Writing Flash Fiction
During my time as a flash editor for various e-zines, I’ve read a fair chunk of speculative flash fiction. Some excellent.Some good.Some bad.Some really, really bad.And as varied as the submissions tend to be, I’ve found that a common thread runs through the subs that lean toward being worthy of the fires of Mount Doom: A misunderstanding of what flash fiction is, how the medium functions in relation to fantasy, and what it requires of you as a storyteller.
If you’ve ever written flash fantasy, you know how challenging it can be to fit a fully-rounded story into fewer than a thousand words (or whatever word count the market you’re writing for requires). Maybe you’re sitting on a flash story right now that isn’t working, and you’re not sure how to fix it. Never fear! Today I want to look at the five most common mistakes writers make when crafting a piece of fantasy flash fiction.
5. FORGETTING YOUR AUDIENCE
That means you have a lot less time to grab your reader’s attention, and you’re going to need to hold that attention all the way through to the end. Drop the pace or confuse the reader and he’ll click that little red ‘X’ without a second thought.
All too often, writers try to cram in as much epic-ness as they possibly can into a decidedly non-epic storytelling medium. If you’re tackling fantasy flash fiction, it’s important to approach the story with a different mindset: Think small. Think tight. “Less is more” isn’t a cliché, it’s the truth. If you forget who you’re writing for, you’ll lose your audience—or never gain one in the first place.
4. TOO MUCH PLOT
In flash fiction, you don’t have a whole lot of space within which to tell your story. That means paring it down—focusing on one situation or incident that needs resolution. Think of it like a sitcom: Put your characters in a high-intensity situation that can realistically be managed within a half hour (otherwise known as the required word count). Introduce the conflict, allow the characters to work through the problem, implement the solution, and resolve the scenario.
There’s one potential pitfall here, though. While flash fiction doesn’t need complete resolution at the end of the story, it does need some measure of resolution in order to leave the reader satisfied and fulfilled. This means that you should never, ever pluck a chapter or scene from your WIP and submit it to a flash market as a complete flash story. Want to use the same characters and write a piece of flash with them? Sure! Go for it! But taking a scene from one of your chapters? This is fantasy flash fiction anathema. Plus, it will make me sad. Editors can tell. Seriously. Please don’t do it.
Taking a scene from a longer work and calling it flash almost always runs the risk of too much plot. Why? Because in a longer work, there’s a lot more going on than the immediate task at hand, and there’s no feasible way to resolve this satisfactorily in a thousand words. Readers will be left wondering if there’s something they’ve missed, or even scratching their heads in confusion over why this scenario happened in the first place (since the catalyst likely occurred earlier in the longer work).
3. TOO MANY CHARACTERS
How does a writer’s plot get away from him or her in the first place? For me, it’s the characters. They have things they want to do, places they want to go, people they want to meet… and if I don’t rein them in, they’ll run roughshod over my carefully crafted piece of flash.
In fantasy, readers and writers are used to dealing with a lot of characters. Multiple main characters, necessary secondaries, countless walk-ons…if you’re not careful, suddenly you’ve got a cast list that’s growing faster than Richard Rahl’s ego.Are all these characters necessary? Most of the time, yes—if we’re talking about a typical fantasy novel. Each character has a role to play, and if they don’t? Presumably those ones were cut during the editing process. Even walk-on characters advance the story in some way, so it’s no wonder that in a large, complex fantasy novel there’s going to be a large, complex cast list.
Take that same mindset into a piece of flash, however, and what are your readers going to do? Same thing as most of the characters in your story: Wander around looking confused until someone bothers to explain what’s going on.
In a thousand words or fewer, there’s literally not enough space to introduce, establish, provide conflict for, resolve conflict for, and show development of an entire party. And let’s face it—without character development, what’s the point? (Unless that is the point… but for the sake of argument, let’s pretend it isn’t.) Readers want to make connections with your characters. Readers want to relate to them, empathize with them, and share in the journey toward growth. If you’re attempting to introduce a seven-member party in a thousand-word story, not only is it highly unlikely that each character will attain the desired character growth from beginning to end, but it’s even less likely that your readers will be able to find and connect with any of the characters at all. The story will be stretched too thin over too many people—that is, if the story can even break through the crowd to make an appearance in the first place.
Considering that flash fiction is best served by focusing on one specific situation or moment of conflict at a time, the ideal number of characters sustained by fantasy flash seems to hover around one to three individuals. That way, the writer is able to introduce each character without allowing the characters to overwhelm the plot, but also allow the plot to serve each character’s journey toward the story’s resolution.
2. TOO MUCH DESCRIPTION
Similar to the issue of too many characters, the problem of too much description doesn’t tend to arise in traditional length fantasy novels. Many people love reading description—they love immersing themselves in the look and feel what’s happening, and really experiencing what each character sees, hears, and smells (and, ahem, wears… I am respectfully looking at you, Mr. Jordan).
Great.Fantastic. If you’re crafting a tome of voluminous proportions, that is. If you’re writing flash? Just like the cast list, less is more. Readers don’t want to know the fabric and design and trim and adornment of every female character’s dress. By the time you’re finished describing just one dress, half your word count is gone and the world is undoubtedly about to end because your characters couldn’t manage to make it to the Sea of Everlasting Balefire in time.
I don’t know about you, but as much as I love empire waists and cummerbunds, I don’t have time for them in my flash fiction. Let us know that your hero is dressed in rags—if it’s crucial to the story. Let us know that your thief is wearing a custom-leather catsuit—if it’s crucial to the story. If it’s not? Don’t be afraid to allow those old fantasy tropes to work for you. Readers’ imaginations will fill in the blanks where you can’t. Wizards wear robes, farmers wear boots, dwarves carry axes. Your readers know this. Unless there’s something immensely different about your characters and what they’re seeing or doing that has a direct impact on the plot, it doesn’t matter.
Only describe what’s different and what matters. Everything else is filler. Leave it out.
1. TOO MUCH WORLD-BUILDING
When trying to write tight, one only need harken back to the wise words of everyone’s favorite Genie: “Great big cosmic powers? Itty bitty living space!”
Now, without getting into an argument over the justice of the caste system in Agrabah and the political correctness of enslaved magical beings, consider how relevant the maxim is for the fantasy flash fiction writer (this makes sense, I swear). You, the writer, have “great big cosmic powers”—you can create any scenario you want, fashion and destroy worlds, rewrite history with a mere thought, and yet… those powers are confined within the boundaries of your storytelling medium of choice. And flash fiction can feel especially confining for those who aren’t used to working inside such comparatively small boundaries.
Especially—and I stress this in particular—for those who have world-building fever.
Do you love to create maps of trade routes? Magic systems?Lists of which agricultural goods are available in which region during each season?Entirely new religions?
Then I recommend you try writing a piece of fantasy flash. Why? Because it will force you to pare your story down to its absolute barest essentials. There’s no time or space to describe how your world works, or to clarify why your Orc-mage can’t heal on Tuesdays (or, sorry, “Grnukdays”, because you’ve probably created a new language or two as well). All too often, writers of fantasy flash try their very best to cram their new, unique world into a thousand-word story… resulting in a jumbled, confusing mess on top of a plot that lacks any sort of logic or coherence.
Let me explain it another way: If your piece of flash contains multiple references to things/events/systems/items within the world that are unexplained in the rest of the piece—and are unfamiliar to the reader—the references don’t need to be there. You don’t have space to address them, so why include them in the first place? Mentioning things in your world, without offering an explanation, is one of the best ways to lose a reader. They’re not going to understand what you’re talking about, so why should they care about your story?
There are several solutions to this problem, and the first one is to simply cut out all unnecessary elements of world-building. Is that aspect of the magic system crucial to the plot? If not, cut it out. Is that Chalice of Warbling Darkness really going to advance the story? If not, leave it on the shelf. And does that bow & arrow on your elf’s back actually have to differ from the bows & arrows in our world? Ah… now that’s where a second solution arises.
If you absolutely must world-build, and absolutely must include aspects of this world-building in your flash piece, your readers will be best served by familiarity. If characters are traveling through a jungle region, don’t spend three quarters of your flash piece describing the deadly man-eating trees. Allow your readers’ familiarity with the jungles of our world to paint the world’s picture for you, and continue on with the story. Similar to paring down description, reducing the amount of the unfamiliar in a fantasy flash piece can help create the desired sense of atmosphere and tonewithout wasting all your storytelling space on explanations.
Pare it down. Keep the basics. Eliminate the rest. And then write the best damn piece of fantasy flash fiction possible.
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Improving Description
So, you may have noticed that you clicked a different button to get onto the post today… ‘MJA’ instead of ‘ARD’. Well, that’s because our beloved Amy Rose Davis has come down with an illness and as a result, the writer within wouldn’t let her publish a sub-standard article that she was sure would be the result of lack of time + illness. Fear not though, for she will be returning next week… For now though you have me (sorry!).
Well, I’m not going to try and tell you too much about writing, because quite honestly I’m not experienced enough to tell you ‘how to write’ in great detail. Rather, I’m going to make some suggestions as to how you can improve your story telling through description. These are just some techniques I’ve come across over my years studying creative writing and English literature here in England… I hope they help and serve as a suitable replacement for Amy’s usual gold-dust stylistic articles.
DESCRIPTION
Description really does make a fantasy novel. I mean, story is hugely important… but essentially you are trying to bring to people creatures, locations and objects they have never seen before. To do this successfully you need to describe them very, very clearly and in a way they can relate to them. It is a skill that requires a heck of a lot of practice at and like anything you need to be creative how you do it. Often people think that you get better at description by purely writing, but I’m not so sure about that. I think as a footballer must concentrate on passing, shooting and dribbling away from the actual field, a writer should work on description away from their stories. What do I mean by this? Well, I have three techniques that I have tried and I’ve ordered them in terms of their successful in regards to my own writing.
Observe and describe
Take a trip to the beach or the park. Drop a load of objects onto your bed. Work on describing what you see. If it is a beach, you are going to need to consider how to summarise what you see in a way that captures the scene and yet doesn’t have you describing each and every person and thing occurring. If you are in the park you need to give a feeling of the beauty you are surrounded by and yet not focus on each flower, blade of grass or path. Dropped a load of objects onto the bed? You need to think about how they have landed and dramatise your writing to an extent that it is interesting to read.
Television
I think television is a very good tool for working on your description. Choose your favourite television series… Buffy the Vampire Slayer? It doesn’t have to be fantasy, but as a fantasy writer it will help. Simply write what you see. Imagine someone doesn’t have the luxury of a television, how would you write the scene in a way they could understand? The great thing about this method is that you can do it in first person as well as third person and you will really see your ability to describe improving quickly.
Graphic Novels
This has always been my favourite method… I remember the day I got a piece of writing back from my tutor with an A+ stamped across it through this manner. Basically, my tutor had said ‘you need to write a piece of fiction from another form of media’. Most people chose plays or television as I have put above, but I thought… how about a comic book? I actually went with a Manga book and I was amazed at how easy it was to do. I basically took the dialogue out of the graphic novel and then just worked around that. I added in the descriptions, moved it into first person and added in the thoughts of the character that I thought fitted best. The thing about this is that it is so easy, you just grab the nearest comic book and work at your own pace.
CONCLUSION
So, why does it help? Well, I think essentially we are bad at description. Although we may see things clearly in our minds, actually getting it down on page in the same light is almost impossible. We therefore need to get better at it. I think that by practicing describing real objects/scenes/images you can actually compare them to what you have achieved with your writing. You can also get people to read your writing and have to guess what it is (if describing objects/places) or have them watch the scene/read the comic book you have described and ask for their feedback.
Once you get good at ‘describing’ things that have a physical form, you will be far more prepared to describe things without a physical form and relaying them to your reader. The worst remark you could possibly have when someone is reading your work is “What the heck are you on about!?” – Make sure it doesn’t happen 
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Writing Fight Scenes
Writing fight scenes is often an important task for a fantasy author. Some writers find they come naturally. Others find them daunting, and can’t think of anything worse. Whichever category you fall into, it’s an important skill to master because audiences love to read them.
Here are some techniques that I’ve learned over the years to improve fight scenes in my own writing. You don’t have to use them every time - in fact there are some circumstances where it would be a mistake - but you should at least bear them in mind.
1. SETTING THE SCENE
A fight scene is supposed to be fast and tense, but there is little time once you’re in the thick of it for scene setting or explaining the lay-out of the environment. Every word spent outside of the action can kill the tension. At the same time, a badly described scene can make the fight lack-luster, boring - or worse still - confusing.
Setting the scene before the action begins is a great way of resolving these conflicting tensions. It never ceases to amaze me how putting in the hard yards to describe the environment pays off later on. It allows you to focus on the action when you need to, without sacrificing context and clarity. Good writers will lay the groundwork well in advance of when it is actually needed.
A favorite technique of mine is to have the characters visit the scene prior to the fight, perhaps even in an earlier chapter. Readers won’t remember the layout of furniture in a room or the exact placement of barricades on a field of battle, but they will sure as heck remember that cliff you are about to throw someone over, or the pool of acid your villain is about to fall into.
2. THE BUILD UP
Learn to master suspense, and you’ll have your readers literally squirming to turn the page. This is particularly true with fight scenes. The build up is the perfect place to lay down what is truly at stake for your characters, to make clear the price of failure.
Don’t underestimate the value of this phase. A good build up will often last longer than the fight itself, and rightly so. Take Gandalf’s confrontation with the Balrog in the mines of Moria, for example. The actual fight didn’t last long. It was the build up to that moment which made it great - the lore, the menace and the darkness, the chase through the mines, all of it culminating with the breaking of the bridge.
Sometimes there’s not even any action in this phase, because you don’t need it; everything is implied. That nasty, serrated hatchet the goblin is shaking at your character speaks for itself. You can just imagine the damage its rusty edge would do to unprotected flesh, and oh no, your heroine isn’t wearing any armor either. Small details can help differentiate the impending conflict from a run-of-the-mill battle by increasing tension and upping the stakes. It can also be a great opportunity for horror.
3. GET THE MECHANICS RIGHT
Now we get into the mechanics of the action itself. You’ve done all that work setting the scene and building the suspense, it would be a shame to ruin it now.
Unfortunately, nothing is more likely to ruin a carefully constructed fight scene than confusing the reader. Clarity is key here. Your readers will lose interest if they can’t work out where the combatants are standing at a critical moment. Some writers draw maps, and use toy soldiers to move their characters around during each phase of the battle to keep track of where everyone is. After all, if you don’t have a clear picture in your own mind, there’s no way your reader will. I like to make up a list of events that have to occur to get me from the start to the finish. At the end, I go back and make sure they are all covered.
There’s more to it than just character placement, though. The moves and actions of the characters also need to be realistic. I recently read a series by a best selling fantasy author (I won’t say who), whose protagonist constantly somersaulted about the battlefield, springing at opponents from flat on his back and kicking up at them from the ground. I loved the novel despite these issues, but the author lost points with me in the fight scenes. Firstly, the character wasn’t an acrobat, and had no business somersaulting around a battlefield. Secondly, being flat on your back is the worst place to be in a fight. End up there, and you’re dead. Finally, the action just wasn’t realistic.
A reader will forgive these mistakes once. But make them a few times, and you’ll start to lose credibility. Fights, even in a fantasy setting, must follow rules of leverage, force, and weight. The more rigidly you follow them, the more realistic your fights will be.
The same goes for weapons and armor. It might seem obvious that someone wielding a short-sword is going to have a difficult time blocking a swing from a claymore, but too many writers make simple mistakes like this. Heavy crossbows are difficult to reload, and yet we’ve all read novels where they seem to fire as rapidly as bows. Do as much research as you need to get the details right, and your fight scene will have a more natural, realistic feel.
4. FOLLOW CHARACTER MOTIVATIONS
Punches, kicks, lunges and parries can quickly degenerate into a series of tedious events if the fight is an end in and of itself.
The thing that separates a memorable fight from an average one is character motivation. Most characters don’t pick fights just for the sake of it, and you shouldn’t be wasting your time writing about a random encounter. There must be a reason for the fight, and a good one at that. What do the combatants want? What is at stake? Let the answers to these questions guide the flow of the action.
Let’s go back to our example. If our heroine has an important quest, she might be willing to flee from the goblin rather than risk confrontation. Conversely, if the goblin is the key to an impending disaster she’s probably going to risk everything to kill it. That might make her reckless, or at the very least change the way she fights. Similarly, a character protecting an innocent bystander will have to use different tactics to win.
It doesn’t hurt to remind the reader what the stakes are every now and again.
5. MAKE IT HURT
When you get down to it, fights are nasty business. No one likes to see their favorite heroine killed off, but if she gets away scot-free every time, your fights will quickly lose the element of danger that makes them interesting. The same goes for characters that are essentially invincible.
Actions have consequences. Make your characters pay for their mistakes, and make them fight hard for their victories.
As an aside, wounds and injuries can add an interesting element of additional challenge for characters to overcome. A hardened veteran might find even a lowly goblin more than she bargained for with a broken hand or a concussion from an earlier encounter. Not every fight has to be about who is the strongest, fastest or most skilled. It can be just as interesting when determination, sheer luck or misfortune are the deciding factors.
6. SENTENCE STRUCTURE
We’ve all heard that you should write short sentences during action sequences. This is true, but you also run the risk of using too many sentences that look and sound the same if you take this advice literally.
Longer sentences with multiple clauses and short, sharp language that doesn’t stop, but keeps pushing the action forward relentlessly until the reader is gasping for breath and wondering when it will stop – can also be effective. (Now that was a mouthful) They can also give a frantic edge to the action, and put the reader more firmly into the character’s mind.
But don’t forget to mix it up a bit. Changing the shape and length of your sentences can allow you to occasionally surprise the reader and keep them interested. Try to lull them into a comfort zone. Make everything nice and easy for a while, and then – bam! – hit them when they least expect it.
7. DON’T FORGET THE LANGUAGE
Finally, a note of caution: it’s very easy to fall back on adjectives and adverbs to help describe the pace and intensity of the action during a fight scene. Unfortunately, bad writing sticks out in a fight scene more than anywhere else. The appearance of words like ‘suddenly’, or ‘tremendous’ or ‘savage’ is an indication something has gone wrong and you need to look more closely at the language.
Try to find alternative ways to say the same thing. A ‘savage swing’ with a sword might just become a ‘slash’. Rather than having your heroine ‘leap into action so quickly the goblin didn’t see her sword coming until it was too late’, maybe just say that she ‘stepped calmly forward – and stabbed it in the chest.’ Mirroring a change in events with a change in grammar or language makes for a more enjoyable read, and helps to keep the reader interested.
English is endlessly inventive. Experiment with grammar and sentence structure to achieve the results you want.
In closing, studying the techniques and styles of other writers can be a great way to improve your own fight scenes. It’s hard to beat R. A. Salvatore for choreography and mechanics, and Robert Jordan does an excellent job of writing magical battles. Who are your favorites, and why?
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