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There is no doubt that a well-written short story is a small drama; what we writers have to constantly be aware of when we create our small dramas is that drama does not take place on a page or on a computer screen. Words are just symbols. They can represent things that we can see, hear, taste, touch, smell or things that we cannot know with our senses like feelings, emotions and thoughts.
You cannot see a thought. However, you can see the expression on the face of a person that the thought is the parent to.
What is important to remember is that our short stories take place in the imagination of the reader. In other words, the reader completes the act of creation.
This fact has important implications for the writer of the short story. Give the reader just enough and not a bit more; the reader does not want to be spoon fed the story. Because he or she wants to have some fun, too. The reader wants to help you finish the story.
Try not to over write your story. Just provide the dots and the reader will connect them.
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Notes On Writing The Very Short Story
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There are several ways to describe the flash fiction story: as a short drama, as a significant event given a resolution and as a complete short story contained within a few hundred words.
Because flash fiction is so short, much of the story must be implied; and this means that the writer of the very short story must put the right words in the right order so that the reader’s imagination completes what is only implied.
It is this inclusion of the reader in the creative process, to a much greater degree than in any other genre of fiction, that is the real beauty of flash fiction.
When flash fiction is good enough, it is art.
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