Everything And Nothing: Flash Fic

I have a fun cold right now and hardly slept last night as a result, so this blog post is going to be as short as its topic.

Flash fiction is a fun and growing trend--the act of writing stories that are less than 1,000 words in length.  They might even be considered the haiku of prose because of the form that some of the shortest stories take.  Typically, you have instances of flash fiction and then you have "x-word (or sentence) stories" where you try to tell a compelling story in a certain amount of words or sentences.  For example, the 6-word horror:

"Heard bedroom door slam.  Live alone."

A popular example you may be familiar with is "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." (author unknown, despite being commonly attributed to Ernest Hemingway.) 

While there are specific guidelines, which I'll provide a link for later on, flash fiction is a great way to explore your writing abilities while also easily producing some work that you can send to journals or keep for publication in a book of your own.  The most important thing, as always, is to enjoy writing while also practicing it.  The added bonus for flash fiction?  You can see results almost immediately, which is great if you're stuck in a writing rut.   

Check out this link  from Writers' Digest to learn more about flash fiction guidelines. 

Have you ever written a six-word story?  If not, give it your best shot in the comments below!