By Richard Scarsbrook

Richard Scarsbrook is the author of ten books, including ReLit Award finalist The Troupers, National Post bestseller Rockets Versus Gravity, and White Pine Award winner The Monkeyface Chronicles, plus dozens of stories and poems in publications such as The Guardian, The Los Angeles Times, Reed, Prairie Fire, and Descant. Find out more at www.richardscarsbrook.com.

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When Nancy Kay Clark contacted me to ask me to be the guest speaker at this month’s edition of the Brockton Writers Series, of course I said “Yes, please!,” and then I asked her what she wanted me to talk about. When she suggested “writing flash fiction” as a potential topic, the first thing that flashed through my mind (sorry), was . . .

FLASH!!! AAAA-AAHH!!! Saviour of the Universe

FLASH!!! AAAA-AAHH!!! He’ll save every one of us

(You can listen to the song here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfmrHTdXgK4 )

As you probably already know, this song is the theme from the 1980 space opera movie Flash Gordon. performed by Queen, one of the greatest bands in the history of rock ‘n’ roll, fronted by (very arguably) rock’s greatest singer, Freddie Mercury.

When the movie was released, reviewers generally placed it in the “so bad it’s good” zone, but in the intervening years it’s become something of a nostalgic cult classic, especially enjoyable with the right combination of beverages, edibles, and/or smokables (or so I’ve heard).

The song, though . . . the song is a dramatic, epic anthem, and it pretty much tells the entire story of the film—or at least suggests it—in its three-minute play time. 

The song intersperses brief dialogue clips from the movie . . .with Freddie Mercury singing! And the other members of Queen playing the music and singing backing vocals on those anthemic choruses! How could it NOT be awesome?

Anyway, I tried to turn my attention back to what I should say about writing great flash fiction stories, but I just couldn’t get that song to stop playing on my mental soundtrack . . .

FLASH!!! AAAA-AAHH!!! He’ll save every one of us

. . .

Radio Host: Seemingly there is no reason for these extraordinary intergalactical upsets . . .

Maniacal background laughter: Hahahahahahaha

Dale: What’s happening, Flash?

Radio Host: Only Doctor Hans Zarkov, formerly at NASA, has provided any explanation.

FLASH!!! AAAA-AAHH!!! He’s a miracle

. . .

Radio Host: This morning’s unprecedented solar eclipse is no cause for alarm.

FLASH!!! AAAA-AAHH!!! King of the impossible

He’s for every one of us

Stands for every one of us

He saves with a mighty hand

Every man, every woman

Every child, it’s the mighty flash

So, one minute into the song, and the most important introductory details of the entire first act of the movie have already been established: the setting, the main character, the supporting characters, and the inciting incidents are already there! 

Hmm . . . what could the next two minutes bring?

. . .

Spaceship com system: General Kala, Flash Gordon approaching.

General Kala: What do you mean Flash Gordon approaching? Open fire! All weapons! Dispatch war rocket Ajax to bring back his body

FLASH!!! AAAA-AAHH!!! 

. . .

GORDON’S ALIVE! . . . ALIVE! . . . ALIVE! (echo)

FLASH!!! AAAA-AAHH!!! He’ll save every one of us

. . . 

Dale: Flash, Flash, I love you, but we only have fourteen hours to save the Earth!

FLASH!!!

And then it hit me, like a flash of lightning (sorry again) . . .

This three-minute musical version of Flash Gordon, when compared with the nearly two-hour movie, demonstrates the incredible potential of flash fiction, because it does everything that a great ultra-short story should do: 

1. It shows just the right details of setting, character, and plot, which combine to suggest a bigger story;

2. It evokes a strong emotional and thought-provoking response, and;

3. It employs a narrative style that delivers the story in an effective way.

Let’s have a look at each of these elements in greater detail.

1. Flash fiction shows just the right details of setting, character, and plot, which combine to suggest a bigger story.

Effective flash fiction can be as brief as six words, the most famous example probably being attributed to Ernest Hemingway: 

“For sale, baby shoes, never worn.” 

The ideal word count for a flash fiction story varies from writer to writer and from publisher to publisher. I’ve seen calls from literary magazines and guidelines for writing competitions, that variably define the word count for flash fiction as low as twenty-five words, fifty words, 100 words, 250 words, 500 words, 1,000 words, and even as high as 2,000 words (although, I personally think this last number is veering into the standard short story zone).

Regardless of the actual word count, flash fiction tells an impactful story in the smallest possible time and space. 

To paraphrase Robert Southey, “Words are like sunbeams—the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.”

“For sale, baby shoes, never worn.” 

“Flash, Flash, I love you, but we only have fourteen hours to save the Earth!”

I personally tend to think of flash fiction pieces as very short stories about very big moments . . .

Which bring us to . . .

2. Flash fiction evokes a strong emotional and thought-provoking response.

The common denominators of great fiction—or any work of art, really—are thought and feeling; what your creation causes others to think and feel.

Unlike longer fictional forms, with flash fiction you don’t have much time and space to gradually bring your reader to the story’s climax . . . in some respects, the story is the climax!

So, purge those words onto the page with as much passion and fury as you can.  And the best way to do this is to be there when you write. 

If you are writing a sad piece, tears should be welling up in your eyes as you compose your story.  If you are writing about something funny, you should be laughing as you write.  

You should have a clear picture in your mind of places and people you are writing about as you write about them.  If you are there when you are creating your flash fiction story, chances are that your reader will be there too.

And finally . . .

3. Flash fiction employs a narrative style that delivers the story in an effective way.

One of the great advantages of flash fiction is that, because of its brevity, you can deliver the story stylishly, using interesting and unusual narrative modes that might otherwise be difficult to sustain in a longer story. 

The style you choose for your story can be the literary equivalent of Freddie Mercury singing and Queen playing it.

FLASH!!! AAAA-AAHH!!! 

You can write it entirely in second person point of view, instead of the more traditional first and third-person perspectives, because the “you” reading the story is more likely to suspend their disbelief for just a few hundred words.

You can write the story in entirely dialogue, or it can be completely narrative, of it can be one long run-on sentence without commas—you can try anything that delivers the story in a short, powerful, memorable burst. 

These stylistic maneuvers can be difficult to sustain in longer stories, but when it comes to presenting your small-but-beautiful story in the right frame, the sky’s the limit with flash fiction.

You could even write a story using entirely one-syllable words . . . which I did once, while trying to write a simple, romantic story about a jazz musician meeting their soul mate after playing a club gig. I wanted the story to read in a musical way, and I tried writing it in ¾ time, to make it sound “jazzy,” which turned out to be almost impossible, but then I noticed that, in attempting to accomplish this, I was using almost all one-syllable words, so I placed this restriction on the story instead—that it would be written using only single-syllable words.

This stylistic choice did make the story feel “jazzy,” and it would have been difficult to sustain in a longer work, but I think it worked well enough in this case—the story was published in the UK in The Guardian (AAAA-AAHH!!!) by guest editor Dave Eggers(AAAA-AAHH!!!).

(Side note: isn’t it interesting that we humble Canadian writers finally feel validated when an American writer chooses something we’ve written for a UK publication?)

I can tell you that placing this particular stylistic restriction on this particular story, which I wouldn’t have done in a longer story, resulted in some lines that I still love:

“You play as if there’s a line from your heart to your horn.”

“She kicked with bare feet at the twin of the moon, which lay on top of the still lake’s skin.”

(If you like, you can read this very short story in my collection Destiny’s Telescope.)

The compact nature of flash fiction can cause you to write in your leanest, cleanest, most straight-to-the-point voice: “Words are like sunbeams—the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.”

So, to summarize:

1. Flash fiction shows just the right details of setting, character, and plot, which combine to suggest a bigger story.

2. Flash fiction evokes a strong emotional and thought-provoking response.

3. Flash fiction employs a narrative style that delivers the story in an effective way.

FLASH!!! AAAA-AAHH!!! It’s a miracle.