Am definitely on a theme tonight!
FAIRYTALES WITH BITE
In Story Endings I look at how I finish a flash fiction piece. I’m looking at the impact my story will have on a reader and it does influence how I write the story. I also discuss the classic “happy ever after” fairytale ending and how these days I am much more sympathetic with the “happy for now” approach. (For one thing it is more realistic!).
THIS WORLD AND OTHERS
In Making an Impact (I told you there was a theme!), I again discuss story endings and their impact but I also talk about the advantages of outlining here. You can work out what impact you want your story to have and, given there is bound to be more than one way you could achieve that with your characters, you can work out what you feel would work best and then go with that. (This approach can save a lot of rewriting later – and has done for me).
FACEBOOK – GENERAL AND FROM LIGHT TO DARK AND BACK AGAIN
The theme continues! I also share another joy of flash fiction, which is, having written your piece, there is nothing to stop you from developing it further into a longer, standard length short story or even a novel if the premise/characters are strong enough and you love the story enough to do so. (Both aspects of that would be necessary as the plot really does have to be strong enough and you’ve got to be prepared to put the work in especially for a novel. This is where your loving the story so much you have to write it up as a book will help you enormously, but it can be done).
Back cover of From Light to Dark and Back Again
Flash fiction has the capacity to make a very strong impact quickly – image via Pixabay
Allison Symes: Collected Works 