10 Tips To Keep Readers Reading Your Flash Fiction

Posted on May 24, 2013 by pittsburghflashfictiongazette
English: Andy Warhol

English: Andy Warhol (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Once a writer understands the basic form of the flash fiction short story, he or she is ready to accept the challenges of the subtleties of the genre.

Hello, it’s the Old Soldier here ruminating about how to write flash fiction.  The basic structure of flash fiction is pretty simple: the setup, the buildup and the payoff.  I told you it was pretty simple.  Now you’re ready for the tough part.

Andy Warhol, Campbell's Soup I, 1968.

Andy Warhol, Campbell’s Soup I, 1968. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Every writer brings different levels of writing skill to the creation of the very short narrative; but if you can keep the following ten suggestions in mind, flash fiction will become more enjoyable for you and your readers.

  1. The set up should be as short as possible.
  2. Dialogue is the best tool for projecting character.
  3. Explain as little as possible.
  4. The sooner the action begins the better.
  5. Remember that dialogue is action, too.
  6. Your story should be about a significant event which means something has already happened, is happening or will happen that has not happened before.
  7. The exception to “Tip 6″ is when your story is an obvious “representation” of something that is significant.
  8. The information you leave out is just as important as the information you keep in; but the information you keep in must hint at the information you leave out.
  9. Clarity.  Clarity.  Clarity.  Your reader must never wonder what’s going on.
  10. If your story contains explicit sex make sure the story is about the people having sex and not just about the sex.

I hope these tips help.

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Confessions Of An Erotic Flash Fiction Writer

Posted on April 22, 2013 by pittsburghflashfictiongazette
Woman As Art

Woman As Art

You know, the Old Soldier did not start out to write erotica.  I was a Hemingway man.  I wanted to write regular-length short stories like Hemingway.

Well, to be perfectly honest with you, I started out trying to break into the true-confessions market after I came back from Vietnam.  There were several magazines on the news stands that published true confessions for women.  In those days true confessions dealt with domesticity and love.  The magazines paid 1/2 cent to five cents a word and True Confessions was one of the top magazines in the market.  I never did break into the market.

Then I discovered Hemingway.

True Confessions (magazine)

True Confessions (magazine) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Hemingway wrote about “manly” things: fishing, hunting, sports, hoboing and war.  The only “manly” thing I could write about from experience was war.  Then I discovered Raymond Carver.

Carver wrote about men and women down on their luck, working-class folks like myself.

Then I discovered flash fiction along with books like Fanny Hill, Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn.  By the time I discovered blogging and how much sex there was on the Internet and came across reports that up to one-third of American women consumed porn on a regular basis, I knew that porn had become mainstream.  This meant to me that the Internet was ready for an online magazine of serious writing and brazen sexuality.

Now I publish not only my own erotic flash fiction, but I publish the erotic flash fiction stories of other writers, too.

Cover of "Fanny Hill: Or, Memoirs of a Wo...

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Writers, A Little Dialogue Goes A Long Way

Posted on December 19, 2012 by pittsburghflashfictiongazette
Woman As Art

Woman As Art

Okay, every story you write does not have to have dialogue in it.  I’ve written a few that have no dialogue in them.  Some of my favorite authors have written stories with no dialogue in them.  And the stories are pretty good, too.

I’m also a big fan of silent films.  I studied silent films at the University of Pittsburgh when I was a graduate student between 2003-2006.  My student ID remained valid for several years after I got my MFA in fiction writing, which allowed me to check out tapes of silent films from the library…

The difference between a short story with no dialogue and a short story that has dialogue is the difference between a silent film and a film with sound.

Not only is dialogue one of the best tools that a writer has for revealing character, it actually allows the reader to “hear” your characters.

Good dialogue makes your characters come alive.

This is the Old Soldier reporting from Pittsburgh.

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