Flash Craft: Getting Abstract With Your Flash

Although "abstraction" is often associated with painting or sculpture, it's also a valuable tool for writing compressed fiction. Think of abstraction as a pencil sketch. With the barest of lines, the sketch defines the "whole" of something larger and more detailed. Being seasonal, think of how a triangle and a few diagonal lines invoke a tree, lights, and the smell of warm cookies on a snowy night. That little hint of line allows your brain to fill in the rest of the larger idea.

The key to abstraction is in choosing those elements that conjure-up "images" of a place, an event, a moment, even a feeling, like love or excitement.

Try looking for those images and impressions that differ from anything you've read before. Identify new points-of-view. Use your senses of smell, sound, and touch to find sensations hidden underneath those that are most obvious.

Let's say you've written a story that takes place at a carnival. Lights, music, games, cotton candy, stuffed animals, children laughing, ride operators covered in tattoos. These are all valid images to invoke a carnival, but they are also well-worn to the point of cliché.

What other impressions of carnival lights can you remember? Think of the color flashes that remain when you close your eyes and scream on the spinning Tilt-a-Whirl. How about broken or missing bulbs on an old game booth, random and spotty, like missing teeth?

Smells abound at a carnival, as well. There's the acrid grease left by frying funnel cakes (I live in Pennsylvania), or the sting of urine in a portable toilet (I'm from New Jersey).

Listen and watch for things you may have missed in the past. There's the crunch of spilled popcorn under your feet. Or a father, desperately searching his pockets for one more dollar to win his daughter a stuffed kitty at a rigged game. What about the geeky kid, having fun until he runs into the bullies who tease him at school?

Make a list of all the little details you can remember to invoke the carnival, or anything else you're writing about. Use the best ones in your flash as unexpected hints of detail. The fortune-teller predicts that you will be handsomely rewarded for your efforts.

About the Author

Rich Grohowski graduated from Kutztown University with degrees in English and Geography, two things for which no one wants to pay you money. So, naturally, he's hoping to hit the big bucks in flash fiction. Along with recently finishing his Teaching Certification at Immaculata University, he is an MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) candidate at Rosemont College. His non-fiction writing about food, culture, real estate, and interesting personal histories (pretty much anything, really) has appeared in magazines, newspapers, and even a couple of books.

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