Kathryn+Hotton

Flash Fiction
Annotated Bibliography

http://www.writing-world.com/fiction/flash.shtml

This website gave a great overview of the genre of flash fiction. It is great resource to use when first exploring flash fiction. He set up some of the parameters of what the genre consisted of, as far as length and content. The page also gives a short summary of the history of flash fiction. In addition to the general information provided, the site also gives guidelines to writing flash fiction.

http://www.fictionfactor.com/guests/flashfiction.html

Fiction factor's article provided useful strategies for making the most out of a flash fiction piece. There are seven suggestions given with explanations detailing the appropriate way to employ these techniques. I found the site to be rather lacking in examples though. The one example given was not even a complete work of flash fiction, and it was intertwined with more tips from the author. This made for a rather confusing read.

http://www.flashfictiononline.com/

This webzine was an extremely helpful resource because of the multiple number of examples it provided. I was able to read through this month's issue as well as any of their previous issues. The numerous examples provided helped me to become more familiar with the genre. In addition to the flash fiction itself, the website also has a forum for authors to exchange ideas. It seems to be a great place for people who are interested in flash fiction.

http://www.flashfiction.in/

This blog had a very interesting theme to it that helped to capture the essence of the genre of flash fiction. The site posts a new prompt every fifteen days for anyone to write about. The prompt is always a picture, with no description. The only requirement is that the story be under 1000 words. This site again provides a community for people who enjoy writing and reading flash fiction.

User's Guide to Flash Fiction

The most important thing to consider when writing flash fiction is length. The author must consider how she will tell an entire, meaningful story in a very small amount of words. The length requirements vary among writers, but in general flash fiction is assumed to be a story of no more than 1500 words. The writer must consider what the focus of the story will be, and cannot stray from this vein at all. The tighter the focus of the story, the easier it is for author to create a strong message. Jason Gurley suggests though, that this length and focused be acquired through drafts. In order to create good flash fiction, writers need to free write their entire story and then go back and cut out all of the unnecessary details, adverbs, and adjectives. The experts also suggest to drop the back stories. Any explanations that need to happen for the story to makes sense should occur in the first paragraph. Often, flash fiction begins with action, something that will grab the readers' attention. One way that writers of flash fiction can enrich their stories is with allusions. Allusions allow the author to add depth to a story without adding any length, as they are able to invoke an entire theme, idea, or another story.