first time since she’d joined the train – for Christ’s sake, he’d even dreamed it – he wished he could summon the courage to speak. He wished he could ask her for the number of her telephone, so that he could, maybe, call her… if she didn’t mind?

But he looked on. Her beauty, the occasion, whatever… they conspired against him. He was struck dumb. “Please…,” he wanted to cry out.

The scenario played over in his mind as the train pulled into the station, the journey over.

He sat, transfixed, as the girl with the smile rose. She collected her purse and, stopping a moment, removed a card from a discreet silver case. She placed the card carefully before him, twisting her fingers until it faced him. She paused, holding his gaze once again in hers, and smiled a last smile.

“You asked for my number,” she said, and left the carriage.

The spell broken, he glanced down at the card: DR ALICE CRAVEN, MENTALIST, and the strap line: UNLOCK YOUR INNERMOST THOUGHTS.

Served Up Short with a Side of Gore

Let me get right to the point this week. The horror genre is best read as a short story or novella. Unfortunately, the publishing industry doesn’t seem to agree with me. Case in point, Stephen King’s long drawn out horror novels like It.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a fan of Mr. King and consider him a master of horror in his older, shorter works. And, he’s certainly not the only author who’s written a looonnngggg horror novel I didn’t enjoy. I’m also a huge fan of Clive Barker, but after suffering through The Great and Secret Show, I won’t pick up another one of his longer novels.

I read and write horror for the shock and gore factor. Isn’t that the point of the genre? To make the reader squirm? Over four-hundred pages of background details, character development, subplots, and love stories are just a waste of time if everyone is going to die a gruesome and tormented death in the end.

Looking back at my reading history, I remember a specific childhood trip to the library, where I happened upon collections of short ghost stories for young adults. I sat with the first book, eyes glued to the pages, start to finish, frightened to the bone. I read through every book in the collection with equal fervor. Those books fed my addiction to horror, and ever since, I’ve sought out short fiction that‘s equally chilling. Poe was one of my favorites as a teen and today my favorite short horror author is Ramsey Campbell, but there are so many other collections by various authors I can’t resist. Unfortunately, more often than not, you end up with an anthology of the really good with the really bad.

Thanks to my freshman high school English teacher, I later found myself addicted to writing horror. Amazing woman put up with my horrific short stories. While everyone else wrote about their lovely Christmas holidays, I handed in a short story about Mrs. Clause beating Santa to death with a frozen turkey, after he arrived home late to Christmas dinner. It wasn’t exactly an original idea if you remember an old Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode, Lamb to the Slaughter. In the show, the wife kills her husband with a frozen leg of lamb, then feeds the cooked lamb to the police officers investigating his murder. Hey, we all gotta start writing somewhere.


I still write a lot of short horror stories. I especially like to take a break from a novel, during the onset of an over-thinking rut, to torture a few people in a flash fiction tale. Or, take a step back and write my entire novel in 50 words, a little trick I learned from Gaynor Stenson, the publisher I interviewed here a couple weeks ago. Over at Vamplit Writers, she challenged us to write horrific fifty word stories. Here’s the one I wrote for The Courier.

Unable to hold down a job, Barry acquiesces to serve Satan for a lifelong paycheck. Soon overcome with remorse, he seeks a way to resign, but the only possible escape is through the lesser of two evils. In the end, he’s still held accountable.

It’s a constant work in progress. I spent a half hour updating it just to present it here, and still hate it. Reads too much like a pitch.

So I challenge you to warm up for the short story contest by leaving a 50 word story in the comments here today. Doesn't have to be horror.

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