Flash Therapy: Get You and Your Characters Thinking

I have no concrete reason why people find memoirs appealing but I would guess because we are nosy; we can relate to a character or the situation they are in; we can't relate to a character or the situation they are in; we like to find out more about people and we can really get to know a person over the course of the pages--what matters to them, what doesn't.

The same is true for flash fiction, but you have to get to know about that character--or at least some aspect of that character-- and care about that character effectively in a very short amount of time. This proves challenging. Shocking I know.

One way of doing this is by tapping into their thoughts.

As we know, we are never really just doing one thing. When you are driving you are negotiating the road, listening to music, feeling the wind on your face, worrying about if you turned off the stove this morning when you made pancakes for family breakfast and that your daughter barely ate five bits while your own pants are starting to feel a little too tight. Is your daughter stressed out about something? Is it serious? Is she getting an eating disorder? You're about to pull up to the light where the homeless man walks up and down between the cars; he is there a lot and always polite to you. Do you give him money or if he has a drug addiction are you only going to make his life worse? You got your fair share of fixes in your earlier days; is it hypocritical to want to stop him?

What this character is thinking about and not thinking about might tell you a lot about her, her situation in life, her personality, her desires, her quirks, her perception of others. Hopefully you can convey this a lot more skillfully and creatively than I did here in an actual story. The point is though that you are multitasking and thinking, your characters should be too, but that's just my two cents.

About the Author

Jessica Collins is an MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) candidate at Rosemont College. She graduated
from Drexel University with a degree in political science and
Rowan University with a masters in writing arts. She works as a real estate
and tax lien investor and currently lives in Medford, New Jersey with her
Labrador Bucklee.

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