The Benefits of Writing Small

As a writing discipline Flash can be very useful. In this day and age of web content, many designers are looking for people for can write small and effectively.

I’ve been writing flash now for at least ten years. More and more of the pieces accepted for publication are 3,000 words or less—some as short as 50 words. I believe all writers need to be trained in the art of flash.

Much like in archery—you aim for the bull’s eye and then move a degree to the left or right of it, leaving the final analysis to the reader to hit the target. My job is to get you close, bring the context into view.

All writing is about perspective and a small piece can offer in a minimum amount of words something completely out of the box.

One thing I try to do with my writing is to take for instance something that just happened, actually happened to me that I’m thinking about. Then I add something else, and something else, and combine them into a story salad. I’m not sure where this thing is headed.

Recently I had a scare when I returned home from bootcamp and was putting my bike away in our building basement. Suddenly a stranger walked in. Hey I asked what are you doing here? He left, but later I thought that could have gone badly. The n for some reason I thought about the Challenger disaster, still mourning the astronauts who perished that day. Then I thought about how relationships change. I know, this is all so random. Then I put them all together in a 2,000-word story.

So what’s on your mind? Take a minute and write down the disparate stuff banging around inside your head and then construct a story using all those elements.