Smaller and Smaller

Flash fiction is an art in miniature. They are short stories, of between six and a thousand words, that contain a plot, a setting, two/three characters and maybe some action/drama. They can be on any theme, and come in all shapes and sizes, and I love writing them.

Its a genre which is always growing, with new hybrid versions made of shopping lists and quizzes or crossword puzzles. I got hooked on flash fiction from a module at university, about the time I started losing my sight. I had lost my spark, and didn’t feel up to writing much at all. I thought flash would be a way to get back into that spark, and back into writing. And it was. It reignited my love for writing, and I haven’t really stopped since. I’ve had ten flashes published now, with more coming soon, and it has introduced me to many friends and writing groups. And it excites me. I don’t know where a flash will take me when I sit down to write one, and that is its beauty.

The trend for flash fiction at the minute is to challenge yourself to go smaller. There’s micros, which are under 250 words. Then drabbles, which are 100. There’s competitions which do 75 words, 50 words, and 40 words.

Recently, on Twitter, a friend started a challenge to create 30 word stories for the month of April. I gulped, seeing it was even smaller, but I wanted to give it a go. I’ve been doing it every day and its really fun. Of course you have to constantly count words, but its a real lesson in miniature, condensing a story into 30 words.

I wasn’t sure if my writing could get any smaller. But I was wrong. I don’t know if I’ll go any smaller. I know there are prompts to make ten word stories, and even six, on Twitter. I’ve had a go, and its always a fun challenge, thinking of how much story you can pack into such a small word count, even if you have to obsessively count words while you do it. My smallest published story was with a competition from last year, coming in at 24 words, a musical piece which was really fun to make.

And I know word count doesn’t really matter, for some stories come out long and some come out short, and many fall somewhere in between. I’m just continuing to have fun, with writing, in whatever shape and size it comes in.