English: Grave of . (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Started out for the big supermarket eight blocks away. Noon. Very hot. The streets were nearly empty. It was a holiday. He came out and stood against the door frame. A baby boomer like me. I crossed the street.
“Alex.”
“Guy.”
“Any green peppers?”
“Sure.”
I bought two green peppers, one onion and three sodas.
“Business pretty slow, huh?”
“What can you do?”
I was glad that before I left another customer came in.
*****
Grocery Store Green Bell Peppers (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
This series is dedicated to Andy Warhol who grew up in Pittsburgh a few blocks from my apartment. Guy Hogan
*****
Keep reading and keep writing that flash fiction.
Related articles
- Andy Warhol, Karaoke And 15 Minutes Of Fame (pittsburghflashfictiongazette.com)
- This Flash Fiction Writing Workshop Is Free (pittsburghflashfictiongazette.com)
Filed under: Life As Art | Tagged: Andy Warhol, green peppers, life as art, Pittsburgh, reading flash fiction, Writing Flash Fiction | Leave a Comment »
My Secret For Writing Great Flash Fiction
Image via Wikipedia
The Old Soldier has just finished off a mess of home fries with onions and green peppers chased by a bottle of Cherry Coke.
Now let’s do some blogging.
Here’s a writing tip for you. Use as little summation in your flash fiction as possible.
Many writers try to say too much in their very short stories. This forces them to use a lot of summation, exposition which makes their stories read like essays.
The best way to avoid this mistake is to think of the flash fiction story as a very short one-act play. And in a one-act play the writer has to get the characters on stage right away. So, there really is no room for explanation and the characters must begin to immediately interact with each other. Dialogue is a great tool for doing this.
The play is so short that it usually takes place in one location and covers a few minutes to an hour.
Now of course there will be exceptions to these parameters; but the more a writer ignores these parameters the more that writer’s flash fiction will read like an essay.
Related articles
Rate this:
Filed under: Commentaries | Tagged: blogging, characters, Cherry Coke, dialogue, exposition, great flash fition, green peppers, home fries, location, one-act play, onions, think, very short stories, writer, writing tip, writng | Leave a Comment »