Flashfic Writing Tips & Tricks
Learning to write a short but satisfying story can be much harder than it sounds, especially if you (like me) are more inclined to write 10,000+ words with as much complication as you can think up. You need an entirely different focus to make short work for you.
Scoping Your Story
You can’t cram the depth and complexity of a 15,000 word plot into a 1,000 word flash fic. If you’re that writer, you may struggle to come up with an idea that’s scoped right.
Don’t waste time on leading up to the moment–start in media res (aka, “in the middle of things”). Start as close to the action as you can. Starting with the action already happening can help a flashfic shine despite a short wordcount. Rather than easing into the story, hit the reader over the head with it and then keep running until it ends.
Make it active. A fast-paced action sequence with high stakes and strong momentum works better than 1,000 words of exposition.
Consider epistolary structures. Epistolary stories (telling the story through text artifacts such as a series of text messages, grocery lists, or a list of points) are relatively popular in flash fiction outside of fanfic.
Use Words Efficiently
In flash fic length stories, every word should earn its place in the manuscript.
Use a simple structure such as try/fail + try/fail + try/succeed. Plotting in advance can be hard if you're a by-the-pants writer, but if you tend to write long, intentionaly plotting in advance of your first draft or before you try to revise it can help keep it short.
Write the story, then tighten your words. No matter how tight my story feels when I’m writing it, I almost never produce a draft under 1,000 words in the first version. I’m more likely to think I’m writing flash and then realize I’ve got 1,500 words in my doc. It usually takes a couple editing passes to whittle it down to the sharpest prose.
Show, Don’t Tell. Words like saw, heard, noticed, felt describe the POV character’s experience, but they aren’t necessary to the story. Instead of writing “Jack saw the man disappear around the corner, and heard a scream followed by the sound of two shots.”, go for “The man disappeared around the corner. Someone screamed. Two shots rang out.” That’s 12 words instead of 19, a reduction of 35% just by telling us what Jack saw rather than describing Jack seeing it.
Trim unneeded conjunctions and adverbs. Notice in my example above, I turned 1 sentence into 3. Using short, sharp sentences both let you reduce the word count by cutting our words like and, but, then, and increase the pace of the story.
Make Good Use of the Title
Repeating a line from the story or picking a random song lyric is a lost opportunity to cheat on your word count. Suppose you’re serious about writing exactly 1000 words. The title is your free cheat, because you can actually write 1000 + the length of your title. The MacGyver 2016 episode title pattern (X + Y + Z) often makes this easier than it otherwise would be.
Set the scene or provide context. Consider for example “War Room + Ship”, the literal setting of the episode, or “Mac + Jack”, the exact theme of both the present and flashback storylines and what ties them together.
Establish a mood. Trickier, but a title with a clear mood helps readers anticipate what they’re going to get. Consider @impossiblepluto’s fic “Stop. Hammer Time” from the last Writealong. The title alone gives you a taste of what’s coming. Outside of this fandom, consider The Trouble with Tribbles (Star Trek).
Relate to the twist. This is the most common type of MacGyver 2016 episode title, since most titles refer to whatever elements Mac puts together in the end of save the day. For example, “Roulette Wheel + Wire” or “Duct Tape + Jack”. Outside of this fandom, some examples: The City on the Edge of Forever (Star Trek) or When it Ends, He Catches Her (an amazing fantasy story by Eugie Foster.
Use precise language. Avoid using a string of adverbs if you can find a single, precise word to describe something. For example, you could describe a room as “a dungeon” as “a dark, dank, terrifying basement room with bare cinderblock walls”. In an ultra short story, go with the shorthand.
Pitfalls to Avoid
"And Then I Woke Up" Ending: Avoid cheap twist endings like whenw the protagonist turns out to be a dog, a ghost, or they're just dreaming. A twist that weakens the POV character’s emotional journey can make an ending feel unsatisfying.
The Pretty Vignette Trap: A beautifully written description of a sunset or a person on a bench isn't flash fiction—it's a vignette. Flash fiction requires a catalyst and a consequence. Something must fundamentally change.
Overloading Adjectives: Writers often stack modifiers ("the dark, looming, terrifying shadow") to be descriptive quickly, but all those adjectives bog down the momentum. Try to replace this type of phrase with a perfect noun instead.
