Writing Short

The old practice of paying magazine writers by the word rewarded verbosity. Short-short narrative calls on different skills to make every word count. Constraints can spur creativity, we found in Gale Walden’s Write-by-the-Lake workshop on flash memoir and flash fiction last week. You might have fun with one of these:

• Forty-two word story. You can submit your 42-word story with its 42-character title for inclusion in an anthology inspired by The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Detailed guidelines here.
• Six-word memoir. To write your life story in six words invites you to pare it down to the essence. What’s yours? Cool video here.
• Tweet-length tale. This form is especially popular for horror. Whether Twitter’s increase in limit from 140 to 280 characters affected story quality is up for debate.

For my first stab at flash fiction six years ago, click on “Her Next Bed” on the Writing page of this website.