The answer to the above question is a definite “yes”. There were two reasons why.
Once one of my writing professors at the University of Pittsburgh had me report to her office for an evaluation of one of my stories. This was around the year 2000. I was a fifty-something-year-old undergraduate. I was older than my professor. She complimented me on my writing but said that in all my stories the introduction was too long. I had to start as soon as possible with the action.
The second reason going to college made me a better flash fiction writer was in college I was introduced to Raymond Carver. He died in 1988. He has been credited with revitalizing the American short story. He wrote poems and short stories. The label “minimalism” was attached to his early work. His work taught me how much a writer can cut out of a story and still have the story make sense.
If you are a writer do you have to go to college to write better flash fiction? No. You just have to keep writing and keep reading the Pittsburgh Flash Fiction Gazette.
Short stories like The Modern American Woman and Money and the American Writer are good examples of what flash fiction can do while articles like The Importance of Dialogue in Fiction and Let the Reader Write Your Short Story offer practical advice on how to write flash fiction.
And the best part about all of this is the Pittsburgh Flash Fiction Gazette is free. Even the Flash Fiction Workshop is free.
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Did Going To College Help Me Write Flash Fiction?
May 26, 2009 — pittsburghflashfictiongazetteThe answer to the above question is a definite “yes”. There were two reasons why.
Once one of my writing professors at the University of Pittsburgh had me report to her office for an evaluation of one of my stories. This was around the year 2000. I was a fifty-something-year-old undergraduate. I was older than my professor. She complimented me on my writing but said that in all my stories the introduction was too long. I had to start as soon as possible with the action.
The second reason going to college made me a better flash fiction writer was in college I was introduced to Raymond Carver. He died in 1988. He has been credited with revitalizing the American short story. He wrote poems and short stories. The label “minimalism” was attached to his early work. His work taught me how much a writer can cut out of a story and still have the story make sense.
If you are a writer do you have to go to college to write better flash fiction? No. You just have to keep writing and keep reading the Pittsburgh Flash Fiction Gazette.
Short stories like The Modern American Woman and Money and the American Writer are good examples of what flash fiction can do while articles like The Importance of Dialogue in Fiction and Let the Reader Write Your Short Story offer practical advice on how to write flash fiction.
And the best part about all of this is the Pittsburgh Flash Fiction Gazette is free. Even the Flash Fiction Workshop is free.
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