Creative Writing Eileen Casey
The nuts and bolts of writing flash fiction
Eileen Casey explains ‘Flash Fiction’, a fun yet challenging way to begin writing again after a drought. Writing flash gives such an advantage to writers, especially when the thought occurs: ‘There’s a story in there if only I could figure out a way to tell it’. Hemmingway’s six very telling words have spawned a number of competitions, a recent one being in The Irish Independent. ‘Unwanted child grew into Wanted Man,’ sticks in the mind.
Baby Shoes for Sale, Never Worn. Hemmingway’s six word short story says it all and in such a short space. Focus on the pathos of the shoes having never been worn carries huge emotional weight, together with an implicit back story. Every word, written in the format of an advertisement, carries pathos, the wordage may be small, but the freight is large. William Trevor, master storyteller, has said that he really learnt his trade as a young schoolboy. His English teacher used set exercises which were focused on economy. Stories were written to six line length, possibly Trevor’s own first encounter with flash fiction. Trevor, who also worked as a sculptor for several years, believed in ‘chipping away.’ Less is definitely more.
However, to return to Hemmingway. His six very telling words have spawned a number of competitions, a recent one being in The Irish Independent. ‘Unwanted child grew into Wanted Man,’ sticks in the mind, for sure. It travels an enormous distance in such a short space. Wordage for flash fiction varies from 100 words to 1,000 settling for somewhere in between. Flash fiction is very close to how a flash of lightning hits, electrifies and is gone. Flash fiction is an encounter for the reader, a brief encounter but one that stays in the mind, depending on the skill of the writer. Other names for the form include five-minute fiction, postcard size, micro-fiction. In France, such works are called nouvelles. In China flash fiction is called, the smoke-long story (as long as it takes to smoke a cigarette). Senior Times l May - June 2020 l www.seniortimes.ie 60
