In March 2013, I started a website with two authors, Jennifer Coissiere and Pachet Spates, titled SNAPS 1000 Words: Where Images and Words Converge . We (along with new snapper, author and PR guru Makasha Dorsey) provide weekly stories of 1000 to 1100 words that are inspired by pictures. It's something I've always done on my own as I love photography and writing, but I thought it would be cool to create a website where we could showcase some of our writing and where we could further develop our skills as writers. Writing short fiction, just as in writing poetry, requires wordsmiths to practice astute word economy, to pay even more attention to the point of attack for their story, and to figure out the heart of the matter quickly so that a full, engaging story can be told in a short space, among other important tasks. I asked my fellow snappers to provide some tips to writing short fiction (some might call it flash fiction or any number of other terms). I hope you find th...

Flash fiction can be even better than journaling for working through writer’s block. Creativity and imagination require an open mind ready to receive new ideas and play with them. Many of our feelings and reactions to a situation (even a fictional one) can shut this valve off, often when we most need a creative response. Sometimes the very reason we experience a block is due to an ingrained and conditioned aversion to digging too deeply into something we don’t understand. You may be writing well when suddenly a character confronts you with a behaviour you don’t want to write about. Perhaps it’s your own behaviour, but it may be that of someone close to you, or someone who has hurt you. Flash fiction is an ideal vehicle for exploring your feelings about behaviours that you were told were acceptable but are not, or vice versa. Let your characters explore subjects for you. Prejudice, insecurity, fear, misconception and misunderstanding, rules and religious laws, jealousy, resentment, ...

If asked to list the top three literary activities that have aided my growth as a novelist, they would be: an intense study of story structure  my written evaluation of stories, both published and unpublished  writing flash fiction  Did #3 surprise you? It may seem counter-intuitive. By definition, a novel is long (60,000 to 120,000+ words) and flash fiction is short (usually 100 to 1,000 words). What could the long-winded novelist have to learn from writing flash? The answer: everything. You will learn to get to the point. Flash fiction must have a beginning, middle, and end, with a character arc involving a turning point, often using only four times as many words as I crammed into this sentence. You will choose words wisely. Flash fiction is, in essence, a prose writer’s exercise in poetry. The yellow flowers scattered across the lawn will become buttercups or daffodils or dandelions—whichever contributes best. Instead of cranking out word count, you’ll spe...

What do you do if an editor asks you to cut your story to “Drabble” length? A Drabble is a story of exactly 100 words, so this scenario is unlikely unless the publication you’re dealing with specialises in this type of work. Internet and electronic publications are less constricted by story length than print publications are, so you will often find their guidelines for length are fairly broad. Some may specify only the minimum or maximum word count. Terminology for short stories Many contests are for shorter stories rather than novel or novella-length works. The term “Flash Fiction” applies generally to stories of around 1,000 words, but is often applied to anything between 200 and 2,000 words. Lately in many cases, the term Flash Fiction has incorporated the “Short-short story” (500-2,000 words) guideline and this term may begin to fall away. A “Short Story” is usually considered to be between 1,000 and 7,500 words. In years past “Novellette” took the 7,500 to 15,000 word sl...