Short-Short First Prize: "An interval of time just before the onset" by Sarina Bosco

by 2020 Short-Short Editor Kaye Linden

Why did I choose Sarina Bosco's "An interval of time just before the onset" for a first prize?

The wind, first, coming in through the open windows like a gasp sets the vision for an oncoming storm or hurricane. In a short-short story or flash, the title and the first line must grab the reader before the onset, and the author does a great job with the entrance into this world. The powerful language in this short-short paints a picture with effective word choices.

vibrant, velvet, virgin leaves unfurling to swell in the thick air.

Note the alliteration of the "v" sound followed with vowels that continue throughout the sentence. Akin to a deep hum, this onomatopoeic sentence warns of wind, rain, and the grumble of thunder far off.

Through word choice and poetic device such as simile (like tragedy or purpose or fate), alliteration (wood and water), and assonance (buttercups torn in an updraft), we feel the escalating humidity that drapes like a woolen blanket over calves . . . drawing down against the pressure change. Floridians understand this palpable weight, the intense pressure of a pending storm, the electrical activity that lifts the fine hair of the body.

Throughout this piece, there rumbles an approaching entity: so softly, at first, that it isn't even heard. However, the reader feels the pending crack with the repetition of one, two--reminiscent of heavy footsteps, the coming of what?

The answer to the question of what is coming had an overarching reach this spring and summer. We felt the unfurling of the COVID-19 virus, the fear in the air, ourselves tucked away in our tangles of forsythia as we sheltered in place. Soft at first we held our breath until the tragedy of delayed response swept us into our global fate. How appropriate that this piece suggests the coming of many dark storms into our lives.

This short-short is a cornucopia of language, ensconced within the rhythm of the patter of rain. The voice of the author vibrates throughout. We imagine ourselves heavy tongue feathered against an open mouth . . . the slightest arch in the neck . . . holding breath and waiting--one, two . . . here it comes.

I chose this piece because of its language choices, rhythm, visualization, the metaphorical description of a coming storm, the appropriateness of its subject matter on many levels, and the skill with which the author unfurled this lovely piece. 

*  *   *

  Read Sarina Bosco's "An interval of time just before the onset" on page 1,
as well as other engaging works of Creative Nonfiction, Fiction, Poetry,
Short-Short, and Humor in Bacopa Literary Review 2020

An Ominous Undertone

by 2020 Short-Short First Prize Winner Sarina Bosco 

Short-short fiction, or flash fiction, has been around roughly since the time of works like Aesop's Fables. But throughout my college and writing career I somehow never came across the genre. I took classes on rhetoric, on electronic literature, on the classics - but never once was flash fiction discussed. 

The concept confused me at first (and still does a lot of the time). Most literary journals seem to want a story beginning to end crammed into less than 1,000 words, which is quite a feat even when done poorly. But I like a challenge. As a writer you can choose to put yourself in a box - this is sometimes an incredibly helpful exercise - or you can choose to find new ways to approach a project. With "An interval of time just before the onset" in Bacopa Literary Review 2020, I opted for the latter. 

"An interval" isn't a story in the traditional sense but the elements are all there. The piece was inspired by thunderstorms, which I've always loved, and that feeling just before them - the feeling comprised of all of your senses warning you that something is coming. 

Everything on the cusp. The blades of grass turning in twilight, leaves showing their pale undersides, the wind picking up. The fine hair of the body lifting, listening. 

The tone of "An interval" is completely up for interpretation. While I tend to anticipate storms with excitement, others dread them. And 2020 has definitely brought an ominous undertone into our daily lives. But what I love most about thunderstorms is the after-effects; the cleansing feeling, everything damp and dripping a bit, that fresh smell that comes from plants releasing oils they've been building up. 

We're at a point in our lives, society, government, where we are on the cusp of something. I'd like readers to consider going about their lives the way "An interval" approaches the storm - with all senses open, ready to take on what's coming. 

Website: www.sarinabosco.com 

Instagram: @sarina_writesalot

Flash Fiction: Short and Tumultuous

By Editor in Chief Mary Bast

The lofty stance, the cosmic range, and the haunting music of Trakl's poetry now mark him, with Rilke, as perhaps the last great representative of what could be called the sublime tradition in German. Herbert Samuel Lindenberger, Georg Trakl. 

Our 2017 Flash Story Prize-winner Stephanie Emily Dickinson illuminates the short, tumultuous life of  Georg Trakl (1887-1914) in  Excerpts from the Trakl Diaries: A Collection of Tales (31: "Strangeress," 32: "The Snow," 33:"The Train," and 34: "Military Exercises" below). Her inspiration, George Trakl, protested "against the corrupt, fallen condition of humankind." To fully appreciate Dickinson's skill in creating new work while capturing the haunting music of Trakl's Expressionist poetry, click here for some of Trakl's poems, then read "Military Exercises," one of Dickinson's Collection of Tales available in Bacopa Literary Review 2017:

Military Exercises

1914. Heat has trapped itself. The light stays midmorning while we march through grass that rain has dampened. Linden trees around the parade ground throb with white scent. The grass blades lash themselves to my boots. My comrades chase not a ball but a soldier in pale goggles who kicks at a creature. The sky is the color of a giant spiked wheel breaking bodies as it rolls. The hardwoods hidden, spider webs embrace them. Back and forth we drill, a strophe that believes its steps have returned to the 4th grade where recess has begun. The bigger boys play. Each scrambles to pick up a stone or a stick. The animal that I took for a black cat is a rat, thin and elongated. Brownish black with a tail longer than its head and body, it blinks at the brightness with its poor eyes. My comrades are hoisting the culprit up and applying weights, they are setting the two forks, the prongs plunged into the flesh, against the neck. The tallest takes from his jacket pocket a wire contraption and baits it. I smell the sweetness of bacon. Red tort. Pig kidney flamed in rum. The rat tries to flee, pulling its strange cordy tail, skittering one way and then the other. The rat squeaks piteously and drags its little body. Nein, I say, drawing my service revolver. Nein. I will save the heretic. Give me the contraption, free the wire from the rat's neck. My comrades laugh, they clamor to swing the rat now that its blood is trickling through the air. Soon it will be August. War. The rat no longer claws the earth but kings it. Millions breed with the red slugs and frogs. Corpse rats. Millions of rat Robespierres to avenge, fewer rat Buddhas to forgive here under the lover's linden trees whose white perfume masks the executioner's sweat.

*    *    *

Stephanie Dickinson was raised on an Iowa farm, graduated with an MFA from the University of Oregon, and now lives in New York City. Along with Rob Cook, she publishes and edits the literary journal Skidrow Penthouse, now in its 10th year. She has received multiple distinguished story citations in the Pushcart Anthology, Best American Short Stories, and Best American Mysteries. And we've previously posted about her The Emily Fables and Heat: An Interview with Jean Seberg.

Flash is No Longer Only Fiction. . .

By Flash Story Editor Kaye Linden

Bacopa Literary Review 2017 submissions included "flash story," which can include creative nonfiction, memoir, fiction or a combination of these genres in 750 words or less, including micro-flash which might consist of 250 words or even fewer.

The criteria I look for in a flash story submission include these:

1. Creative nonfiction, memoir, fiction, or a combination of these genres
2. Tiny plot or character driven
3. Compression: almost every word counts or carries meaning  
4. A minimum of adverbs
5. Focus on one scene or event
6. A minimum of dialogue
7. A great title
8. Consistency of tense and point of view
9. Fresh expressions without the use of cliches
10. Riveting language or language that moves the reader
11. Originality
12. Story structure: a purpose, a beginning, middle and end with conflict, conflict, conflict and resolution.

Here's an example of my own 376-word flash story, written in response to the newspaper article cited below: 

The Future Legend of How Rising Seas Drowned Saint Augustine and its Famous Statue*

The first grain of sand to go slipped unnoticed into muddy seawater and high tide washed a small chunk from the base of Ponce de Leon's statue. Three teenage boys waded to the town plaza, climbed to the top of Ponce's helmeted head and practiced kissing his cold lips, slapping his face when Ponce didn't kiss back, and hanging upside down from the old head that bowed in shame at the youthful play. Perhaps Ponce felt jealous of young muscles and flexible limbs, or of the strength to climb statues and throw popcorn and peanuts from his slumped unyoung shoulders. He never did find the fountain, and with the Atlantic tide rising, rising, rising, his steel boots sucked down further, awash in brine. The boys knew, and Ponce knew, he was going under. Each evening the boys chopped off a finger, a thumb, a toe and the middle finger of the right hand became a tool to gouge out an eye, graffiti the shiny armor with she loves me, she loves me not, and scratch mud daubers and wasps from Ponce's ears. They removed one earlobe with the sawing up and down, down and up motion of a hacksaw, laughing at the crumbling little man as he lost one appendage at a time. The boys removed the mighty sword from the gallant gentleman and topped his head with the blade in a decapitation celebration, the step-by-step ritual of taking a great warrior down. Water washed over Ponce's knees while grains of stone fell away from the foundation in greater and greater chunks until Ponce leaned upside down, headless shoulders standing in water. One night, the boys stretched out drunk, across the rubble, across the broken fingers and toes, across the scraps of Ponce's heroic eyes, those eyes that once upon a time surveyed the fertile flowering of La Florida where surely his immortality lay.
        The water rose and rose and rose during the hurricane of 2019, a category six travesty, off the grid, never before witnessed, never before seen by the boys who drowned that night, never before seen by the city of Saint Augustine that drowned that night, never before seen by Ponce de Leon, whose hopes for a bright future drowned in rising seas.

*The Gainesville Sun, Florida, May 10, 2015: "Sea rise threatens Florida coast but no statewide plan"

See also: "How Can a Mother?"

Other Resources:

1. Micro Fiction: An Anthology of Fifty Really Short Stories, edited by Jerome Stern. New York, N.Y.: W.W. Norton & Co., 1996. Print.
2. The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction: Tips from Editors, Teachers, and Writers in the Field. Masih, Tara L. Brookline, MA: Rose Metal, 2009. Print.
3. The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Nonfiction: Advice and Essential Exercises from Respected Writers, Editors, and Teachers. Moore, Dinty W. Brookline, MA: Rose Metal, 2012. Print. 
4. As this form can flash short and with impact, I refer readers to "Six One-Sentence Stories" by Bruce Holland Rogers. 

Bacopa Literary Review contest submissions open April 1 - May 31, 2017

35 Tips for Writing Flash: Four Keys to Revision & Writing Prose Poetry

Bacopa Literary Review Flash Story Editor Kaye Linden generously shares chapters from her book, 35 Tips for Writing a Brilliant Flash Story: a Manual of Flash Fiction and Nonfiction Writing.

CHAPTER 1 ("Small Frame")  

CHAPTERS 2 & 3 ("The House Theory" & "Slice-of-Life Stories")

CHAPTERS 4 & 5 ("Compression, Minimalism" & "A Striking Title")
CHAPTERS 6 & 7 ("First Few Lines" & "I Want It But I Can't Have It...")
CHAPTERS 8 & 9 ("Kaye's Rule of Six C's" & "Compressed Scene/Story Line")
CHAPTERS 10 & 11 ("Stimulus/Response, Chronological Order" & "Whose Story Is it?")
CHAPTERS 12 & 13 ("Moving the Story Forward" & "The Shape of Flash")
CHAPTERS 14 & 15 ("Consequences of Desire Thwarted" & "Characters")
CHAPTERS 16 & 17 ("Setting, Weather, and Crowds as Characters" & "A Sense of Meaning")
CHAPTERS 18 & 19 ("Point of View" & "Tense Choice")
CHAPTERS 20 & 21 ("The Ticking Clock" & "Chekhov's Gun")
CHAPTERS 22 & 23 ("Don't Underestimate Your Reader" & "Word Weight")
CHAPTERS 24 & 25 ("Concrete Details/Imagery" & "CUT Adverbs/Adjectives")
CHAPTERS 26 & 27 ("Dialogue" & "The Verb 'To Be'")
CHAPTERS 28 & 29 ("Subtext/Implication/Backstory" & "Myths and Tales")
CHAPTERS 30 &31 ("Surprise the Reader & "Sentence Structure/Phrases")
CHAPTERS 32 & 33 ("Fixed and Experimental Forms" & "Mastering the Genre")

CHAPTER 34

 The Four Keys to Revision: C.O.A.P.

• Cut: eliminate unnecessary words, backstory, fillers 
• Organize: ideas into a consistent and cohesive story line 
• Add: fill gaps in clarity, add a word or line of dialogue to clarify a confusing story 
• Polish: Perfect the grammar, check for consistence in point of view and tense, and the story's clarity. Review all previous tips and apply to your story. Voila. Time to submit the story for publication!

CHAPTER 35

A Few Tips About Prose Poetry

Length does not define prose poetry, but length is one parameter that defines flash stories.

Poetry is about language and poetic device such as similes, alliteration, sentence structure, broken lines, verses, imagery.

Language in flash is concise and intense as in poetry, but does not flow into poetic devices or employ traditional forms, such as villanelles or sonnets. However, one can experiment with fixed forms in flash.

Flash most often carries a story line involving conflict and a change in the main character or situation. Poetry need not.

Poetry emphasizes the placement of words and is defined by line breaks.

Narrative poetry, prose poetry, and flash stories can overlap.

In poetry, the description can be a technique in and of itself and offers an overall image for the reader. In flash, the description must advance the narrative.

Poetry need not and often does not contain a plot. Flash usually, but not always contains a compressed plot.

When readers pick up poetry, they have a different set of expectations than on reading flash stories. They expect a story when reading flash, but do not expect a story when reading poetry.

Prose poetry asks readers to lay aside their rules and judgment and prepare for a surprise, a wild ride. Readers must make larger jumps than with flash, and read more deeply into subtext.

Prose poetry lends itself well to experimental writing and mixed forms.

Above all, remember to read your work aloud because this is the best way to hear mistakes, catch skips in rhythm or misplaced beats, hear inconsistent pacing, tense or point of view shifts.

Feel free to visit Kaye Linden's web site, contact her there, and sign up for her blog.

See also her 35 Tips for Writing Powerful Prose Poems

How Can a Mother?

By Bacopa Literary Review Flash Story Editor, Kaye Linden

Bacopa 2017 submissions included the genre "flash story," which could be fiction, creative nonfiction, or memoir of 750 words or less. Below, I have posted a piece of memoir that could be submitted as flash story, flash memoir, flash creative nonfiction, or as a prose poem of 748 words not counting the title This piece is character driven, with a prose poem format that leans enough towards a story with a tiny plot or series of events, that I would accept as a flash story. Note the eccentric use of language and lack of traditional grammar. I'm a nontraditional poetry and flash story editor and invite you to submit your tightly written stories or prose poems next year. (See also my 35 Tips for Writing a Brilliant Flash Story)

How Can a Mother?

A memoir in flash

748 words by Kaye Linden

The folding unfolding picnic chair, yellow, green, white striped against dark wooden legs, folding down into a canvas seat for a three-year old's little girl body to sit still, stay quiet, so the adults might converse over picnic lunch, (Kentucky fried slaughtered chicken and other innocents) on the edge, innocents on the ledge ...

Who does that?
What mother places an unfolding folding chair on the crest of a cliff?
For a three-year old in a red and white checkered dress, (lace collar and flouncy skirt, white sox and white sandals)
a larger cliff than for a mother, a large folding cliff that folds down and around and in on itself, bendy yet rigid, up and down and rocky and fashioned with tiny rocks and pebbles and hurting sticks and stones that do break bones and what mother does that?
What mother places an unfolding folding chair on the brink of a cliff?
A mother who is watching someone else,
a mother whose eyes follow a man with ginger hair,
a mother who only has eyes for the man who carries the picnic basket.

That mother doesn't see

her
                                          child
                                                                fall


The red and white checked dress with the lace collar and flounced skirt, the white sandals and white sox, so disgustingly innocent, but I can still feel the seer-sucker texture of the new skirt between my chubby fingers, the gut-stirring excitement of a trek up the winding path of the sandy hill, the sound of crashing surf over ancient rock, the anticipation of a day in the Australian sun, on an aboriginal icon where weathered carvings in moss-covered boulders spoke stories of boomerangs and kangaroos hunted. A wind blew strong that day, my fine blonde baby hair blowing around my round face.

That day, my father insisted on bringing his best friend--the ginger-haired man he encouraged my mother to see every day, his large frame shadowing the paths along which he walked. He tossed me onto his shoulders and neighed like a horse blowing beer breath, everyone laughing at his Australian humor. They told me to call him "Uncle Hank." But he wasn't a blood uncle, just a "close friend" who should be "respected" like an uncle--

a bastard with heavily freckled arms, muscled all over, a punch worthy body, huge fists, calloused knuckles, a beer bellied bastard

At the top of the hill, my parents and "Uncle Hank" laid out folding picnic chairs on the flattened, beaten down grass dirt surface, kicked away sticks and stones and other bleached half-eaten chicken bones tossed by other mindless people seeking a retreat into well-worn trails. The cleared space allowed my parents and the man to decorate the red tablecloth with silver spoons and forks and what was wrong with plastic spoons and forks except that, oh I get it now, they could have blown away in the wind, over the cliff edge.

A shadowed figure of a mother hovered over the folding unfolding stool and placed it hastily on the cliff, close enough to the edge, randomly placed, I'm sure, not a murderous intention but a thoughtless one.

More beer came out, warm and hot, Australian Lager at its best.

"Let's drink to friendship," the glass mugs clinked. Large biting ants crawled across the picnic blanket and over my legs, biting until red welts appeared. I cried.

"What's the matter?" the how- can- a- mother voice beamed, sap-filled sweetness, dripping

"Ants are biting."

"Just brush them off."

I brushed and swiped, slapped red the child skin

The folding unfolding stool rocked and rocked, unfolding in slow motion over the edge

a tumble, rocks scratching like cats' claws shredding new girl skin, jabbing, stabbing at  

the child rolling over pokey sticks and bits and pieces of wave-dumped debris.

Not a killing fall,

but a wake-up fall.

Down she fell to the rocks where surf crashed and spray sprayed the seer-sucker dress, a piece of lace collar and a sandal tossed onto rocks.

White foam. Salt air. Cuts, scratches.

Frantic adult voices from above. "Are you alright?"

"Uncle Hank's coming to get you."

The lumbering of heft and heroic strength slide down the cliff on large man buttocks, a starving soul desperate for salvation.

Where was my father?

The man picked me up and laughed. "You'll be ok" said in a croon supposed to dismiss pain.

She cried big girl tears that day and ruined a perfectly good picnic.

Oh well.

I'm sure they had many more.

~         ~           ~

Note from Editor in Chief Mary Bast: See Stephanie Dickinson's 413-word "Emily and the Bobcat;" also her "Iowa" and "Marjorie." Then get your hands on Margaret Atwood's collection The Tent -- "a collection of very short pieces, some only a paragraph long" -- plus other flash collections mentioned in LitHub's A Crash Course in Flash Fiction. Also the superb, 241-word "Esse" from Czeslaw Milosz (listed at the Nobel Prize site as a "poem" and in Flash Fiction International as "fiction"), Marco Denevi's amusingly weird flash fiction "The Lord of the Flies," "Aglaglagl" by Bruce Holland Rogers (also a Bacopa 2013 contributor), Jessica Goodfellow's "Landlocked," Tara Laskowski's "Little Girls."

Bacopa Literary Review: If It Glimmers, It's Gold

by Editor-in-Chief Mary Bast

Debra A. Daniel won Bacopa Literary Review 2015's 2nd Place in Fiction for her 515-word story "Cinderella Visits Her Stepmother at the EverAfter Assisted Living Home." While we're not inviting flash fiction for the 2016 issue, there's no clear agreement on what constitutes "flash." Synonyms for flash include: gleam, glimmer, glitter, sparkle, luster, illuminate. No, we don't want 50-word submissions. Yes, we do want fiction that illuminates.

We think you'll agree that Debra's short story has a certain luster:

Cinderella touches the sleeve, says, This isn't your gown.

The old woman's fingers curl into knotty fists. She says, Keep your hands off. It's mine. The mouse with the secret messages on his arms gave it to me. The mice have sneaked in with gifts every night since you imprisoned me in this dungeon.

This is a hospital, Mother, where they care for you. Mice don't sneak in, Cinderella says as she picks up wadded tissues littering the floor.

Soft white mice are around your feet right now. I'll order them to bite you, then you'll see. The stepmother snorts, I want to be in my own castle, not in this evil torture chamber. And look at my hair. Get my magic wand and fix me.

Cinderella finds a silver comb in the nightstand drawer. Standing behind the wheelchair, she listens to her stepmother's ragged breathing and slowly detangles the wiry tufts of hair.

That hurts. What a spiteful girl you are. I'll command the mice to leave you in the forest just like Snow White with nothing to eat but poisoned apples.

Mother, please, just let me help you.

The old woman slaps at Cinderella's hand. The comb goes back into the drawer.

Let me feed you some applesauce. It'll make you feel better, Cinderella says and scoops a spoonful from a tiny golden cup.

Remove that vile potion. I'll eat when I'm ready. The stepmother's voice is so high-pitched that a male nurse walking by enters the room. Ah, the handsome Prince, the old woman says.

Mother, he's not the Prince. The Prince left a long, long ago. 

The stepmother's eyes fix on the man. I know that. This is a toad transformed into a coachman or a page, at best. He's certainly not royalty. Her voice softens to a croaky whisper. The Prince sent him to rescue me from the dungeon.

As he leaves, the nurse bestows a longsuffering smile upon Cinderella. The old woman glares at her and says, Who are you?

I'm your daughter.

The woman says, You're not. My daughters have frizzy hair and crooked horse teeth just like mine. You've never, ever been my daughter.

So it goes all the while Cinderella is cleaning the old woman's horse teeth and gathering soiled garments for laundering. She sits beside the bed until her stepmother tosses into unhappy sleep.

Then Cinderella heads to where she parked her old dented pumpkin. Behind her, she hears footsteps, lots of them. When she turns she sees the mice heading in for the shift change.

How was she? the one with the tattoo says.

She's a little worse every day now, but, at least she knew you were there last night. Thanks for the gown.

Don't mention it, says the mouse with the cropped tail. Did she eat the applesauce?

Cinderella sighs. No, I won't force it. We'll both know when she's really ready to take a bite.

The mice leave Cinderella leaning against the pumpkin. For a long while she stands there, all alone in the dark, dark of life ever after. 

Debra A. Daniel is the author of the novel, Woman Commits Suicide in Dishwasher, (Muddy Ford Press) and two poetry chapbooks, The Downward Turn of August (Finishing Line Press) and As Is (Main Street Rag). She was twice named SC Arts Commission Poetry Fellow, won the 2002 Guy Owen Prize as well as numerous awards from the Poetry Society of SC, the Piccolo Fiction Open, The SC Fiction Project, and was nominated for a Pushcart. Her work has appeared in many publications including The Los Angeles Review, SmokeLong Quarterly, The Sound of Poets Cooking, Kakalak, The Inkwell Magazine, Southern Poetry Review, Tar River Poetry, and Gargoyle Magazine.

Bacopa's Submissions open until June 30, 2016

35 Tips for Writing Flash: Fixed and Experimental Forms & Mastering the Genre

In the current posts Bacopa Literary Review Flash Story Editor Kaye Linden generously shares chapters from her book, 35 Tips for Writing a Brilliant Flash Story: a Manual of Flash Fiction and Nonfiction Writing.

CHAPTER 1 ("Small Frame")  

CHAPTERS 2 & 3 ("The House Theory" & "Slice-of-Life Stories")

CHAPTERS 4 & 5 ("Compression, Minimalism" & "A Striking Title")
CHAPTERS 6 & 7 ("First Few Lines" & "I Want It But I Can't Have It...")
CHAPTERS 8 & 9 ("Kaye's Rule of Six C's" & "Compressed Scene/Story Line")
CHAPTERS 10 & 11 ("Stimulus/Response, Chronological Order" & "Whose Story Is it?")
CHAPTERS 12 & 13 ("Moving the Story Forward" & "The Shape of Flash")
CHAPTERS 14 & 15 ("Consequences of Desire Thwarted" & "Characters")
CHAPTERS 16 & 17 ("Setting, Weather, and Crowds as Characters" & "A Sense of Meaning")
CHAPTERS 18 & 19 ("Point of View" & "Tense Choice")
CHAPTERS 20 & 21 ("The Ticking Clock" & "Chekhov's Gun")
CHAPTERS 22 & 23 ("Don't Underestimate Your Reader" & "Word Weight")
CHAPTERS 24 & 25 ("Concrete Details/Imagery" & "CUT Adverbs/Adjectives")
CHAPTERS 26 & 27 ("Dialogue" & "The Verb 'To Be'")
CHAPTERS 28 & 29 ("Subtext/Implication/Backstory" & "Myths and Tales")
CHAPTERS 30 &31 ("Surprise the Reader & "Sentence Structure/Phrases")

CHAPTER 32

 Fixed and Experimental Forms

As you have seen in the previous chapter, flash lends itself wonderfully to experimentation. The writer can try any playful writing in a short piece because there is not a lot of time or emotional energy invested. If it doesn't work, it's easy to rewrite.

Here's an interesting fixed form for you to work with:

With each new sentence, double the word count of the sentence before.

An example:

One. One story. Of black teeth revealed. Black teeth revealed behind luscious wet red lips. Lips parted, seductive, her chiseled face in a bar, mirrored behind one glass, smudged with lipstick.

Fixed forms are fun. They unleash the wild muse.

An example, one of my experimental flash nonfiction pieces that won first prize in Bacopa Literary Review's 2015 annual contest for creative nonfiction, is here. I wrote the flash in one sentence, an experimental handling of form. The one-sentence structure reflects the continuity of the tattoo patterns over a man's body.

Prompt: Turn the timer on for 5 minutes. Write about an epiphany or "aha" moment you had had, but write it in a long sentence. Don't think too much, just write.
 

CHAPTER 33

Mastering the Genre

Read, read, read flash fiction and nonfiction flash stories and learn from the masters.

Borrow techniques, initiate variations and deviate with your ideas while you practice from famous examples and develop a unique flash style. Join flash critique groups either in your town, online or take classes. Start your own critique group.

In the next blog post you'll find a list of resources that include a sprinkling of flash writers and their work.

Prompt: Study a tiny story by a famous flash writer and substitute each word with your own. Warning: Be careful not to plagiarize or copy any other writings.

There are sites online, such as Grammarly.com, where you can copy and paste your work to make sure you have not plagiarized by mistake.

Stay tuned for CHAPTER 34 ("The Four Keys to Revision")

and CHAPTER 35 ("A Few Tips About Prose Poetry")

See also, Kaye Linden's 35 Tips for Writing Powerful Prose Poems

35 Tips for Writing Flash: Surprise the Reader & Sentence Structure/Phrases

In the current posts Bacopa Literary Review Flash Story Editor Kaye Linden generously shares chapters from her book, 35 Tips for Writing a Brilliant Flash Story: a Manual of Flash Fiction and Nonfiction Writing.

CHAPTER 1 ("Small Frame")  

CHAPTERS 2 & 3 ("The House Theory" & "Slice-of-Life Stories")

CHAPTERS 4 & 5 ("Compression, Minimalism" & "A Striking Title")
CHAPTERS 6 & 7 ("First Few Lines" & "I Want It But I Can't Have It...")
CHAPTERS 8 & 9 ("Kaye's Rule of Six C's" & "Compressed Scene/Story Line")
CHAPTERS 10 & 11 ("Stimulus/Response, Chronological Order" & "Whose Story Is it?")
CHAPTERS 12 & 13 ("Moving the Story Forward" & "The Shape of Flash")
CHAPTERS 14 & 15 ("Consequences of Desire Thwarted" & "Characters")
CHAPTERS 16 & 17 ("Setting, Weather, and Crowds as Characters" & "A Sense of Meaning")
CHAPTERS 18 & 19 ("Point of View" & "Tense Choice")
CHAPTERS 20 & 21 ("The Ticking Clock" & "Chekhov's Gun")
CHAPTERS 22 & 23 ("Don't Underestimate Your Reader" & "Word Weight")
CHAPTERS 24 & 25 ("Concrete Details/Imagery" & "CUT Adverbs/Adjectives")
CHAPTERS 26 & 27 ("Dialogue" & "The Verb 'To Be'")
CHAPTERS 28 & 29 ("Subtext/Implication/Backstory" & "Myths and Tales")

CHAPTER 30

 Surprise the Reader

Interesting surprises and twists are not mandatory in flash but create interest and delight for readers. Don't trick them with a predictable twist but offer a subtle or surprise ending or development.

When the father in "Agoriclautrophobia" left his daughter alone, the reader might sense surprise because that appears to be odd behavior for a father, but the eccentricities of human behavior offer interest.

Another tool for surprising a reader lies in the language, specifically the reworking of clichés. Clichés are hackneyed, tired sayings that have lost their impact over time. Avoid them. Use fresh expressions to offer an image: "Half-decayed cattle with jaws wide open in a scream."

This image extends to later in the story when the daughter imagines her "father's jaws wide open in a dying scream."

Part of the surprise in the story is the combination of the concepts of claustrophobia and agoraphobia. The surprise lies in the fact that people can and do feel claustrophobic in open spaces. Some people feel that way out in the middle of the ocean where "there's so much, room, so much to fear . . ."

Prompt: Take an old story and  cross out clichés with a red pen. What can you change to offer a fresh phrase, surprise, or perspective? Try changing the point of view, or change the main character into one of the minor characters. How would another character's perception change the story? Surprise yourself.
 

CHAPTER 31

Sentence Structure and Phrases

Flash has its own rhythm, produced by compressed sentences and phrases that give a particular rhythm and pacing to the sound of very short prose. Depending on the writer's intention, breaking grammar rules such as eliminating commas or periods and the use of repetition can offer a wonderful sense of urgency in a compressed narrative flash.

Prompt: To practice writing from a different angle, write a series of questions mixed or not mixed with a couple of sentences. Place a tiny twist at the end. For example:

 "What am I doing here? Where is he? What time is it? Why is he so late? Should I leave? Why are my palms sweating? Am I going to throw up? Did he dump me? Do I have the wrong restaurant or the wrong time? Why is that waiter looking at me? It's because I'm on my fourth whiskey, isn't it? Do I have on too much lipstick? Maybe my lipstick's a mess. I'd better take a look in the mirror. What the heck happened to him? Where the . . . Oh, there he is now. Hi there. How are you? Sit down. What did you say? I look tense? I don't know why. I was just relaxing with a drink."

You get the picture: Up the ante by playing with sentence structure and rules. Great stories arise from playing with structure. 

Here is an example of a flash fiction I published in 2015 in The Rat's Ass Review. Note the pacing, the breaking of grammatical rules, and the minimal dialogue. This flash piece also works as a prose poem. 

The Wet

Kaye Linden

Ma, aboriginal toothless shaman, throws her ninety-nine-year-old bones into the front seat of the windowless jeep and jams her foot down on the accelerator. Desert driving, flash flood driving with rising waters at the hubcaps and trackless tires sinking fast into whirling mud swirls. Sky blows blacker than her skin, wind whips red welts into her hanging jawline, Ma pains on, the falling down mulga-wood homestead in sight, too distant on the boiling roiling horizon, straight one line straight line straight ahead no wavering but straight the shortest distance between two points. Rain pouring pouring pouring torrential blinding into her old eyes she keeps driving driving driving through driving rain to get home home home before the rusty untrusty jeep sinks deeper into sudden ravines and eddies that grow rounder and hungrier taking but seconds to fill holes in the ground. She reaches the leaning splitting woodpile homestead in the raining pouring driving wet, the wet, the Alice Springs wet, the wet that only those people who live in The Alice know, understand, and brace for each five years. The homestead swirls under water, turning and topsy and turvy and upside down and inside out, her broken armchair floating in pieces, rusted pots afloat, the sheltie dog swimming to meet her, tongue lolly-gagging hello, eyes yellowed and alight, but Ma's jeep coughs and rattles and chokes and sinks with Ma not a swimmer but a hiker with strong old hiking legs, army boots that anchor her down into water. She grabs the old dog's matted wet back and they both go down and around, thunder announcing their pending demise, kookaburra laughter long gone, gasping and hacking and face just up level with water, eyes turned up to the heavens, to the ancient gods whose hands don't read out. "Where are you, you bastards?" Ma shouts to the sky and the dog whines a carping whittling fingernails-down-the-blackboard kind of cry that only those from The Alice understand, only those who have seen white brittle bones bleached in desert heat and sun after those on a run for their lives have lost. Panting dog and woman cling to each other, going down, going down, going down but with a whoosh and a gurgle the water stops, the rain stops, the rivers cease running, the widening knife-like gaps in red mud close and Ma stands on her feet again, holding the dog in her arms, sinking to ankles in army boots, but standing in remnants of a flash flood in Australian desert,

        here now,

        there now,

        gone.

Stay tuned for CHAPTER 32 ("Fixed and Experimental Forms")

and CHAPTER 33 ("Mastering the Genre")

See also, Kaye Linden's 35 Tips for Writing Powerful Prose Poems

35 Tips for Writing Flash: Subtext/Implication/Backstory & Myths and Tales

In the current posts, Bacopa Literary Review Flash Story Editor Kaye Linden generously shares chapters from her book, 35 Tips for Writing a Brilliant Flash Story: a Manual of Flash Fiction and Nonfiction Writing.

CHAPTER 1 ("Small Frame")  

CHAPTERS 2 & 3 ("The House Theory" & "Slice-of-Life Stories")

CHAPTERS 4 & 5 ("Compression, Minimalism" & "A Striking Title")
CHAPTERS 6 & 7 ("First Few Lines" & "I Want It But I Can't Have It...")
CHAPTERS 8 & 9 ("Kaye's Rule of Six C's" & "Compressed Scene/Story Line")
CHAPTERS 10 & 11 ("Stimulus/Response, Chronological Order" & "Whose Story Is it?")
CHAPTERS 12 & 13 ("Moving the Story Forward" & "The Shape of Flash")
CHAPTERS 14 & 15 ("Consequences of Desire Thwarted" & "Characters")
CHAPTERS 16 & 17 ("Setting, Weather, and Crowds as Characters" & "A Sense of Meaning")
CHAPTERS 18 & 19 ("Point of View" & "Tense Choice")
CHAPTERS 20 & 21 ("The Ticking Clock" & "Chekhov's Gun")
CHAPTERS 22 & 23 ("Don't Underestimate Your Reader" & "Word Weight")
CHAPTERS 24 & 25 ("Concrete Details/Imagery" & "CUT Adverbs/Adjectives")
CHAPTERS 26 & 27 ("Dialogue" & "The Verb 'To Be'")

CHAPTER 28

 Subtext/Implication/Backstory

Flash consists of the unwritten, the unsaid, reading between lines, a hint or two, a tiny signpost, a suggestion. The reader picks up clues that fill in the emotional tone, gaps or past events of the story. For example:

The last time I visited my father, we drove to his childhood home--Thousand Acre Sheep Station, dead center Northern Territory, an endless expanse of red soil and gum trees, fenceless and defenseless from hungry dingoes and buzzards. The open jeep bumped and shook its way through scrubby mulgas, around sinkholes, and over the occasional dead wallaby. I leaned back and studied the blue sky with its wispy white clouds.

Note the subtext or implications:

The narrator is speaking of the last time she visited her father. The questions arise: Why was she visiting? Where was she living? The relationship is long-distance? Where was her mother? It was his childhood home, not hers The home was a huge sheep station (ranch) in the center of Australia's desert. Such are the questions that lead readers to wonder. Let them fill in these blanks with the implied information, the subtext.

Prompt: Read "Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway. This short story is rich with subtext. Examine how Hemingway handles backstory and implication. Then write a micro-flash of under 250 words in which the writing implies what has happened without stating what happened.
 

CHAPTER 29

Myths and Tales

Rewrite myths and tales, study them, and learn from their story lines. These are the basic stories of heroes and heroines and offer wonderful ideas for twisting, experimentation, and rewriting.

Study Joseph Campbell's model of "the hero's journey." I have adapted the hero's journey to my writing of flash. These are aspects of this journey that offer a solid foundation for story. A perfect example is Star Wars.

Prompt: Write a fairy story or myth from a different perspective, a different point of view, in another tense, or turn the hero into the bad guy and the bad guy into the hero.

Stay tuned for CHAPTER 30 ("Surprise the Reader")

and CHAPTER 31 ("Sentence Structure and Phrases")

See also, Kaye Linden's 35 Tips for Writing Powerful Prose Poems

35 Tips for Writing Flash: Dialogue & The Verb "To Be"

In the current posts, Bacopa Literary Review Flash Story Editor Kaye Linden generously shares chapters from her book, 35 Tips for Writing a Brilliant Flash Story: a Manual of Flash Fiction and Nonfiction Writing.

CHAPTER 1 ("Small Frame")  

CHAPTERS 2 & 3 ("The House Theory" & "Slice-of-Life Stories")

CHAPTERS 4 & 5 ("Compression, Minimalism" & "A Striking Title")
CHAPTERS 6 & 7 ("First Few Lines" & "I Want It But I Can't Have It...")
CHAPTERS 8 & 9 ("Kaye's Rule of Six C's" & "Compressed Scene/Story Line")
CHAPTERS 10 & 11 ("Stimulus/Response, Chronological Order" & "Whose Story Is it?")
CHAPTERS 12 & 13 ("Moving the Story Forward" & "The Shape of Flash")
CHAPTERS 14 & 15 ("Consequences of Desire Thwarted" & "Characters")
CHAPTERS 16 & 17 ("Setting, Weather, and Crowds as Characters" & "A Sense of Meaning")
CHAPTERS 18 & 19 ("Point of View" & "Tense Choice")
CHAPTERS 20 & 21 ("The Ticking Clock" & "Chekhov's Gun")
CHAPTERS 22 & 23 ("Don't Underestimate Your Reader" & "Word Weight")
CHAPTERS 24 & 25 ("Concrete Details/Imagery" & "CUT Adverbs/Adjectives")

CHAPTER 26

 Dialogue

Even the inclusion of one line of dialogue in a flash can offer support for story line and character strength.

Keep dialogue tags simple: "he said" "she said."

Simple dialogue tags are not "heard" by the reader's conscious mind. Dialogue tags such as "he screamed," "she called out aggressively" or "he yelled annoyingly" slow down the read, irritate the reader, and overwhelm the story.

Most people use word contractions when they talk, so use them:

"I'm not feeling well," she said.

Keep dialogue realistic. Listen to how people converse with each other in the real world.

Prompt: Rewrite a story you have written by examining the handling of dialogue. Apply the above tips in the rewrite.
 

CHAPTER 27

The Verb "To Be"

Among excellent free tools available to writers is the "To-Be" Verbs Analyzer.

Copy and paste a story of any length into the analyzer and get ready for a surprise. You will not believe how much of the narrative contains "to be" verbs such as "is," "was," "had," and so on. A successful flash contains no more than 20 percent of such verbs. Many of these add nothing to a story and a writer can replace most of them with a meaningful verb.

The Analyzer tool checked "Agoraclaustrophobia." Following are the "to be" verbs it found, and the statistical analysis of the story:

Matched 'are': how many places there are out here to bury a body.
Matched 'be': be damned . . . better brace yourself, Girlie.
Matched 'was': Then he was gone.
Matched 'be': we missed the signs of sacred land never-never to be crossed at night?
Matched 'was': took hours to find a gum tree with sap, and when I did, I was so tired, I fell asleep on the ground.
        7.8% of your sentences have 'to be' verbs.

That's pretty tight writing. I could have revised "be damned" to "damn it," but the sentence would lose its drama. Use "to be" verbs only when another verb won't work.


Prompt: Copy and paste a story you are working on into the above website. Surprised at what you discover? Find substitutes for the "to be" verbs and rewrite.

Stay tuned for CHAPTER 28 ("Subtext/Implication/Backstory")

and CHAPTER 29 ("Myths and Tales")

See also, Kaye Linden's 35 Tips for Writing Powerful Prose Poems

35 Tips for Writing Flash: Concrete Details/Imagery, CUT Adverbs/Adjectives

In the current posts, Bacopa Literary Review Flash Story Editor Kaye Linden generously shares chapters from her book, 35 Tips for Writing a Brilliant Flash Story: a Manual of Flash Fiction and Nonfiction Writing.

CHAPTER 1 ("Small Frame")  

CHAPTERS 2 & 3 ("The House Theory" & "Slice-of-Life Stories")

CHAPTERS 4 & 5 ("Compression, Minimalism" & "A Striking Title")
CHAPTERS 6 & 7 ("First Few Lines" & "I Want It But I Can't Have It...")
CHAPTERS 8 & 9 ("Kaye's Rule of Six C's" & "Compressed Scene/Story Line")
CHAPTERS 10 & 11 ("Stimulus/Response, Chronological Order" & "Whose Story Is it?")
CHAPTERS 12 & 13 ("Moving the Story Forward" & "The Shape of Flash")
CHAPTERS 14 & 15 ("Consequences of Desire Thwarted" & "Characters")
CHAPTERS 16 & 17 ("Setting, Weather, and Crowds as Characters" & "A Sense of Meaning")
CHAPTERS 18 & 19 ("Point of View" & "Tense Choice")
CHAPTERS 20 & 21 ("The Ticking Clock" & "Chekhov's Gun")
CHAPTERS 22 & 23 ("Don't Underestimate Your Reader" & "Word Weight")

CHAPTER 24

 Concrete Detail/Concrete Imagery

Word weight and concrete detail merge. The use of concrete description means the words used have meaning and therefore word weight. For example:

I wiped damp palms across my shorts, put on sunglasses, and took a swig from a bottle of beer. Some years ago my cousin had disappeared out here when her tour bus stopped for a water break.

Compare that with:

I wiped my palms and took a drink from the bottle. Some years ago my cousin had disappeared out here.

Concrete details include "damp palms," the verb "swig," the shorts and sunglasses, the bottle of beer, the tour bus, and the water break. These offer descriptive words that readers can "see" in their heads. They are not general descriptions but "painted" words that imply much more than they say.

Concrete imagery refers to pictures the words paint in the reader's head. Consider the following contrasting examples for illustration:

The sun shone down and burned my body. Sweat poured over my skin as the sun went down.

Sun seared into my temples and burned my arms.and thighs Sweat fell in drip, drip, drips, down the front of my T-shirt, like tears for a life cut short. The sun drifted down the horizon.

Which version offers more imagery for the reader? Weigh each word before it goes onto the paper and, when revising, CUT, CUT, CUT.

Prompt: What kind of day is it today? Go outside and pick a corner of the yard or street. Make notes about what you see. Now write the scene using words that carry weight and contribute to images in the reader's mind. Revise the description with meaningful words without lengthy description. Allow the reader to "see" the scene just as you did. 
 

CHAPTER 25

CUT Adverbs and Adjectives

What do you think of the following rendition? Read it aloud:

My annoyed father angrily slammed his large fist on the hard dashboard. He jumped hurriedly out of the yellow jeep and noisily opened the car hood over the steaming, hissing engine and climbed under the hot car and around the car flitting around like the dark shadow of some poltergeist.

A little excessive?

Now, before referring to "Agoraclaustrophobia," cut the adjectives and adverbs from the above rendition and read the result aloud.

Tightening a piece of flash writing includes cutting most, if not all, of the following.

• adverbs
• adjectives
• unnecessary words such as "the, "a," "an," "as," "like," and "and."

Alternative word choices exist, but you might need to restructure the sentence, rewrite the narrative, rethink how much information the reader needs to hear, or cvut some or all of the backstory.

Prompt: Take a story you have written and read it aloud. Circle in red the unnecessary words. Circle in orange or blue all adverbs and adjectives. Leave only those words that add to the story. Now tighten by cutting most of these words and read the story out loud. Sound better?  

Stay tuned for CHAPTER 26 (Dialogue)

and CHAPTER 27 (The Verb "To Be'")

See also, Kaye Linden's 35 Tips for Writing Powerful Prose Poems

35 Tips for Writing Flash: Don't Underestimate Your Reader & Word Weight

In the current posts, Bacopa Literary Review Flash Story Editor Kaye Linden generously shares chapters from her book, 35 Tips for Writing a Brilliant Flash Story: a Manual of Flash Fiction and Nonfiction Writing.

CHAPTER 1 ("Small Frame")  

CHAPTERS 2 & 3 ("The House Theory" & "Slice-of-Life Stories")

CHAPTERS 4 & 5 ("Compression, Minimalism" & "A Striking Title")
CHAPTERS 6 & 7 ("First Few Lines" & "I Want It But I Can't Have It...")
CHAPTERS 8 & 9 ("Kaye's Rule of Six C's" & "Compressed Scene/Story Line")
CHAPTERS 10 & 11 ("Stimulus/Response, Chronological Order" & "Whose Story Is it?")
CHAPTERS 12 & 13 ("Moving the Story Forward" & "The Shape of Flash")
CHAPTERS 14 & 15 ("Consequences of Desire Thwarted" & "Characters")
CHAPTERS 16 & 17 ("Setting, Weather, and Crowds as Characters" & "A Sense of Meaning")
CHAPTERS 18 & 19 ("Point of View" & "Tense Choice")
CHAPTERS 20 & 21 ("The Ticking Clock" & "Chekhov's Gun")

CHAPTER 22

 Don't Underestimate Your Reader

You have invited readers into your story house, and now you are the host. Don't underestimate their intelligence, their ability to clue into the writer's games. For example, honor your contract by offering a great story avoiding stale, clichéd endings or stories the reader has read over and over again (such as hackneyed love stories, or what happens in Vegas).

True, there are no new subjects, but there are new angles and perspectives on all subjects.

Make sure readers are oriented to who, what, where, why, and when. Keep readers interested, but don't beat them over the head with information they MUST know.

Most readers are intelligent people who "get" what the writer is trying to convey. Beware of inserting chunks of explanation, narrative or excess dialogue and backstory. If readers don't understand the story it is usually because the writer has not produced a clearly written story. For example, if there is more than one story line, or too many characters, or tense inconsistency, or switches in point of view, readers will feel confused. Don't assume they understand or care why you have written the story the way you have. The author has an unwritten contract to offer readers a clear and interesting story. Keep it clear. Keep it simple. What do you want readers to take away from this story? What truth or philosophy about life would you like to convey?

Prompt: Set a timer to 15 minutes. Write a story about a journey. Orient the reader to time and place, but keep the story simple. Make sure the character undergoes a change during the journey. Review and tighten to 100 words. What is the essence of this story in 10 words or fewer?
 

CHAPTER 23

Word Weight

Each new word or sentence must advance the story. Each word must weigh heavily with meaning or imagery. Use concrete details and not vague generalizations. This is not always an easy concept to understand. Let's demonstrate with "Agoraclaustrophobia."

Version one of paragraph one:

The last time I visited my father, we drove to his childhood home--Thousand Acre Sheep Station, dead center Northern Territory, an endless expanse of red soil and gum trees, fenceless and defenseless from hungry dingoes and buzzards. The open jeep bumped and rattled its way through scrubby mulgas, around sinkholes and over the occasional dead wallaby. I leaned back and studied the blue sky with its wispy white clouds.

Consider the following alternative without the use of specific concrete detail. How does it change the meaning and the visual the reader gets?

The last time I saw my father, we drove to his home in the Northern Territory. It was an expanse of desert with trees scattered about. The car drove through the bush and around holes. I leaned back in my seat and watched the sky go by.

Even the simple change of word from "visited" to "saw" changes the meaning of the sentence. Was this the last time I saw him? Visiting implies a visit from somewhere else, as from the U.S.A. to Australia.

The second example paragraph is sterile, without color. It lacks the words that offer the reader an image or scene in his or her head. Word weight includes the elimination of the verb "to be" wherever possible and the use of a meaningful verb instead.

Prompt: Take a short story you have written and cut it to 2 paragraphs, then to 1 paragraph and then to 1 sentence. Now you have its essence and can re-expand the essence into a story.      

Stay tuned for CHAPTER 24 ("Concrete Detail/Concrete Imagery")

and CHAPTER 25 ("CUT Adverbs and Adjectives")

See also, Kaye Linden's 35 Tips for Writing Powerful Prose Poems