Sarah's writing journal

Confession time ... up until now, I've not been really sure what Flash Fiction is. I've tried to write it a few times, but my efforts always feel more like a short story I've not finished, or a poem I've put into lines, so hurrah hurrah for Myfanwy who not only writes brilliant flash fiction herself but has put up on her blog the details of this fascinating analysis by Joseph Young of a piece by Kathy Fish. He writes:

The opportunity flash gives the writer, and more importantly, the reader, however, is to hold the entire narrative in the mind almost at once. Beginnings, middles, and endings can be appreciated more easily as a group, and we can more readily see how a middle can influence an ending, an ending a beginning.

Funny, this made me realise I'd been thinking about images rather than structure when I thought about flash, but those two sentences alone makes me want to go and try some straight away.