Welcome to the fifth workshop of the Micro Fiction Course
In the workshops that make up this course, you'll get a mix of discussions, readings and prompts to get you writing stories up to 350 words. You can always write longer at first draft but when you edit the stories, try and get them down to the maximum or exact word count specified in the prompt. The course is focused on generating new work and if you write to each prompt, by the end of it you will have seven new stories to work with.
Each workshop starts with the same discussion of what a micro fiction is so that you can work through the course in any order. Today’s craft focus and readings are on narrative structure and how to get a story arc in so few words.
I hope you enjoy creating your miniature stories!
Writing Micro Fictions
Before we get started on reading stories and creating new work, let’s look at what a micro fiction is. There is no standard definition but typically it would be a story up to around 350 words.
Like other stories, it needs to have a beginning, middle and end, a feeling of a story arc, and often they leave a lot open to interpretation. It can be really hard to get a sense of a complete story and movement in such a limited word count but there are many ways you can use storytelling tools within these tiny stories so that we feel something important happened and feel an emotional connection to the character(s).
One of the most famous micro fictions ever is said to have been written by Ernest Hemingway.
For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
How do you think this delivers on a story needing a beginning, middle, end and an arc? It definitely leaves a lot open to interpretation! Do let me know your thoughts in the comments.
When a story is so short it is best to keep things concise, so the following seven points are some general guidelines to follow.
Have one primary emotion - then you can focus everything on generating that feeling for the reader.
Start at the moment of conflict - you don’t have the space for set-up so you need to get straight into the heart of the story, which is the conflict at the heart of it that means it needs to be told now.
Use only one point of view - choose your protagonist and stick to their story. A good question to ask before you start writing, or if you have a first draft that you’re not sure is working, is: Who’s story is this? That will help you find the character the story should be told through.
Use your title to do lots of work for you - titles are so important in micros and you can use them to reveal things that the small word count doesn’t give room for. A great example of this is a recent winner of the Retreat West Monthly Micro. The Ages at Which Her Faith in Justice Will Transform Into A Plaintive Wish for Good Luck by Liv Norman. It does a great job of setting up what we can expect from the story so leaves more room to add the layers within the story that give it depth and emotional resonance.