If you fancy writing an absolutely tiny short story, this Writing Skill will give you the shape and all the tiny twists to make it exciting, with the bonus of a delightful little craft activity, some writing-to-discover, and some nifty plotting skills.
Very short stories are called "flash fiction". The official definition is under 1000 words, but they're often much shorter. It's a great wee form to practise all sorts of things – new genres, experimental approaches, new styles – because it's so short. The downside is trying to keep to that length, and that enemy of creative flow, word-counting.
Enter the tiny book! This is a nifty little craft and ever so easy, creating a little book with just a few folds and one cut. Then you can use the interior pages of your book (5, discounting the front and back covers, and inside front cover) as a natural story structure of 5 mini acts. Plus, the small pages keep the word count down naturally, even with your tiniest handwriting. The inherent enemies of the process become a delightful organic part of the process.
So first off, get a sheet of A4 paper and make your tiny book . There's a short how-to video here, on your preferred platform: Facebook, Instagram, or Tiktok. (I don't post to those anymore, but the video's still there.)
Next, to start your flash fic, you're going to give a character a very simple task that they're trying to do. Something really small. Eg…
- sew on a button
- make a cup of tea
- change a plug
- write a letter
- arrange some flowers
… whatever appeals to you. You can launch straight into writing that, on the first page – but this is where the shape of your tiny book comes in. At the end of every page, include a tiny twist or reveal, that adds new layers of information for us, or makes the task more difficult or more important, or makes us see things in different ways. You can make those up as you go along, writing to discover. If you'd like ideas, here are some possible categories:
- a character fact we didn’t expect
- a character trait that makes it harder
- a circumstance that makes it harder
- a fact about the task we didn’t expect
- a reason it matters so much to them
- a reason it matters to someone else / other people
- a setting we didn’t expect
- an external obstacle
As much as possible, in the writing, try to stay in real time, in the action (what the character's doing), description, any snippets of dialogue. Avoid backstory, explanation, and too much time in the character's head. That'll keep your tiny story feeling fresh and lively.
And once you've got your complete little book, you can whip out the felt-tips and decorate the cover, if you like.
Why this Skill?
Tiny stories like this are a great way to start experimenting with short stories, and with writing in multiple different ways. Because it's so short, you're not committing a huge amount of time to the experiment, which allows you to play much more freely with any aspect you'd like. It's also a great opportunity to practise your reworking and editing, getting the story tight and making every word count.
Layering in multiple plot twists can make stories of any length much more exciting and gripping: the twists create a dramatic thrill for the reader and change the energy of the next section. Practising this in the microcosm of flash fiction is great preparation for turning the same strategies onto longer short stories (and even whole novels).
If you want to take your short story skills further, the Summer of Writing workshop, The Art of Short Stories, is on Saturday 2 August in Oxford. Across the day, you'll explore strategies and techniques for creating powerful short stories of any genre, with heaps more insights into making them effective and making them come alive on the page. There's just one place left (it's max 12) so be quick: It's now fully booked, but you can put your name on the waiting list (places do come available sometimes, and only get readvertised on the site when the waiting list is cleared) and book the other workshops that do still have spaces. See all the workshops and book your place here.
