Haley didn’t submit her assignment and asks to speak with me after class. Again. We’ve been here before, and I understand why. When she tells me she didn’t have time to do the reading and complete the corresponding task, I tend to believe her. Haley is not an English major. She’s taking biochemistry and some kind of math I never knew existed until she tried to explain it to me a couple of weeks ago when she stayed after class the last time she missed a deadline. She says Form and Technique of Fiction is something that’s just for fun. Just for her instead of for her major, her parents, her future career. She just wants to try writing.

She also wants an extension on another assignment she didn’t have time to do.

I tell her to take a couple more days, through the weekend, too, if she needs it. She thanks me, tells me that she’s really a good student, and leaves. The thing is, she really is a good student. She puts time and effort into her assignments, and she works hard to incorporate the craft elements we’ve focused on in her own writings. If she’s having a hard time getting the work done, I have to wonder, at least entertain the question, whether what I’m asking the students to do is the best use of their time. And mine. The last thing I want to do is discourage her from writing or from seeing herself as a writer.

If she’s having a hard time getting the work done, I have to wonder, at least entertain the question, whether what I’m asking the students to do is the best use of their time. And mine.

I go back to my office to do the thing good instructors are supposed to do on a regular basis. I reflect on my objectives and outcomes and how the assignment Haley didn’t do fits into the scope and sequence of achieving those objectives and outcomes.

As a core element of the class, I have the students read exemplar texts. When we learn about setting, I ask the students to read and write a response to “The Birds” by Daphne du Maurier, a story rich and evocative in its sense of place. It’s also a story that spans over 30 pages. I scan the other required readings on my syllabus, pieces that demonstrate not only artistry in specific craft elements but also represent authors from a variety of time periods, cultures, and lived experiences. All are fantastic exemplars of craft. They’re also at least 20 pages long. Single spaced.

Thus ensues an argument with myself in which I must concede some humbling truths.

1. I’m not teaching a literature class. I’m teaching a writing class.
2. I need to ditch the whole idea of having to teach a piece by Ernest Hemingway, Joyce Carol Oates, George Saunders, or any other specific author. Also, see #1.
3. There are lots of wonderful pieces that demonstrate techniques to help students develop their craft—lots of wonderful pieces that won’t make students hate them before they ever start reading them.

Flashback on Results

The idea of utilizing flash fiction as part of my craft instruction should have been obvious since I am a published author of flash. Far from simply being an abridged short story, flash is a genre all its own. As Tommy Dean, one of my favorite flash writers and the editor of Fractured, a fantastic online literary magazine devoted to flash and micro fiction, states, “a flash is a speeding train, while a short story is a sight-seeing tour. Flashes often leave us breathless while short stories leave us pondering.” Craft is used with precision and power, or, as Dean puts it, “prose filtered to perfection.” Despite its small size, flash, according to Kathy Fish, another of my favorite flash writers as well as a talented workshop instructor in the genre, asserts that, “the super condensed storytelling requires more of the reader. More attention and engagement and thought and empathy, if not time itself.”

As Tommy Dean states, “a flash is a speeding train, while a short story is a sight-seeing tour. Flashes often leave us breathless while short stories leave us pondering.”

Despite my love of and respect for the flash genre, it was a struggle at first to move past my sense of being beholden to a more traditional canon before I could explore the possibilities and benefits of using flash. In addition to providing excellent works of literature that demonstrate the techniques I want my students to practice, incorporating flash fiction into my courses has resulted in a variety of positive outcomes.

Students not only started completing the readings more consistently, but they also began investing in multiple reads.

Flash fiction by definition is typically around 1,000 words. Since the time required for a reading is usually no more than 15 minutes, often less, students can absolutely find time to not only read but reread a work of flash. Reading multiple times allows students to understand how the craft elements work beyond a first impression that dives below the surface of plot comprehension. Being able to perform nuanced craft analysis through multiple reads allows students to consider more thoroughly how various author techniques are functioning within a story and, most importantly, how they can use those techniques in their own writing.

Because the stories are so short, the craft elements are easier to isolate and discuss in class.

When an entire text fits on less than five pages, students have a smaller piece of real estate to traverse. For beginning writers, this is a benefit as they will be able to find techniques at work much quicker and more easily. As one of my students remarked, it’s like looking for Easter eggs inside a tiny backyard with not a lot of shrubbery. The fact that they may be easier to see doesn’t make them any less effective as models, and students are quickly able to explore how a specific image or passage is doing multiple jobs at once to serve the purpose of the story.

Using online literary magazines as a dynamic source for texts leverages students’ technological acumen.

Using online literary magazines allows students to have accessibility, convenience, and opportunities for extension and enrichment. Students can use their phones or any computer to complete their reading assignments rather than needing an expensive anthology. They can read anywhere at any time. Also, once they’re on a site, it’s easy for them to explore, reading more and seeing different ways craft elements work beyond what I’ve assigned. Additionally, many of the online magazines have original artwork to accompany stories, encouraging even more engagement in the sites.

Authors of flash typically have a robust online presence and are more accessible and willing to engage with readers.

Students can email, tag, or even slide into the DMs of authors when they particularly enjoy a piece. When authors reply—and they often do—it’s an affirmation that writing does not exist in a vacuum but is produced, often laboriously, by real people who invest time and energy into their craft. That kind of interaction demystifies writing and writers, enabling students to visualize themselves in those spaces and begin participating in a writing community. We’ve even had the opportunity to have an author join our class via Zoom after a student reached out.

Assigning flash fiction published in online journals complies with Fair Use regulations.

Creative writing textbooks sometimes only have one exemplar story per craft element, so if you don’t connect with or think your students will enjoy the reading, you’ll have to find other options anyway. Additionally, high schools often don’t have the funding for elective course textbooks, including creative writing courses. Most online literary magazines offer all their archives as a free resource.

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What began as me trying to be more mindful of the actual objectives of the course has resulted in more engagement from students. Since shifting to more flash fiction readings, their discussions about the assigned texts have been richer and more interactive. Their conversations about author techniques have more focus, specificity, and depth. More importantly, they are effectively using the texts as models for their own writing. While eavesdropping on groups during writing workshops, I have heard students referring to the stories and even pulling them up on devices to point out specific passages and techniques as they suggest strategies for revision.

Look at Strother’s imagery and what she does here.

The dialogue in that piece about the kid at the beach works to characterize him in so many ways.

This reminds me of that piece in the corn maze and how tension is created.

Haley stayed after class again, but this time she’s eager to talk about the assignment she did do. She liked “The Murdered Homecoming Queen” so much that she looked for more of Cathy Ulrich’s work. “Did you know she has a whole book of murdered lady stories?” We talk for a little longer, and Haley recommends a couple of stories she found by other authors that she thought I might like. It’s the kind of conversation I always hoped to have with my creative writing students.

Resources in a Flash

Here are three of my favorite student-tested flash pieces with sample activities to show how they can be used to explore specific techniques before students deploy them in their own writing. My general method is to have students read a new story in preparation for each class and focus on a specific technique at work. They must choose what they see as the most valuable passage, or MVP, that demonstrates the assigned technique in action. In class, I project or hand out a specific passage for a close reading in small groups and then engage in whole class discussions, followed by a writing practice that uses the sample passage as a model.

“And No More Shall We Part” by Sutton Strother

Summary:
A couple checks into a hotel and slowly, lovingly falls ill and disintegrates into nothing. Published in Lost Balloon, this story is rich with comparison, and it also works well for teaching showing and telling, syntax, tension, and ambiguity.

Objective:
The students will create a scene that utilizes comparison.

See It in Action:
Have students consider this passage from “And No More Shall We Part.”

That evening, they discovered they could pluck their fingernails loose, easy as flower petals. They arranged them into a garden on the bathroom counter, and within a few hours they’d encircled the garden with a fence built from their broken teeth.

Ask students to talk in small groups or pairs about the comparisons Strother uses and to what effect. They should be able to note how the figurative language juxtaposes beautiful things, flower petals and a garden, with gruesome images of fingernails and broken teeth. Students often extend the discussion of comparison by considering how these comparisons impact the story in terms of other elements such as characterization and atmosphere.

Put It in Action:
Write a scene in which you put a character in peril without explaining the nature or source of the danger. Instead, focus on the character’s reaction to the situation. Create at least one comparison that seems illogical or paradoxical but makes sense in the context of your scene.

“Swim” by Ambata Kazi-Nance

Summary:
Sulayman/Simon is a Somalian boy in a foster home, learning to navigate his grief and the new family he’s living with. It is published in Craft and is an outstanding piece for considering tension. It’s also an excellent piece to use when teaching characterization, setting, voice, backstory, and objective correlative.

Objective:
Students will create a scene that shows rising tension.

See It in Action:
Have students consider this passage from “Swim”:

The salt in the air seizes my stomach. The ocean rolls in my belly. I keep my eyes down as we trudge through the sand. My heels sink into it. I lift my knees up high and smash my feet down, embracing the tug on my ankles. I imagine each step pulling me deeper and deeper into the sand. Ankles, then knees, then waist, elbows, shoulders, head. They will march on and by the time they realize I am not with them, I’ll be gone.

Ask students to talk in small groups or pairs about how tension rises in this scene as Sulayman approaches the water, something that terrifies him. They should be able to note how tension is created and how it rises throughout the passage with the use of description. You may extend the discussion by asking students to consider where and how the tension is shown in Sulayman’s body and how tension is created by complex, not singular emotions.

Put It in Action:
Create a scene in which you create and heighten tension for your character. Consider using descriptions of tension as it manifests in your character’s body. Go beyond butterflies in a stomach or a tightening of a throat to achieve a tight focus and create, maintain, and heighten tension.

“Crop Maze” by Gary Fincke

Summary:
This is another piece from Craft in which a father tries to help his young son confront his fears in a crop maze with unexpected results. In addition to setting, this is a wonderful piece to use when teaching tension, perspective, and syntax.

Objective:
Students will use vivid verbs to create a setting.

See It in Action:
Have students consider this passage from “Crop Maze”:

Once they had entered the maze, they whirlpooled inward, the stalks flattened into complicated paths, each level of curves and angles marked by different colors. They were late beginning; his son having spent half an hour in fear in the parked car. Methodically, they gathered the maze contest’s hidden words to form a sentence that proved they’d mastered the ins-and-outs of searching for minor treasure. It took an hour, the late October chill arriving, the sky scoured by windswept darkness.

Put It in Action:
Compose a paragraph in which you focus on establishing setting through vivid verbs while the character(s) are in motion. In other words, instead of standing still and simply looking around, have your character in action while experiencing the place.

Flash Forward

If you’d like to explore more ways to use flash in your creative writing classroom, here are three resources:

• Masih’s field guide is widely considered to be the authoritative guide for writers of flash fiction. It’s also very useful for instructors. The book has a series of short essays about specific elements of craft as utilized in flash fiction, followed by writing prompts and examples. (Masih, T. L. (2009). The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to writing flash fiction: Tips from editors, teachers, and writers in the field. Rose Metal Press.)

• Smokelong is an online journal devoted to flash fiction. It was established in 2003, so they have a strong history behind them. They have a firm word limit of 1,000 words, and they publish debut writers all the way to established authors.

• Craft is another online journal that publishes nonfiction and fiction, including flash. Craft cross-references stories by technique and element, so if you’re looking for a story with a strong use of metaphor or a powerful establishment of setting, you’ll be able to easily find what you need. Craft also includes interesting and insightful author interviews.