FLASH!: Writing the Very Short Story

by John Dufresne

Overview

An engaging and frank guide to writing the very short story, full of sound advice, exemplary models, and provocative exercises.

The history of fiction has been dominated by the novel and the short story. But now a brave new genre has emerged: very brief fiction. FLASH! identifies the qualities that make for excellent flash fiction, demystifies the writing process, and guides writers by exercise and example through the world of the very short story. John Dufresne’s characteristic warmth, wit, and humor remind writers of the joy in the creative process, making this a perfect guide for any writer interested in trying a new form.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393352368
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	02/13/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	224
Sales rank:	528,692
File size:	14 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

John Dufresne is the author of twenty-five works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, including Louisiana Power and Light and Love Warps the Mind a Little. He lives in Florida, where he teaches writing at Florida International University.

Table of Contents

The Intro xi

Briefly 7

Stories, Short Stories, and Very Short Stories 19

The Lure of Stories 60

Points of View 80

The Qualities of a Good Short-Short Story 114

Writing a Short Story; Writing a Very Short Story 127

A Formal Feeling Comes 155

The Art of the Glimpse 187

Long and Short 210

The Way of All Flash 222

The Outro 238

Acknowledgments 241

About the Authors 243

Story Credits and Permissions 250

Editorial Reviews

01/01/2018
Flash fiction is like the Twitter of the literary world. This compressed form of storytelling, usually 2,000 words or less, depends on careful word choice and a condensed plot with only essential but compelling information. Here, Dufresne (English, Florida International Univ.; Is Life Like This?) offers an insightful guide to writing this increasingly popular form of fiction. He provides a brief overview of storytelling and the elements of what makes a good story before delving into the craft of flash fiction. The author explains that every word and scene is critical, as are the point of view, theme, and literary devices. Whereas novelists have the luxury of incorporating detailed descriptions into intricately built plots, flash fiction writers have to introduce the characters and advance the story within a constrained framework; what is left out of the work becomes as important as what remains. VERDICT Along with Strunk and White's classic The Elements of Style, this guide to flash fiction is a must-read for aspiring writers and students in both creative fiction and nonfiction writing programs.—Donna Marie Smith, Palm Beach Cty. Lib. Syst., FL

Library Journal

10/09/2017
Dufresne (I Don’t Like Where This Is Going) has authored eight novels and two previous writing guides, and that background comes through in this assured and canny guide to writing very short stories. His discussions of plot, setting, characterization, and other areas are sometimes straightforwardly informative, while at other times they read like stories in their own right. A particularly valuable ingredient of his advice is the inclusion of detailed, encouraging, and relatively unique writing prompts for those interested in creating flash fiction, such as a prompt for sci-fi writers to “make it 451 words in honor of Ray Bradbury.” These prompts are supplemented by well-chosen quotations and full samples of works by other authors, such as Merle Drown’s single-sentence flash-fiction piece “Suffused with Pleasure”: “She bit him, quick, sharp, precisely, and before he knew it, he said, ‘I love you.’ ” Dufresne’s axioms about fiction compositions tend to the assertive and are generally insightful, but sometimes arguable—“We aren’t inspired to write. We write and then we are inspired,” for example. Nonetheless, for established and aspiring authors alike, as well as for readers simply interested in better understanding the writing process in digest form, this book will be illuminating, instructive, and, yes, inspiring. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

2017-10-17
A how-to guide to writing flash fiction.Dufresne (MFA/Florida International Univ.; I Don't Like Where This Is Going, 2016, etc.) has written many novels and stories and a number of books about writing. Here, he focuses on writing a specific kind of fiction: flash fiction, aka micro, mini, short-short, pocket-size, etc. The author describes it as "narrative (or it's not) that is distilled and refined, concentrated, layered, coherent, textured, stimulating, and resonant, and it may prove to be the ideal form of fiction for…an age of shrinking attention spans and busy and distracted lives." His ambitious goal is to demystify the writing process and discuss the craft of storytelling. He provides many samples of flash fiction, including graphic ones, by a wide array of writers (these make up most of the book), with some sharp critical analysis, prompts, and exercises along the way, all in a little over 200 pages. Scattered throughout are epigraphs, also short—"style is the difference between a circle and the way you draw it" (Pablo Picasso)—to inspire would-be word flashers and MFA students looking to get in on the mini- bandwagon. Dufresne provides minilectures on myths, stories in general, short stories—what William Trevor described as "an explosion of truth"—and very short stories, which aren't new (Dufresne references Borges' Ficciones and Kafka's Parables and Paradoxes). The author is not afraid to cite those who are prescriptive in their definitions—e.g., in The Fiction Dictionary, Laurie Henry writes that a short-short is a "complete story of 1,500 words max and around 250 words minimum." Some of the other cited authors include Steve Almond, Denise Duhamel, Lee Martin, and Debra Monroe.Not the place to learn about the short story genre itself but a good place to learn how to write some really, really short ones.

Kirkus Reviews