Flash Fiction Writing Competition

Results

First Prize: How to Write for Competitions - and Win! course.

Five runners up will receive a copy of Cracking the Short Story Market

About Flash Fiction

Thank you to all that entered our Flash Fiction competition. We had a fantastic response with entries making us laugh, cry and screw our faces up at the pure grisliness of the story. Some of you have very violent imaginations!

But finally we made our choices and we both agreed that Terry Prince should be the worthy winner.

Winner – Terry Prince

A nudge, a dip in the pocket – the mugs never saw me coming. Until I dipped Mad Ron. Didn’t recognise him. Big mistake. I miss my fingers.

Runners up

Amanda Hyatt

“Please,” she begged. Over the fence, she handed me her son. Aaron. A guard dragged her to the train. “Aaron? Not anymore,” I thought.

The poignancy of this one made it a ‘must’ for the runners up list.

RP Singh

A staunch believer in astrology, he was nearly 70 when he discovered his true date of birth. Whose life had he lived so far?

A very clever concept here!

Eileen Clifford

Engagement. Marriage.Hell. Divorce.

A story in just four words - we thought this was very succinct.

Sarah Stuart

FLASH, pain, lost limbs. Fallen mates, laughter stilled; my guilt, my shame. Your brave love, our baby’s cry; my salvation, my survival.

Several of you sent in entries with this theme - which is not surprising with war constantly in the news.

Mary Jones

Turning from the eyes that had wooed her so passionately to her anniversary present, a Hoover, her heart sighed away a million dreams.

... and this one brought a smile to our faces.

About Flash Fiction:

Follow in the footsteps of Chekov, Kafka and Lovecraft to win a How To Write for Competitions – and Win! course.

All of you know what fiction is, but do you know anything about flash fiction?

To give you some idea of what it is here’s a list of other names you may know it by –

• postcard fiction
• minute fiction
• furious fiction
• quick fiction
• fast fiction
• micro fiction
• sudden fiction
• short-short stories

The Chinese call them palm-sized, pocket-size, little short story, minute-long or smoke-long stories, indicating, as the name suggests, that it lasts only as long as it takes to smoke a cigarette.

Getting the idea?

Some of you may also think flash fiction is a new phenomenon but you’d be wrong. It has been around since the time of Aesop’s Fables and has been practised by the likes of Franz Kafka, HP Lovecraft and Anton Chekov.

So, by now I assume you’ve guessed that flash fiction is short. But remember, it should also contain all the usual elements of a short story – a protagonist, obstacles, complications or conflict and a resolution. However, lots of what is going on in the story can and should only be implied as the word count will limit what you include. Here’s a very famous example, allegedly penned by Ernest Hemmingway to settle a bar bet.

“For Sale: baby shoes. Never worn”

These six words convey so much. We know the protagonist by imagining the parent who has lost their child, we see the conflict i.e. their pain – even though it is not explicitly expressed. And we also know the resolution i.e. what coping mechanism they are employing to deal with their pain – namely selling items that remind them of the lost child. All the elements of a story are either explicit or implied.

So, if you think you’d like to try your hand at flash fiction write us a short story in 140 characters or less (see above for details). The winner will receive a How to Write for Competitions – and Win! course.