Your guide to flash fiction in under 250 words

Creating a micro story is like doing life laundry, you really need to chuck out everything but the bare essentials. Leaving everything to the end also runs the risk of losing the reader early – make the middle the lifeblood of the piece. The ending should always make you wonder what happens next, as if the story is continuing though the words have stopped. Gain where you can, remember the title gives you more words to set the scene. Too many characters will confuse. As will a complicated plot.

Watch the overall intensity, too much can be overpowering like really good chocolate when you can’t take anymore. Mix light and shade. Write out your story then ruthlessly edit. Leave nothing on the page that is superflous. Redraft until the rhythm feels right. One of the micro stories is believed to have been written by Ernest Hemmingway. It paints a world of love and loss in six short words: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

Finally: never give up.