Connie's Corner

The end of my class....

I had my last micro-fiction class tonight...so sad . We reviewed the major points of what defines micro-fiction (actually all flash fiction).

1) It must begin in media res ... that is, in the middle of the story.
2) Make your title and your first sentence hook the reader.
3) While in real estate, location is everything, in flash fiction, focus is the key word. A novel may be compared to looking at the inside of a house, a short story is like looking through the window, but flash fiction is that peek through the keyhole. You see only one little slice of life
4) Usually, flash fiction is no more than 1,000 words and can be as short as a few words. Hint fiction is 10-25 words. It's all in the implications.
5) Flash fiction should never involve more than 3 characters, including the narrator if he is one of the characters..
6) Dialogue tags should be kept to a minimum, only he said, she said, and eliminated completely whenever possible.
7) Stick to one story line. A character-driven story might not have a plot, but every word should move the story forward. Every story must have a conflict and a change.
8) Compression is the secret to good flash fiction, forget the back story, and dialogue is usually never used as the opening sentence.

Kaye mentioned another site for finding places to submit, newpages.com. She thinks this one is better than Duotrope. I haven't had time to check it out yet.

So that wraps up my class, and I think I will try to take a break from a few things to find some time to write .

I do have a few commitments this week though. Tomorrow night a girlfriend and I are going out to dinner and then to the Hippodrome to see "Zombie Town: A Documentary Play". That should be interesting. And on Thursday afternoon, the Sam Proctor Oral History Program is having a get-together for its volunteers...moi included, transcribers meeting interviewers. I'll be able to put faces to some voices.

I really did enjoy my class. Even though we were small, quality made up for quantity. We had a journalist and two technical writers among us. It was a lot of fun.

until next time...c