January 1, 2024
Writing Flash Fiction on the Fly
Today’s post is the result of a challenge I decided to give myself: What would happen if I gave myself a writing prompt and 15 minutes’ time to produce something? The task is even more challenging considering writing flash fiction is something I discovered relatively recently.
I’ve of course written tons of text in general – including short stories and even a similar kind of challenge – but this is a rather unique situation. As I said, writing flash fiction is something I’ve done less – and certainly not under pressure. But it’s important to get out of our comfort zone and try new things.
Here’s the methodology I decided to follow for this flash fiction challenge:
- Prepare the post structure and metadata (headings, post category, etc.)
- Write the introduction to this post (what you’re reading right now).
- Use my Storytelling Dice to give myself a writing prompt. Note: At first I thought I’d just use the first generated image, but I then decided to generate a few, until I’d get something intriguing.
- Start the clock, and start writing a flash fiction story!
- Check for/correct minor typos.
- Add a concluding section with the “how it felt” part.
I’m about to start “rolling the dice” and then I’ll start writing. The story begins under the image below – which is the writing prompt I got from the storytelling dice (I plan to add it after I finish writing). Let’s see how this goes!
“The Astronaut’s Testimony”
The temperature began rising far earlier than I anticipated. Still, because the procedure explicitly underlined the possibility, at first I ignored the warning signs. A bit of sweat could be attributed to anxiousness, right? Yet anxiousness or not, pretty soon it became abundantly clear that something was wrong. Put simply, starting to see steam coming out of the navigation console of the spacecraft wasn’t normal.
I ran some checklists – that’s what I was trained to do – to no avail. I double-checked everything, made sure I hadn’t made a stupid mistake. Everything ought to be fine, and yet it wasn’t.
Let me make one thing clear, here: If you expect me to tell you I was doing my damnedest to save the mission and continue the trip to the newly discovered moon of Euripides, driven by a sense of duty, it’d be undeniably noble and awe-inspiring, but it’d also be a damn lie. The only thing that went through my increasingly warmer head in those moments was that I didn’t want to die. Life is sweet; hell, one more minute of life felt like the greatest gift in those awful long seconds.
Life… Time… My life didn’t pass before my eyes. I didn’t recall my childhood, I didn’t even think about my parents or my brother. I did momentarily think of my boyfriend back in the space station, but his image, too, was soon replaced by the sheer horror of my annihilation – this awfully unrepresentable reality of not being anymore.
That was it, I’d die.
I’d die, die. Not sweetly, like a Victorian maiden in the arms of her loved one, but burned to death.
And then, as quickly as the whole thing had begun, it started to dissipate. The air became breathable, and the indications verified my empirical observation – I almost feel like laughing just using this term; I guess I need to still convince myself I cheated death this time.
As I told my squadron leader, I have no idea what happened. It really, really didn’t feel as benign as the procedure described it. Though I was made fun of – some officers even accused me of imagining the whole thing – I can assure you I have enough flying experience to be able to tell whether something is part of a procedure or not.
This thing certainly wasn’t.
In any case, as you can clearly see, since I’m sitting before you, the mission was successfully completed. I don’t expect to ever find out what truly happened in those moments, but I do have one final word on the matter. I’ve already told my squadron leader – she warned me not to share it with you, thinking it might hurt my next evaluation, but I simply can’t pretend I didn’t see it. After the temperature had returned to normal, I noticed a form outside the craft. They claim it was residue from the burn, but I know better.
I saw it.
What Writing a Flash Fiction Story Felt Like
This was fun! It was also quite challenging – I almost ran out of time near the end; likely I would’ve ended it in a slightly different way. Note that I came up with the title after I stopped the clock, though it didn’t take more than literally 5 seconds.
I went through 8 or 9 images before the one you see above popped up. It felt the best until that point, so I said “good enough” and went along. The text, too, is firmly in “good enough” territory. It won’t win any awards, but it was a good writing-muscle flexing exercise.
This is also a great meta- lesson, in writing and otherwise: Don’t wait for the best possible opportunity or circumstances. Sometimes, you just have to write.
4 Comments
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I think this is one of your best posts so far. The final lesson is essential to any artist: there is no right time to begin, there is only the necessity of beginning and carrying on until it ends. Then, starting again.
Absolutely! Indeed, “necessity” is the key word here. It’s an intriguing, ambiguous word. It refers to necessity as in, the practical commencement of the process, as well as necessity as in, the motivation force behind the process. Both are required. And many people are afraid of the former because they have doubts about the latter.
Not done as formally as by looking for a prompt and setting a time limit, what you’re doing is removing judgment.
It’s a useful exercise to get out of your own way. It also gets little raw bits exposed because you simply don’t have time for your usual nitpicking (using ‘you’ generically, of course).
And it just FEELS good.
And you surprise yourself when you find out what is lurking in your brain (or outside your ship). My ‘The House of the Vord’ was born that exact way.
NOT my usual process or style, and revising the results can be deadly to the spontaneity, but good to know you can. I’ve done a number of these – set situation, don’t judge, just write – for both internal monologue and to break a stifling barrier in, for example, just writing down the dialogue from a character talking to a psychiatrist (even if they would never do that). You’re looking for ‘what lies beyond.’ Don’t know if the results will ever see the light of readers, but I don’t delete them from my notes, either.
Excellent points. Overall, any creative endeavor requires getting out of your usual habits (see:comfort zone), otherwise you can’t push the limits.