Flash Craft: The Secret Is Out with Rogers’ Strategy

When I first started writing flash, one of the things I had a hard time getting used to was not keeping secret from readers. My instincts were to withhold as much information as I could from my audience, and "strategically" reveal key facts as I wanted the audience to be aware of them. With that being said, there are some instances where you can get away with keeping secrets. So, how do you know when to tell and when to keep something a secret?

The basic rule to follow is if your character knows something, your audience needs to know it to. For example, let's say you have a story that centers around the main character looking for his Mary. Throughout the entire story readers see how desperate the character is to find Mary. Then at the end of the story, readers get to the big twist and find out Mary is a boat. This can be frustrating and result in a pointless flash. If the character knew from the beginning that Mary was a boat, the audience needs to know this too.

Approaching flash this way also helps find what is really interesting about a story. If the big twist in the story is the main character was looking for a boat not a person, then you're doing your story, and yourself, a disservice. What is more important is looking at why finding the boat is so important and what happens to the main character if he or she doesn't find the boat.

It's okay to keep secrets from your audience if it's something that you, the writer, knows but your character hasn't figured out yet. For example, if the character doesn't know Mary is a boat and the reader and character discover this fact together. Granted, that alone is not a very interesting flash, but keeping the fact that Mary is boat from readers would be acceptable in this type of situation.

Forcing yourself to put your character and your audience in the same mindset can also force you to look closer at what the real issue is. If you make the twist or revelation in the story something your character already knows but the audience doesn't, your character doesn't learn anything and neither does your audience. This is a sign that that you need to approach the story from a different angle.

If you find yourself writing something like this, don't stop. Finish the flash, then go back and see what the underlying issue is (in the case of the boat, the real issue is what happens if the main character doesn't find the boat). There's a good chance the underlying issue can be pulled to the front of the flash as the central focus and with a few rewrites, lead to a successful flash piece.

About the Author

Meghan Rogers is an MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) candidate at Rosemont College. She is new to the world of flash fiction, but is enjoying the creative challenge. Her favorite things to write are novels and short stories that tend to be more young adult. When not writing, she enjoys reading, sports and watching way to much television.

For further reading, check out FlashFiction.Net's suggested readings of flash fiction and prose poetry collections, anthologies, and craft books, by clicking here.

Subscribe to FlashFiction.Net by Email