TIght and bright

As a writer, I am interested in the idea of flash fiction and the way it can help writers specialising in other formats.

Flash fiction, as I am sure you all know, is very short writing: some stories can be as short as six words, even less.

I know that flash fiction is not for everyone but I believe it does have applications if you are writing short stories because of the way it concentrates the mind.

It might be that you are tempted to spend two or three paragraphs describing a place or a person. That could well be fine but how much better in a short story if you can do it in a single line? Why much better? Because it leaves you those other paragraphs to take your story on.

I am one of those writers with split opinions about flash fiction. I like the idea of novels - after all, I write them - in which writers have the time and space to develop their themes, where you can devote half a page to describing something if the story requires it, but I can also see the advantage of an economical way of writing as promoted by the supporters of flash fiction.

Even though my novels run to 65-000-70,000 words, I have increasingly embraced the idea of economy, taking out words, lines, paragraphs, sections, extraneous material, all in the interest of creating a sense of pace and focus.

In my early years as a newspaperman, I worked with a news editor, who was also a much-respected poet in his spare time. Barry MacSweeney’s mantra when his young reporters came to write their stories was ‘keep it tight and bright.’  It’s a useful mantra to bear in mind when writing fiction as well.

 

John Dean