Writing Quote by Nathan Leslie: Writing Quality Flash Fiction

To write quality flash fiction one needs to actually embrace the concept of the vignette, to loosen one’s bond to the “tightly” plotted story concept… Every word bears weight. Thus, lyrical writing tends to work well in this form. 

 –Nathan Leslie 

 
That “V” Word, quoted from The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction (p 10).

Contents

• In defense of the exercise : You and the piano bench / Pamela Painter
• Contemporary and historical roots of flash fiction : That "v" word / Nathan Leslie
• Old wine in new bottles? Flash fiction from contemporary China / Shouhua Qi
• The myth-ing link (or, linking up to myth) / Pamelyn Casto
• Flash fiction from embryo to (very short) adult / Tom Hazuka
• Finding freedom and feeling in the form : "Cheers," (or) how I taught myself to write / Jayne Anne Phillips
• Great thoughts / Stuart Dybek
• Beginnings and endings : Titled : the title : a short story story's own short short storty / Michael Martone
• Fireworks and burnt toast : the process of opening up your writing / Vanessa Gebbie
• Smart suprise in flash fiction / Jennifer Pieroni
• Making flash count / Randall Brown
• Imagery as inspiration : Forty stories in the desert / Lex Williford
• Staying true to the image / Robert Shapard
• Hanging fire : a meta-narrative on flash fiction / Stace Budzko
• Poetry versus prose : A short story theory / Robert Olen Butler
• Getting the lead out : how writing really bad poetry yields really better short stories / Steve Almond
• Flash fiction, prose poetry, and men jumping out of windows : searching for plot and finding definitions / Kim Chinquee
• Taking risks : Put yourself in danger : an examination of Diane Williams's courageous short / Deb Olin Unferth
• Flash in a pan : writing outside of time's boundaries / Sherrie Flick
• Focusing and editing : Expose yourself to flash / Mark Budman
• Plaster dust and sleeping jockeys : tapping your story for load-bearing sentences / Pia Z. Ehrhardt
• Editing and revising flash fiction : how to COAP / Rusty Barnes
• The future of flash fiction : Writing fixed-form narratives : who's going to stop you? / Bruce Holland Rogers
• A flash before the bang / Julio Ortega
• A call to action : On writing flash fiction / Ron Carlson.

Nathan Leslie’s ten books of fiction include Three Men, Root and Shoot, Sibs and Drivers, among others. He is also the author of The Tall Tale of Tommy Twice, a novel, and the poetry collection Night Sweat. Nathan’s work has appeared in hundreds of literary magazines including Boulevard, Shenandoah, North American Review, Hotel Amerika and Cimarron Review. Nathan was series editor for Best of the Web anthology 2008 and 2009 (Dzanc Books) and edited fiction for Pedestal Magazine for many years.

Recently Nathan was interviews editor at Prick of the Spindle and over the past two years he wrote a monthly music column for Atticus Review. His work appeared in Best Small Fictions 2016 and earlier this year his work was published in Flash! A flash fiction anthology published by Norton and edited by John Dufresne. Check him out on Twitter and Facebook. He is the founder and host of the monthly Reston Readings series and he teaches in Northern Virginia at Northern Virginia Community College.

Buy Nathan Leslie Books at Amazon

Writing Quote by Neil Gaiman: Main Rule of Writing

The main rule of writing is that if you do it with enough assurance and confidence, you're allowed to do whatever you like. (That may be a rule for life as well as for writing. But it's definitely true for writing.) So write your story as it needs to be written. Write it honestly, and tell it as best you can. I'm not sure that there are any other rules. Not ones that matter.

 ~ Neil Gaiman

(November 10, 1960)

Neil Richard MacKinnon Gaiman is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, nonfiction, audio theatre, and films. His works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book. Wikipedia

Neil Gaiman books at Amazon

Writing Quote by Neil Gaiman: When People Tell You Something's Wrong With Your Writing

Remember: when people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work for them, they are almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they are almost always wrong.

 ~ Neil Gaiman

(November 10, 1960)

Neil Richard MacKinnon Gaiman is an English author of short fiction, novels, comic books, graphic novels, nonfiction, audio theatre, and films. His works include the comic book series The Sandman and novels Stardust, American Gods, Coraline, and The Graveyard Book. Wikipedia

Neil Gaiman books at Amazon

Quote by John Fowles: Races on This Planet

"There are only two races on this planet - the intelligent and the stupid."
 

– John Fowles

 (March 31, 1926 – November 5, 2005)

 John Robert Fowles was an English novelist of international renown, critically positioned between modernism and postmodernism. His work was influenced by Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, among others. Wikipedia

Buy John Fowles Books at Amazon

Writing Quote by John Fowles: If You Wonder Whether You Should be a Novelist

"If you wonder whether you should be a novelist, the answer is no, but if you find that you can’t stop writing, the answer is yes."
 

– John Fowles

 (March 31, 1926 – November 5, 2005)

 John Robert Fowles was an English novelist of international renown, critically positioned between modernism and postmodernism. His work was influenced by Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, among others. Wikipedia

Buy John Fowles Books at Amazon

Writing Quote by David Morrell: You Have to Follow Your Own Voice

You have to follow your own voice. You have to be yourself when you write. In effect, you have to announce, ‘This is me, this is what I stand for, this is what you get when you read me. I’m doing the best I can—buy me or not—but this is who I am as a writer.

 

 ~ David Morrell 

(born April 24, 1943) 

 David Morrell is a Canadian-American novelist, best known for his debut 1972 novel First Blood, later adapted as the 1982 film of the same name, which went on to spawn the successful Rambo franchise starring Sylvester Stallone. He has written 28 novels, and his work has been translated into 30 languages. Wikipedia

Buy David Morrell Books at Amazon

Writing Quote by Clayton Hamilton: The Four Methods of Discourse

1. Argumentation. 

Rhetoricians, as everybody knows, arbitrarily but conveniently distinguish four forms, or moods, or methods, of discourse: namely, narration, description, exposition, and argumentation. It may be stated without fear of well-founded contradiction that the natural mood, or method, of fiction is the first of these,––narration. Argumentation, for its own sake, has no place in a work of fiction. There is, to be sure, a type of novel, which is generally called in English “the novel with a purpose,” the aim of which is to persuade the reader to accept some special thesis that the author holds concerning politics, religion, social ethics, or some other of the phases of life 45that are readily open to discussion. But such a novel usually fails of its purpose if it attempts to accomplish it by employing the technical devices of argument. It can best fulfil its purpose by exhibiting indisputable truths of life, without persuasive comment, ex cathedra, on the part of the novelist. In vain he argues, denounces, or defends, appeals to us or coaxes us, unless his story in the first place convinces by its very truthfulness. If his thesis be as incontestable as the author thinks it is, it can prove itself by narrative alone.

 2. Exposition.

Exposition, for its own sake, is also out of place in fiction. The aim of exposition is to explain,––an aim necessarily abstract; but the purpose of fiction is to represent life,––a purpose necessarily concrete. To discourse of life in abstract terms is to subvert the natural mood of art; and the novelist may make his meaning just as clear by representing life concretely, without a running commentary of analysis and explanation. Life truly represented will explain itself. There are, to be sure, a number of great novelists, of whom George Eliot may be taken as the type, who frequently halt their story to write an essay about it. These essays are often instructive in themselves, but they are not fiction, because they do not embody their truths in imagined facts of human life. George Eliot is at one moment properly a novelist, and at the next moment a discursive expositor. She would be still greater as a novelist, and a novelist merely, if she could make her meaning clear without digressing to another art.

 3. Description.

Description also, in the most artistic fiction, is used only as subsidiary and contributive to narration. The aim of description––which is to suggest the look of things at a certain characteristic moment––is an aim necessarily static. But life––which the novelist purposes to represent––is not static but dynamic. The 46aim of description is pictorial: but life does not hold its pictures; it melts and merges them one into another with headlong hurrying progression. A novelist who devotes two successive pages to the description of a landscape or a person, necessarily makes his story stand still while he is doing it, and thereby belies an obvious law of life. Therefore, as writers of fiction have progressed in art, they have more and more eliminated description for its own sake.

4. Narration.

The Natural Mood of Fiction.––Since, then, the natural mood, or method, of fiction is narration, it is necessary that we should devote especial study to the nature of narrative. And in a study frankly technical we may be aided at the outset by a definition, which may subsequently be explained in all its bearings.

Clayton Meeker Hamilton (November 14, 1881 – September 17, 1946) was an American drama critic.

Except from Manual of the Art of Fiction Clayton Hamilton

This book is a complete course in writing fiction. Drawing examples from the works of such masters as Poe, Hawthorne, and Robert Louis Stevenson, it offers a guided course through such vital topics as Realism, Plot, Characters, Setting, Point of View, The Epic, Structure of the Short Story, and much more.

Writing Quote by Clayton Hamilton: The Art of Fiction and the Craft of Chemistry

Fiction, to borrow a figure from chemical science, is life distilled. In the author’s mind, the actual is first evaporated to the real, and the real is then condensed to the imagined. The author first transmutes the concrete actualities of life into abstract realities; and then he transmutes these abstract realities into concrete imaginings. Necessarily, if he has pursued this mental process without a fallacy, his imaginings will be true; because they represent realities, which in turn have been induced from actualities.

Clayton Meeker Hamilton 

(November 14, 1881 – September 17, 1946) was an American drama critic.

Except from Manual of the Art of Fiction Clayton Hamilton

This book is a complete course in writing fiction. Drawing examples from the works of such masters as Poe, Hawthorne, and Robert Louis Stevenson, it offers a guided course through such vital topics as Realism, Plot, Characters, Setting, Point of View, The Epic, Structure of the Short Story, and much more.

Writing Quote by John Steinbeck: A Great and Interesting Story is About Everyone

“If a story is not about the hearer, he will not listen. And here I make a rule – a great and interesting story is about everyone or it will not last.” 

– John Steinbeck 

(February 27, 1902 – December 20, 1968)

John Ernst Steinbeck Jr. was an American author and the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature winner "for his realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humour and keen social perception." Wikipedia

John Steinbeck books at Amazon

Writing Quote by Nora Roberts: As a Writer You Should Have the Three D’s: Drive, Discipline and Desire

“[As a #writer] you have to have the three D’s: drive, discipline and desire. If you’re missing any one of those three, you can have all the talent in the world, but it’s going to be really hard to get anything done.” 

— Nora Roberts

(born October 10, 1950 ) 

Nora Roberts is an American author of more than 225 romance novels. She writes as J. D. Robb for the in Death series and has also written under the pseudonyms Jill March and for publications in the U.K. as Sarah Hardesty. Wikipedia

Nora Roberts at Amazon

Writing Quote by Stephen King: When Writing Fiction Just Tell the Story First

“When you write a book you spend day after day scanning and identifying the trees. When you’re done, you have to step back and look at the forest. Once your basic story is on paper, think about what it means and enrich your following drafts with your conclusions.”

— Stephen King

(Born September 21, 1947)

On Writing A Memoir of the Craft

Stephen Edwin King is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy novels. His books have sold more than 350 million copies, and many have been adapted into films, television series, miniseries, and comic books. Wikipedia 

 Stephen King books at Amazon

Writing Quote by William Faulkner: Always Dream and Shoot Higher Than You Know You Can Do.

"Always dream and shoot higher than you know you can do. Do not bother just to be better than your contemporaries or predecessors. Try to be better than yourself."

 
 – William Faulkner

(September 25, 1897 – July 6, 1962)

William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer and Nobel Prize laureate from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner wrote novels, short stories, screenplays, poetry, essays, and a play. Wikipedia


William Faulkner books at Amazon

Writing Quote by Octavia E. Butler: Writing is One of the Few Professions in Which You Can Psychoanalyse Yourself

"Writing is one of the few professions in which you can psychoanalyse yourself, get rid of hostilities and frustrations in public, and get paid for it."
 

—  Octavia E. Butler 

(June 22, 1947 – February 24, 2006)

Octavia Estelle Butler was an American science fiction author. A multiple recipient of both the Hugo and Nebula awards, she became in 1995 the first science-fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship. After her father died, Butler was raised by her widowed mother. Wikipedia

Octavia Estelle Butler books at Amazon 

Writing Quote by Stephen King: Description Begins in the Writer’s Imagination

“Description begins in the writer’s imagination, but should finish in the reader’s.”

— Stephen King

(Born September 21, 1947)

On Writing A Memoir of the Craft

Stephen Edwin King is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy novels. His books have sold more than 350 million copies, and many have been adapted into films, television series, miniseries, and comic books. Wikipedia 

 Stephen King books at Amazon

Writing Quote by Stephen King: If You Intend to Write as Truthfully as You Can

“If you expect to succeed as a writer, rudeness should be the second-to-least of your concerns. The least of all should be polite society and what it expects. If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered, anyway.”

— Stephen King

(Born September 21, 1947)

On Writing A Memoir of the Craft

Stephen Edwin King is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy novels. His books have sold more than 350 million copies, and many have been adapted into films, television series, miniseries, and comic books. Wikipedia 

 Stephen King books at Amazon

Writing Quote by Stephen King: When the Writer Grow Enchanted With His Powers of Description

“In many cases when a reader puts a story aside because it 'got boring,' the boredom arose because the writer grew enchanted with his powers of description and lost sight of his priority, which is to keep the ball rolling.”

— Stephen King

(Born September 21, 1947)

On Writing A Memoir of the Craft

Stephen Edwin King is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy novels. His books have sold more than 350 million copies, and many have been adapted into films, television series, miniseries, and comic books. Wikipedia 

 Stephen King books at Amazon

Writing Quote by Stephen King: Fiction is the truth inside the lie.

“Fiction is the truth inside the lie.”

— Stephen King

(Born September 21, 1947)

On Writing A Memoir of the Craft

Stephen Edwin King is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy novels. His books have sold more than 350 million copies, and many have been adapted into films, television series, miniseries, and comic books. Wikipedia 

 Stephen King books at Amazon