The novels I’ve drafted or at least outlined are not going to be short. They aren’t going to be 1,000-page tomes (300,000 words!) like the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon either. A sweet spot for historical novels falls somewhere between 90,000 and 120,000 words. I’m aiming for the low 90,000s.

At the other extreme is the genre called flash fiction or minimalist fiction. By definition, flash fiction falls somewhere between six words and usually 1,000 words. There are some 1,500-word exceptions.

For me, it’s easier to write a story of thousands of words than one of a thousand words. It’s a challenge to develop characters and a plot in 1,000 words.

But I mentioned a starting point of six words. The example of such a concise story is attributed to Ernest Hemingway, although, the efficacy of that attribution is not proven. Nevertheless, here is that six-word piece of flash fiction:

“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”

Wow! You would be hard pressed to find six words that pack more of a punch! The author could have gone on to explain why the baby shoes had never been worn, but isn’t it more effective to let the reader’s mind fill in the blanks?

In fact, it would have been easier for the writer to elaborate. Boiling down an entire story into six words is nearly impossible. I can’t imagine that I’d ever be able to do it, but fiction writers today are encouraged to delete all unnecessary words – to make every word count.

That’s the lesson flash fiction teaches a writer, so I think it’s a good exercise for aspiring novelists to practice.

I submitted a 28-word story to an “On the Premises” mini-contest in May. The guidelines were to write in any genre a story of 25 to 50 words in which two opposing points of view were shown. It was an interesting exercise. My first two versions were exactly 50 words. I continued to pare down the unnecessary words. Satisfied with my eighth version of the story, I hit the “submit” button.

Here’s the story I submitted:

This house has stories to tell. Close your eyes. Just listen. You hear that? Children laughing and playing.

Yeah, then going off to war and not coming home.

The winner out of the 212 entries was announced on May 10. My story wasn’t the winner. Perhaps I edited out too many words. I’ll keep trying.

If you’ve never read any flash fiction but are curious about it, here’s the link to an April 23, 2023 blog post on Reedsy: https://reedsy.com/discovery/blog/best-flash-fiction. The 25 stories are clickable. One of them, “Where Are You?“ by Joyce Carol Oates, was published in The New Yorker in 2018. Here’s the link: https://www.newyorker.com/books/flash-fiction/where-are-you. Take a minute (or maybe two) to read it.

Or, you can go to your public library system’s online catalog and do a search for it – or ask a librarian for suggestions. If you prefer, you can do a search on Amazon or a general search in your favorite search engine.

Since my last blog post

I finished writing the first draft of a devotional book designed especially for people who have Seasonal Affective Disorder in the colder months of the year.

With the family cookbook my sister and I have compiled finally formatted, we started the tedious proofreading phase.

I started proofreading the historical short stories I’ve finished writing.

Until my next blog post

I hope you’re reading a book that is so engrossing you didn’t want to put it down to read my blog.

Don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter by visiting https://www.janetmorrisonbooks.com. Thank you! I plan to send out my September newsletter the first week of the month. Remember, subscribers to my newsletter receive a free downloadable short story I wrote:  “Slip Sliding Away”, which takes place in the Appalachian Mountains in the 1870s.

Make time for friends and family. They won’t always be here.

Remember the people of Ukraine, Maui, and Jacksonville, Florida.

Janet