Flash Fiction Friday!

It’s been a long time–years, actually–since I last did a Flash Fiction Friday, so I’m spraying some WD-40 on the old flash fiction cogs and giving it a try again.

For those who have no idea what I’m talking about, “Flash Fiction Friday” is a feature I used to run on the blog where I would post a piece of flash fiction. On a Friday. Hence the name. It could be flash fiction I wrote for a contest, for someone else’s blog, or something new for that day.

What’s flash fiction? Simply, it’s fiction that’s short enough to read in a flash. Assuming the flash lasts less than 5 minutes. Which is a pretty long flash, if you think about it. That could do some serious retina damage, in fact. But I digress. If you want to quantify the definition, normally flash fiction is a story that’s less than 1,000 words long. I’ve seen flash fiction about that long, and some much shorter. The most famous piece of flash fiction is attributed to Hemingway: “For sale: baby shoes. Never worn.” Some would define that as “micro-fiction,” but nevertheless it meets the basic word-length criterion for flash fiction.

Aside from the general word count parameter, there aren’t many other rules for what counts as flash fiction, other than being fiction. It can be poetry or prose, a scene, a play, or a proper story with beginning, middle, and end. The challenge is to keep to the word limit, which really helps hone your editing skills. Some of the best flash fiction manages to say a lot in a few words, and often the story is in what’s not said.

I tend to prefer my flash fiction on the short side, normally around 100 words. And to add to the challenge, I make use of a Random Word Generator to give me five words that I have to include in the story.

For today, the generator gave me: fashion, yard, temperature, volume, and pure.

Here’s what I came up with:

John still felt warm so Lisa turned the temperature down on the thermostat then unrolled the silk sheet. Pure silk. Thirty bucks a yard it cost her, and she would need all six yards.

But John was worth it.

When he was cool enough, Lisa picked him up, laid him on the sheet, then began rolling him, snowball fashion. She took John to the hole she’d dug at the bottom of the garden that morning, lowered him in, and quickly covered him.

Wiping a tear, she prayed they’d never find him.

Or the volume of names in his microchip brain.

Feeling creative? Why not give this a try. See if you can write a story using those five words and 95 of your own. If you’re happy with the results, feel free to share your story in the comments. I’d love to read what you came up with!