Week 4            Sound, vision and (re)vision.

Flash fiction as the bridge between poetry and fiction; what writing poetry can teach us about compression and imagery in prose. Discuss how repetition of words, phrases, and even sounds can serve as a story’s emotional anchor, making it affecting and memorable. Read excerpt from Stuart Dybek’s “We Didn’t” and the poem that inspired it, Yehuda Amachai’s “We Did It.” (Link to a transcript of a talk by Stuart Dybek here, with the poem and the story and a description of his process.)

Writing Exercise: Pick a word, a phrase, and a sentence from the word bags. Write one or two paragraphs that use these (they need not connect) and share them.  Try to keep to a 150-word maximum for each. (15 minutes)

Revision exercise #1: Read the Steve Almond story/poem from Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction (p 105-108).

1.               Convert one or both of the paragraphs into a poem by inserting line breaks. Cut extraneous words as needed.

2.               Convert the poem(s) back into a flash fiction/prose poem form by eliminating the line breaks.

Discuss: how does each revision change the piece; what is lost, what is gained? (How) do you know when you’ve ‘cut enough’? When is a flash story a story, as opposed to a sketch, a prose poem, or an unfinished draft?

Read: the halving exercise (cutting a story in half, then in half again) from Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction (p. 125-128), using the story “Exercise” (Bruce Taylor) from Vestal Review.

Revision Exercise 2: Write a story that’s around 200 words. Cut it in half. Cut it in half again. Which version feels right?

Homework: Submit your story to either 100 Word Story or annual the 55Fiction contest.

Continue reading, writing, revising; reading, writing, revising! 

Week 3 Reading and Writing Prompts

Week 3        Who knows where or when? Creating past, present, and (sometimes) future.

Read “I Am Holding Your Hand,” (Myfanwy Collins, from The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction), “Almost Over: Separate Bedrooms,” (Lydia Davis, from Collected Stories), and “Reunification” (Steve Almond, from Vestal Review). (The Lydia Davis story is quoted, in full, in the article about her that the link points to, and it has some interesting background about the author. She likes fruit smoothies. And cows.) 

Discuss: How does time define, pressure, thwart, or support story? If a flash fiction story takes place in a single moment (as many do), how do we give characters the weight of a fully lived past? Can flash support flashbacks? What other techniques can writers use to reveal background? How do we choose the right tense for a micro story?

Exercise: On a sheet of paper, write the following phrases:

The first thing he(she) remembered was __________.

Years before he was born, his mother(father) had __________.

Once, he knew, this had happened.

It was not until ____________ that he understood ___________.

Now, when he remembers his father(mother), he sees him(her) _________.

Years from now, he will be __________.

Use these to generate ideas for a new character, or to fill out an existing character. Change tense, gender, and person as needed. Set the timer for 15 minutes and write a story or scene that takes place within a finite, measured amount of time—as long as it takes to bake a cake, say, or escape from a burning building. While your story should have a “ticking clock” element that drives the motion forward, these phrases can provide the back story.

Take-home read: “Cicadas” (Lynda Barry), from One! Hundred! Demons! (Best seen in color; borrow the book or read online at Salon.com.)

Homework: Continue the piece you began in class or start a new story in which, as in the Lynda Barry piece, a “now” and a “then” story exist side by side. The ongoing action should be somehow informed by what came before. Use a concrete physical image as the bridge between the two timelines. 

Week 2 Reading and Writing Prompts

Flash Fiction Workshop

Week 2                        Welcome to the dollhouse: building a world and peopling it.

Discuss: how does one create a character that generates empathy in the reader? Which details make a character ‘real?’ How can we reveal, in limited space, the inner life of a character?

Read 3 flash fiction pieces: “Doghouse Dreams,” (James Claffey, from Camroc Press Review), “Fire Island, 1977,” (Tara Masih, from Apollo’s Lyre) and  “Thirty-Nine” by Meg Pokrass (from Damn Sure Right; also in Salome).

Notice how each story features a narrator at a specific moment in life (childhood, adolescence, adulthood) and how this narrator’s innocence or experience is framed by what they know or learn about themselves, about other people, or both. Do we become closer to a character by “seeing” them (what this character looks like) or by seeing through them (the character’s perceptions of the world)?

Exercise: Write a story, scene or character sketch in which we see a character as if through a telescope, with the focus zooming in from distant to close, from external to internal.  For inspiration, try these prompt words:  The story must be no more than 750 words and include a minimum of THREE of the following: envelopes unopened, olive oil, hips rocking, Missouri in the rain, disposable razor, hardening nipples, unfiltered Camels, floating in the pool, crushed Dexedrine, Tupac Shakur, glow of tongue, gas station wine, nacho stands, stands of pines, vibrators, purple lips, hummingbirds, 4 a.m., symmetrical cleavage, diet whatever sodas, touch of rum, throwing smoke, handstands, scratchy wool, a dog’s howl, a dog’s black head, a dog’s way of thinking.  [This prompt is from Thumbnail Magazine's 2013 Flash Drive No-Fee Flash Fiction Competition, judged by Sean Lovelace, which will accept contest submissions until July 1, 2013. https://thumbnailmag.submittable.com/submit.]

Take-home read: “How Could a Mother?” (Bruce Holland Rogers, from What If?) Also at Vestal Review.

Homework: Choose a person you’ve heard about or seen but don’t know personally and try to live inside their head for twenty minutes. This character could be a tabloid celebrity or the mumbling homeless guy you pass on your way to the bus stop every day, but never talk to. It could be a dead relative you know through family stories, the defendant in a notorious court case, or a legendary figure like Helen of Troy or Lancelot. Put this person in a tense or uncomfortable fictional situation and write a first-person narrative in which he or she confronts difficult emotions. Don’t worry about making up details you don’t know; those are the details will bring your story to life.  

Variation:

Try this piece again, either with the same character or with a new persona. This time, instead of first-person narrative, write from a close third-person point of view, so that we are still privy to the person’s thoughts but have one layer of distance. Or write from a secondary character’s point of view, someone who observes or reports on the main character, but does not have access to their innermost thoughts. Notice which voice feels more natural, more truthful to you.

 Please bring 8 copies of one (or both) of your pieces to next week's workshop.

Week 1 Readings and Writing Prompts

Week 1            Fairy tales, micronovels, and prose poems: the many faces of flash.

Discuss: What flash fiction is, and can be. Examples of different forms, from a fleshed-out poem to a novel in miniature. In a form that demands brevity, what can we eliminate and still have a story? Or must flash fiction follow a traditional story structure at all? Can it be something more dreamlike, more image-driven?

Read 3 flash fiction pieces: “The Mother,” (Lydia Davis, from Breaking It Down), “The Game,” (Tawnysha Greene, from elimae), and “Winter White,” (Kathryn Kulpa, from Metazen). 

Exercise 1: Beginning with a ‘found’ first line.

1. Head to the nearest bookshelf and choose a book at random. It could be fiction, but you can also try this with poetry, nonfiction, children’s books, even cookbooks.
2. Turn to the page that corresponds to your month of birth. For example, January would be 1, August would be 8, etc. Write down the first full sentence on that page. (If this isn’t possible—for example, you land on a blank or copyright page—just go to the next nearest page that is part of the text.) Then, open to the page that corresponds to your day of birth and write down the first and last word on that page.
3. Set the timer for 10 minutes and freewrite a story that begins with the sentence and uses the other two words. No other rules—just work those words in!

Exercise 2: Casting the Runes. Finding inspiration in words, images, random juxtapositions.

a.  Pass out crayons. Pick a color that speaks to you. Set the timer for 5 minutes and brainstorm as many words as you can think of that describe or relate to that color. Free-associate; don’t overthink.

b. Then, pick a color that you think is the opposite of the color you chose. (Use a color wheel if possible.) For 5 minutes, brainstorm all the words that come to mind for that color.

c.  15 minutes: Do a freewrite or try a flash story using at least three words from both colors, or as many as you can.

Homework:

Continue and/or revise the pieces you did in class. Or, if you don’t love them, try a new piece using the same prompt. 

Readings: 

The Mother
Lydia Davis

The girl wrote a story. “But how much better it would be if you wrote a novel,” said her mother. The girl built a dollhouse. “But how much better if it were a real house,” her mother said. The girl made a small pillow for her father. “But wouldn’t a quilt be more practical,” said her mother. The girl dug a small hole in the garden. “But how much better if you dug a large hole,” said her mother. The girl dug a hole and went to sleep in it. “But how much better if you slept forever,” said her mother.

The Game Tawnysha Greene

When we visit our cousins in the mountains, we sit in a circle in their room, talk about our parents while our parents talk about us downstairs. When they tell us to go to bed, sleep on the floor, we turn out the lights, share more in the dark. We play a game about whose daddy is stronger and they say theirs, we say ours. Their daddy smashes a hole in the wall with a single fist. Our daddy punches through a window, doesn't flinch at the broken glass, his blood. Their daddy uses a belt and they take a flashlight from under the bed, show me bruises not yet gone. Our daddy uses the horse whip, the BBQ cleaning tool with the jagged edge when Momma's not home, and my sister takes the light, shines over her legs where there are scars. We take turns with the flashlight, hand it over without turning it off, and the beam bounces off the ceiling, walls, before catching on skin, bright beneath the light. A neck, bruised green. An ear, stitches along the back. A broken tooth. We pull our pajamas off, hold ourselves out, twist down, around, point to our shoulders, our sides, our backs. We touch the places now, feel the hardness of bone, where new skin etches together under the light until we can't tell where one person ends and another begins.

Winter White
Kathryn Kulpa

I’m a snow globe girl in a snow globe world. I’m not real but you wish I was. You wish you were me. Don’t you?

I’m whirling. I’m laughing. I’m catching snowflakes on my tongue. It’s a grey day but my world is always in sunlight. It’s a cold day but I’m always warm.

It’s afternoon. Isn’t it? Late afternoon. Three o’clock. That isn’t really late but it seems late. Doesn’t it? There’s something frightening about winter. The light goes away so early and we always think, maybe this time it won’t come back. But it always does. It always has. I’m a snow globe girl in a snow globe world. How could the light leave me forever?

 It’s winter. It’s always winter. Minty, tingly, white, clean, laughing, dancing, a snow globe world. There are places in the world where it’s never winter. Where clothes stick to you year round, envelopes seal themselves and cut flowers wilt within hours. You don’t live in one of those places. Do you secretly wish you did? Do you gaze out your gingerbread frosted window and wait for a red and pitiless sun?

You are alone. Are you alone? Are you waiting for someone? Someone to dance through snowflakes with? Someone to lace your white, white skates? Someone to smile at over your palm-cupped mug of hot cocoa? 

You’re waiting. Are you waiting for him? Will there be a snowball fight? You’re laughing in the silent snow. A look that might be interpreted as laughter. Eyes squinted, mouth wide. How far is laughter from terror? When is a laugh a scream? Are you running for the joy of being alive on this snowy gingerbread day? Are you running for your life? Running into the still white woods, hoping they will offer you protection. Crying for sanctuary. Begging for shelter.

You’re a snow globe girl in a snow globe world. You will never stop running. You will never tell us why you run.