Perfect for a quick read, each snapshot captures a fleeting moment based on an emotion, experience, thought or prompt.

This month’s Seasonal Snapshot #2 Summer Fun was written in response to the Curtis Brown Creative (CBC) Summer Story competition on Instagram #CBCSummerStory26, and features some of my favourite characters lately.

I followed the prompt set by Abbie Greaves as the first line of an original flash fiction story: The smell of sunscreen turned my stomach.

Sunscweem

The smell of sunscreen turned my stomach.

Lotion was E-V-E-R-Y-W-H-E-R-E. Three minutes before the guests were due to arrive.

I had been so proud of myself. A curated children’s party (I’d even illustrated the digital invitation). A mighty pirate ship ice-cream cake (threatening to sink into its buttercream waves every time I checked on it). Loot bags with eye patches and temporary tattoos (in danger of parental confiscation). And no sleep (for the past few nights).

“Boys!”

“Yeth, Mommeee, we here. We put on sunscweem. You see it?”

I saw it smeared on the television, antique sideboard, scatter cushions, and loot bags. It was dripping down the kitchen counters. It was matted in the dog’s beard and congealing on the bricks outside.

I saw it on my sons who looked like preschool art projects.

Jamie was naked, except for one sock, smothered in sunscreen. Ben wore an eyepatch. His wet swimsuit was on backwards. Something down below was definitely not where it was supposed to be.

“We listened, Mom. We put on. You said we must cover everything.” Ben glanced at Jamie who was pointing between his legs. They giggled.

I fought a smile and then they were hugging me, sticky hands staining my shorts with greasy patterns.

“Da fwiends, dey comin’ now!”

My stomach lurched as I slid in a cloud of coconut and chlorine to open the door for Luke and his Mom. She arched an eyebrow at the mess. “Wow.”

“It’s an immersive experience!”

With an oily smile, Luke’s Mom followed the boys outside, her glittery sandals slipping across the bricks until she went backwards into the pool.

“She not put on sunscweem!”

It felt like summer. The smell of sunscreen shifted my mood.

For the first time all morning, I felt something dangerously close to delight.

Photo by Onela Ymeri on Unsplash

I’m talking 500, 250, 100 or 50 words – sometimes less, especially if I’m challenging myself to craft a story in a sentence (around 20-25 words).

Starting out, I think of a character, a relatively ordinary action, and then I toss in something that shouldn’t be there. A boy finds a bird in his schoolbag. A dog brings in something that doesn’t belong to him. A woman opens her front door to find a suitcase she didn’t pack.

It feels like catching an idea in the act of becoming – and then disturbing it.

A useful way to build your own story in a sentence is to consider this basic movement:

• What is normal? Who is where and what is happening?
• What disturbs it? Something changes, goes wrong, is discovered or gets more complicated.
• What changes because of that disturbance? A turn doesn’t have to resolve anything, yet it often affects the character.

“She wasn’t doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together.”
– J. D. Salinger, A Girl I Knew

Then there’s my appreciation of a beautiful sentence, not only in terms of its function in the larger narrative, but in terms of its sensory, rhythmic aesthetics in and of itself. I pay attention to where sentences make me pause, and how a word – or a word left out – changes the whole picture in my mind.

The deeper into the forest she wandered, the more spider silk whispered across her face, the less she remembered the woman she was supposed to be. – Kim Hasert

Experimenting with these kinds of sentences has other applications for your writing too:

• Brainstorming a longer story – a one-sentence story can be the seed or story engine to expand into a short story, essay or novel. Once you have the sentence, ask: Why did this happen? What happens next? What happened before?
• Finding the heart of a story – if you can’t reduce an idea to one sentence, you may not have uncovered the framework of the story yet. This exercise can reveal the character, conflict and change at its centre.
• Getting unstuck: when you’re staring at a blank page, this exercise can develop possibilities quickly.
• Testing an idea: a one-sentence version can tell you whether an idea has enough substance to sustain a longer narrative.

Writing exercise:

Pick a character, action and one thing that shouldn’t be there, bringing it together in one sentence. Don’t explain what happens next, but start with what is relatively normal, disturb it, and leave us somewhere different from where we started.

Photo by Thea Hdc on Unsplash

Perfect for a quick read, each snapshot captures a fleeting moment based on an emotion, experience, thought or prompt.

This month’s Seasonal Snapshot #1 of Festive Fiction was written in response to the Curtis Brown Creative (CBC) Winter Story competition on Instagram #CBCWinterStory25.

I followed the prompt set by Maame Blue as the first line of an original flash fiction story: The tree looked naked once all the ornaments were smashed…

Naked Joy

The tree looked naked once all the ornaments were smashed.

Stunned by the silent chaos, Gill clutched the doorframe. Now even her plastic pine had buckled under forced festive cheer. Deep-green tinsel twisted around lower branches and drooped across the carpet. She kicked it aside. They would be here soon, wanting a winter wonderland when the best she had was a summer setting.

Craving calm, she observed the fever tree outside, its bark a pale-lime glow in the African sun. A weaver was crafting a nest for inspection, ruby eyes bright against his masked face and lemony body, as he flitted between thorns. If the nest was not perfect in placement, construction, or greenness, the female would tear it apart. Talk about expectations.

Back to the shattered stew on her floor. The window had been open during the night’s gusty thundershower and one explanation was simple physics – the tree wobbling on its rickety tripod stand.

More probable was Portia, her senior pug, brushing against it after her midnight drink of water and then fighting with it – or with Santa Paws bumbling around in the dark. He wasn’t the youngest either. The fruit mince pie she’d left out – hoping he’d be generous to Portia – was untouched. Clearly he preferred shortbread, or a cooler climate.

Portia waited at the door.

“Okay, let’s go potty, and then you can bite open your present.”

She left Portia to sniff and circle on the lawn. A sassy zik-zik-zik sounded above the weaver at work, as his emerald nest shimmered in the sunlight. He was weaving her tinsel through the twigs, grass, and plant fibres.

Joy lifted inside her, unexpected and naked.

Photo by freestocks on Unsplash

This six-word, one-sentence story is one of the most cited examples of quality micro fiction, commonly attributed to Ernest Hemingway. While there is no proven evidence that he wrote it, even without a confirmed origin or author, this tiny story commands so much respect in its evocative mastery of the form. If you linger on it, your imagination fills in haunting details, showing the depth of emotion and narrative that can live in so few words.

What is micro fiction?

If you’re unfamiliar with the term, micro fiction can be described as a complete stand-alone story with a beginning, middle and end of no more than 300 words, making it a variation or category of flash fiction (up to 1 000 words).

Common categories within micro fiction also include what is called a dribble (55 words exactly), drabble (100 words), double drabble (200 words), trabble (300 words) or a pentadrabble (500 words).

While word counts vary, the magic is in the form’s constraints. In my experience, the classification depends on the context and on how the author, competition organiser or publisher chooses to label it.

Why you should try it

Whether you’re a writer, or someone who admires the art of clever storytelling, micro fiction is an effective creative tool. Here’s why:

• It sharpens your storytelling skills (or your appreciation for sharpened storytelling skills). In a few words or lines, the story should evoke emotion, suggest a world, and land a satisfying ending.
• Instant creative gratification. When longer writing projects feel overwhelming or never-ending, writing a micro story is a fast, fulfilling way to flex creative muscles.
• It’s a safe space to explore new genres with low stakes and high freedom.
• The creative constraints spark innovation and sidestep a critical mind. One of my novel ideas began as a fantasy flash story. Reader feedback helped me realise it had the heart of a longer narrative.

Want to explore further?

Anthologies such as In Other Stories (Karavan Press) curated by Kerry Hammerton are a way to track down quality micro fiction. When compiling the anthology, Hammerton said she looked for pieces of writing that told part of our human story in a non-clichéd way.

“The call for submission had a 500-word limit, mid-range for flash fiction, which is one to 1 000 words. Flash is definitely a genre on its own. It is about finding the detail and focusing on that detail to tell a story. There is no space for backstory or elaborate descriptions. Flash borrows ideas and forms from other pieces of writing, for example using poetic language.”

So whether you’re looking for something new to read, or to grow as a writer, micro fiction is a worthwhile investment of your time and energy.

Main photo by Janko Ferlič on Unsplash