It is my belief that writing cannot be taught. It can only be found. And the Old Soldier is here to help you find it.
Hello hello hello, my brother and sister flash fiction writers and bloggers. What a hot day it is in Pittsburgh this Sunday afternoon. Of course, you know what’s on my mind: writing and flash fiction. If you have the same thing on your mind, you’ve come to the right blog.
Here are three short definitions of flash fiction that may help you to stay focused while you are writing your own flash fiction stories.
Flash fiction captures a moment in time.
Flash fiction is a significant event given closure.
The words left out are just as important as the words left in. If the words left in are the right words in the right order, they will imply the words left out.
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Movement in a short story is absolutely necessary. If there is no movement you don’t have a story. Instead, you have a sketch.
The shorter your story is the less movement you need to make it a story. Also, the less movement there is in a story the more believable the story will be.
What do I mean by movement? Movement is the amount of narrative distance your short story has to travel to reach its resolution. So, if you’re writing a 200-word short short the story had better begin just before the resolution. If you’re writing a 2,000-word story you can begin further away from the resolution.
When a writer creates a story, there must be just the right amount of movement to make the story seem true.
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Take your writing to the next level almost over night. Download my Ebook of “show don’t tell” fiction. Not only will you be entertained you will also become a better writer. The Ebook tab is at the top of the page.
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How Does Good Flash Fiction Work?
The shorter a piece of flash fiction is, the deeper it should be.
Hello, my brother and sister bloggers and writers. It’s a warm, overcast Monday afternoon in Pittsburgh.
The “idea” of flash fiction is a wonderful thing: that a writer can present an entire story in a few hundred words.
What baffles many writers in the writing of flash fiction is, their very short stories always come out flat.
To keep your flash fiction and very short stories from coming out flat, just remember that your story should always be a part of a much longer story, a story that began before the first word and will continue after the last word.
That’s about the best way the Old Soldier can put it.
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The Education Of A Writer
You don’t need a college degree to be a writer. Now don’t get me wrong. A college education is always nice to have and the degree that comes with it can set you up to make a decent living until you finish the Great American Novel; but the education of a writer goes far beyond the number of years put into a university degree.
What really makes a writer is applying the seat of the pants to the seat of the chair. That means struggling with words. That means being alone with your thoughts. That means coming up with good short story ideas.
Writing is about writing.
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Take a moment to download my Ebook of “show don’t tell” fiction. Not only will you be entertained but it will also help to make you a better writer. The Ebook tab is at the top of the page.
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