If you’ve spent any amount of time reading short stories on the Internet, you might have come across the term “flash fiction” once or twice. To put things in the simplest possible terms, a work of flash fiction is a very short story, usually under 1,500 words. Some flash fiction comes in at under 1,000 words. To put that into perspective, most short stories are between 7,500 and 10,000 words long. A work of flash fiction can also be in any genre, but the most popular genres include sci-fi, fan fiction, romance, and horror. Just about anything can be a work of flash fiction, though; what makes something flash fiction is its brief length.
As you can probably guess, flash fiction doesn’t leave a writer with much to work with. After all, it’s hard to really flesh out characters or a scenario with less than a thousand words. And yet, this format does have a lot of merits. First of all, it gives authors a chance to practice their writing skills in a low-pressure environment. People don’t generally expect a masterpiece from something that is only a few hundred words long, so writers can use flash fiction to churn out quickly-written stories that allow them to practice for more substantial work. It also provides an exciting challenge to more experienced writers. A good work of fiction should have a beginning where the main characters and scenario are introduced, some rising action that leads to a climax, and a resolution that shows what happens after said climax. Fitting all of that in a work of flash fiction is hard, but it’s not impossible. A writer who has problems getting to the point, and keeping things brief can use flash fiction to learn how to write shorter pieces that still leave an impact on readers.
Of course, the biggest reason to write flash fiction is because it’s a fun way to be creative. All you need to do is sit down and write a few hundred words around a scenario or character. It gets some of those ideas out onto paper or a computer screen. Some of that work could be outstanding in itself, while others contain a seed of a better story that you can return to later.
So, if you have a little time to spare and you want to keep your creative juices flowing, why not sit down and write a few hundred words? It could come down to just a simple exercise to keep yourself working, or it could turn into something truly great.