Life is made up of moments. Most fly past and are forgotten. Some grab your attention.
The ones you notice may be funny, unusual, worrying, uplifting... They may raise a laugh or they may haunt your dreams and dictate your behaviour. They are what Flash and Micro Fiction were made for.
Sizes vary from publication to publication, competition to competition, but Flash tends to be 500 words and under. Micro tends to be 250 and under.
The “Fiction” part of the title tends to be negotiable. As far as I can see, a lot of the pieces are based on real-experiences, real traumas. They become fiction in the writing of them, in the changing of names and sometimes in the shaping of the reality to fit the reader’s expectation of a story, or the writer’s desire to tell it as it ought to have been.
Of course, good writing can seem like a lived experience, so...
My Francis Gay pieces for The Sunday Post tend to be very small. 150 words. They are mostly based on the experiences I refer to in the writing group as Writers Moments. Sometimes they present themselves completed and all I have to do is write them down. Sometimes I might shape them towards a happy conclusion, or add a take of my own. Sometimes I will combine moments.
Here’s how the last one I wrote came to be. It’s not the best, but it’s a good example of how this works.
· Julie and I were out for lunch in a café
· It was a peaceful, happy environment
· And elderly woman (who happened to be in a wheelchair) was taking to the café owner
· I heard her say something like “And I told all the girls”
· I commented to Julie how sweet it was that, at her stage in life, there was still something in her that thought of herself as a girl
· My mind idly kicked the notion about (as happens when you’re constantly looking for ideas)
· I wondered if we all had that, maybe hidden deep within
· It was a nice notion in itself, but it needed contrast
· I remembered another day I had sat in that same café by myself feeling depressed
· I put them together, as if both real experiences had happened at once. So, it became fictionalised, but was made of truths. Pieces that didn’t merit the writing separately, but worked together.
And the end result was –
The café was cosy and welcoming, but I was having a bit of a down day. Feeling my age, you could say. A woman in a wheelchair caught my attention. She looked like she might be in her eighties herself. What she was talking about, to the woman behind the counter, I didn’t hear, but I heard when she laughed and said, “Of course, I told all the other girls!”
‘Girls,’ I thought. More than fourscore years, perhaps a gran or great-gran, but she had held onto the girl she was in her heart.
I paid my bill, I added something to the tips bowl, and tipped my hat to the ladies. Or should I say, the girls. Then I strode out into the day, me and the inner boy I was most surprised to find still trotting alongside me. The day became brighter, better, and full of adventures.
Not one of my best, but it’s a good illustration, and no doubt it will be published in a national newspaper in a few days.
Importantly, it is in-the-moment. No back story, and the after-story only hinted at. It’s there, then it’s gone, leaving behind only a feeling.
Francis Gay is for a specific market. What YOU do with those moments, how YOU combine them, the conclusions YOU come to will depend on you and the effect you want to achieve.
A group member who didn’t like the Writer’s Moments idea once said it was okay for me, I had an outlet for them. “Why would anyone else bother with them?” she wanted to know.
Flash Fiction is why. Microfiction is why.
It’s a thriving art-form with a variety of outlets. It could be a bit of an Alice-in-Wonderland rabbit hole once you get into it. But that’s another, somewhat longer, story.
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