Meg Pokrass
Jan 03

Guest contributor: Meg Pokrass

Flash Tips for Writing Flash Fiction Friday

categories: Bad Advice / Cocktail Hour

7 comments


Meg Pokrass in full Flash gear

Tips for writing flash fiction:
1. there really are no tips
2. Write fast and furious for the first draft

Peg Mokrass, Flash Literary Agent

3. put it away for a week
4. look at it again and think: what the hell was I getting at?
5. rearrange the sentences. See if it tells you anything. Write it backwards, maybe; beginning with the last sentence and ending with the first.
6. Try reading it aloud.
7. Cut out every unncessary word as if you were trying to tweet it.
8. trust the reader but not to the point of insanity
9. See if it makes you feel anything or gives you chills. If it doesn’t, throw it in google translate, translate it into Russian, and back to English. See if that helps.

 

Flash Bio: Meg Pokrass is.



  1. Tommy writes:

    Hilarious! (flash comment!)

    January 5, 2014 at 11:04 am
  2. Paul Beckman writes:

    Meg-I’ve tried almost everything else, so what the hell.

    January 4, 2014 at 8:18 am
  3. Gloria Garfunkel writes:

    Very funny and very true.

    January 3, 2014 at 7:17 pm
  4. Eve Ness writes:

    OMG! Number 9 alone is worth the price of admission! Thank you, Peg, thank you, thank you, thank you!

    January 3, 2014 at 6:43 pm
    • megpokrass writes:

      Hey, I’m glad it was helpful! Almost any foreign language is interesting to play with this way. Just make sure you translate the boring draft badly, cutting and pasting instead of using the translator the correct way. The idea is to twist things around, then rework the piece using the new warped-language version as a sort of guide to let you play a bit. meg

      January 5, 2014 at 1:53 am