Titles in Flash Fiction

In flash fiction, every word counts and often does double duty.
Because you can use precious few words, the title becomes even more important and can be utilized to do double duty.
The title can help place the characters in their setting so less words are need in the body of the work.
Grace doest this in "Maddie's Pub" on Avenir Eclectia by letting the reader know where this story takes place even before it starts.
http://www.avenireclectia.com/2011/05/maddies-pub.html

It can also can be used to foreshadow and add extra 'punch' to the last line or hook of the story. I did this in "Just Remember".
http://www.avenireclectia.com/2011/09/just-remember-flashback.html

These are two ways to get the most out of your titles. I wouldn't mind knowing more ways if anyone has any ideas.

Power of Imagination

I Reckon entirely upon the reader to add for himself the subjective elements that are lacking in the story.
--Anton Chekhov

It is true that writers have imagination. But so do readers.
I've heard it said that there are actually two stories contained in every book. There is the story that the writer wrote and then the story the reader reads.
I know this is true for me.
Have you ever read a book and then tried to watch a movie made from it. It never looks anything like I imagined, even with movies that stick close to the book. How the movie is visually made is based on the imagination and vision of someone else. And their pictures and take away info is different from everybody elses.

The reader fills in the holes and creates their own visual of a story that may differ a bit from what the writer envisioned. But this is not a bad thing.

And flash or micro-fiction leave more holes than regular story telling. Because word count is so low, fewer words are used. It's kind of like trying to get a overloaded airplane or other flying ship off the ground. It's too heavy and you have to start throwing things overboard.
In a story, a lot of description has to get tossed out. Not all of it, by any means. There has to be some setting, otherwise our characters are floating in space with nothing to attach to. But there are a lot of holes, a lot of details left out because they have to be. If they aren't, then the writing is all description with little or no action or plot.

So as flash fiction writers, we have to have faith in the imagination of the reader, that it will be strong enough to fill in the details. I find this leap of faith exhilarating

Avoiding the "Skim Zone"

If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows and the reader, if the writer is writing truly enough, will have a feeling of those things as strongly as thought writer had stated them -- Ernest Hemingway

I also remember reading somewhere that a writer should only write what the reader will read, implying that there should be no skim-worthy prose in what we write.

I'm a novel writer trying to write flash or micro fiction for Avenir Eclectia. It is a true challenge to get "The Big Picture" down in micro sound bites. Even though I look at each piece as a chapter to a whole, they are very short chapters. AND the power in each chapter has to be ramped up, no setting or info dump filler allowed.

This became abundantly clear when I had a 'chapter' that I was working on and it wasn't working. Long and short, I realized that it simply wasn't powerful enough nor important enough to justify its existence on Avenir Eclectia.

So what did I do?

The only thing I could do.

I scrapped the whole piece.

It was painful but doable. And ultimately, it was a blessed release to let the thing go rather than to fight with it to make it into something it couldn't be. The important information that I wanted to convey will make an appearance as a sentence or two in another piece that will keep the reader reading and avoid the "skim-zone".

More on Verbs

In the words of Steve Urkel on Family Matters, "I use verbs. Verbs are our friends."

Truer words about verbs have never been spoken. Without a verb you don't have a sentence. That can't be said about any other part of speech, not even the second most important word in the sentence, the noun.

As I mentioned before, in the sentence, verbs are where the action is, literally. And the most important aspect of a story is the action, what happens. And anyone who has ever tried to brush up on their fiction writing skills learns very quickly that authors need to keep the verbs active rather than passive.

But I must confess, even though I've known about avoiding passive verbs for some time, there was something that I've learned only just recently, like what a truly 'passive' verb is.

According to Rosslyn Elliot, historical fiction writer:

"True passive verbs occur when the action of the sentence happens to the subject:
The cake was eaten by the boy."

My husband's family used to say to each other as a joke about certain things, "And a good time was had by all." Now I know what sort of verb they were using.

Rosslyn goes on to say:
"Progressive verbs occur when you use 'was' (or am, is, are, were) with the +ing form of the verb.
The boy was eating the cake."

Until Rosslyn set me straight, I though that progressive verbs were passive verbs. Now I know better.

Rosslyn again:
"Both passive and progressive are weak, but on the few occasions when they do appear, the appropriateness of the use will differ according to whether the verb is passive or progressive.
The progressive form of verbs might occur in dialogue where you must use the phrasing that sounds natural, even if it's progressive.
The passive form of verbs is weak in both narrative and dialogue. Once or twice in a novel, you may need to use the passive voice for clarity because of your sentence order."

Rosslyn really knows her stuff. Thomas Nelson published her debut novel, an historical romance, in April of this year. You can visit her website by clicking on the link below.

http://www.rosslynelliott.com/

Thanks Rosslyn for sharing your expertise.

Verbs Rule, Adverbs Drool?

I was planning to write this post about the importance of Verbs already. But comments on one of my writer's loops helped me to get to it quicker.

One of the 'rules' of modern writing is to avoid adverbs. But I like what one writer says about writing rules or laws. They really are more like suggestions than hard and fast rules. Kind of like the Pirate Code from the Pirates of the Caribbean.

Adverbs are not expendable and a well placed adverb is worth its weight in gold.

But all writers need to remember that verbs are where the action is, literally.

So when this is discussed, people get real defensive and bring up all the great writers of old who used lots of adverbs. This is completely understandable. Writers are nothing if they are not creative. And all creative people hate to be boxed in. So that's why I think, instead of saying that avoiding adverbs is a 'rule', it would be better to look at it as a suggestion for streamlining a modern story for smoothness and aerodynamics. A well place adverb could be like racing stripes rather that something that protruded from the body drawing too much attention to itself and causing wind resistance.

Or perhaps a writer can look at it this way. Verbs are the meat of the story, the action. Adverbs, along with adjectives, article, prepositions, etc., they are more like the seasoning.

This thinking is particularly important with flash fiction since the point is to get to the action and to keep things streamlined.

Adverbs are not to be avoided like the plague but rather used carefully and sparingly like the perfect spice to enhance the power base of the story which is the verbs.