Lesson 2: Getting Started With a Little Light Thievery
How to use existing forms (menus, recipes, flowcharts etc) as a starting point for structuring a story.
This is Lesson 2 of 12 from Jo Gatford’s ‘Smash Your Flash' for The Forever Workshop! Find all previous lessons and more info about this workshop here.
Ok, who wants to write a flash today?
Me too. Let’s do that.
Because flash can be FAST. Or, at least, it can be fast to draft. Which is where the fun starts. You can jump from idea to story-shaped thing in 500 words, 300 words, 100 words. Or maybe even... one? (title not included) Case in point:
Of course, flash can also take weeks, months, years to perfect. But that initial outpouring of ideas can be gloriously quick and easy to get flowing. Which is why I think it’s such an accessible artform — it’s short, versatile, and fun to play with. And despite our best attempts, no one seems to be able to truly categorise or formularise it, which means there are no ‘rules’, no one can get it ‘wrong’, and anyone can give it a try, even if they’ve never written a flash before.
HOWEVER. I am very aware that as writers — especially when we’re starting out — want to make sense of our craft. It helps to have roadmaps and signposting and templates to show us we’re at least in the right ballpark. And the lack of boundaries in flash can in itself be a boundary to getting started. So let’s chalk out some sketchy outlines before setting you free to scribble outside the lines.
In the intro lesson, we looked at a few basic elements you’ll typically find in most pieces of flash fiction. In case you skipped or skim-read that post, here’s a very brief recap.
Quick Recap: Smash Your Flash Introduction Lesson
Elements of flash fiction: what to put in your short-shorts
Idea/concept - somewhere to start from
Structure - a shape to your story
Character - something human to relate to
Deeper meaning - something human to relate to
Shift or turn - the moment that meaning becomes apparent
These are your basic building blocks. And as we become more confident with our flash, we can start to tinker with each of them, experimenting with style, literary techniques, imagery, motifs, and even the title — just look at how hard Ingrid put hers to work above!
To help us do that, we’re going to learn by example, osmosis, and practice. So I really want to reiterate how useful it is to read as much flash as you can alongside your writing. Because as much as we don’t want to straight up steal ideas, there is endless inspiration to be found in the creativity of others. And we can totally get away with a some benign ‘borrowing’ here and there.
Now. Let’s begin — as all great stories do — with a little light thievery.
How to Get Started with Flash Fiction: Borrowed Structures
Ok, so if we have all the ingredients of flash fiction, surely there’s an easy recipe out there somewhere, right? Well, wouldn’t that be nice? But here’s the thing…
Flash is rebellious. Sometimes (often) it might not even have a discernible beginning, middle and end. It can go anywhere, take any shape, and will flip the bird at ‘traditional’ narrative techniques as it whizzes by. This freedom of expression can feel exhilarating, but it can also feel daunting to embark on a story without a solid structure.
So we’re going to start off easy. We’re going to create a few boundaries for ourselves and play safely inside them before we branch out further. And to do that, we’re going to lovingly borrow some established structures and shapes.
Over the rest of this week, we’re going to look at three simple but endlessly variable flash structures to inspire our stories:
The hermit crab story
The list story
The repetition story
You’ll get a brief explanation of what each structure is, what it can do, and how it works.
You’ll get a bunch of different story examples to showcase this far better than I can describe in words.
You’ll get some writing exercises inviting you to try the technique out for yourself.
And finally, you’ll get some bonus breakdowns and deep dives into how we can use these techniques to develop, redraft, and edit our stories.
Notebook ready? Keyboard poised? Let’s take a peek at our first borrowed form:
The Hermit Crab Story
The humble hermit crab borrows the shells of other creatures (and sometimes random receptacles) to live in.
The hermit crab flash similarly utilises existing forms as the basis of its structure. For example: a recipe, an instruction manual, an exam question, a medical report, a film review.
It’s a story, but it’s wearing someone else’s shell. Or, to stretch the metaphor to breaking point, you pick up a shell expecting to listen to the sea, but hear a distant voice corkscrewing through the ether, telling you a strange tale…
Hermit crab flash can be done in so many clever ways, and I’m constantly discovering stories that manage to break my expectations even further. For example:
Menu: High Time by Audrey Niven in Flash 500
Set of instructions: How to Wear Your Eyes on Your Wedding by Mandira Pattnaik in Peatsmoke
Letter: To Misses Delilah, Who Killed My Sister by Spencer Nitkey in trampset
Flowchart: Miranda by Tara Campbell in Electric Lit
Even a fairytale retelling: What Goldilocks Learned by Amy Marques in Parentheses Journal
It’s story cosplay! And the great thing is, once you’ve got an idea to play with, you can try on as many different hermit shells as you like, to see which one fits best.
Hermit crab flash is a quick and approachable way to get started with a flash, because you already have a shape, structure and layout to use as a guide. Everyone knows what a letter should look like. Or how flat-pack instructions sound. Or the general plot of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
What’s reeeeally interesting is when you bring a secondary thread or parallel idea or hidden meaning to that existing structure; when you subvert expectations and manipulate that borrowed format to suit your story agenda. And playing with all those options can be a lot of fun.
Borrowing an existing form like this is also particularly handy when you have a concept you’re not sure how to approach, or a subject you need to treat sensitively. Hiding in someone else’s shell allows you to write around the difficult thing, or sneak it in amongst something seemingly innocuous. For example:
The ‘civilised’ afternoon tea in High Time is the perfect backdrop to a passive-aggressive ‘conversation’ with the protagonist’s mother.
The letter to Misses Delilah is a vehicle for the character’s voice to shine through, unravel their thoughts and try to process their grief — but it’s somehow much more effective to be directed at someone specific.
Tara Campbell’s incisive flowchart makes you consider each question and create your own path and story — it makes you feel complicit in those decisions, instead of being presented with a more passive narrative.
How to Wear Your Eyes on Your Wedding is definitely not a make-up tutorial, nor a lesson in etiquette, but all the things the bride cannot say out loud, or even bear to think about. And its clever structure reflects and reinforces that feeling of a silenced voice.
These borrowed structures serve as a delivery method for something that might otherwise be difficult to write about, or something that is far more interesting when looked at from an alternative view.
Take a few minutes to read some or all of the examples above, and then get ready to do some borrowing of your own…
Writing Exercise
Pair an idea with an existing structure to explore your storytelling in an unexpected way.
I’ve included some story concept prompts and structure suggestions in the table below. Pick one of each and combine them. (Or use your own!)
Try not to think too hard about it. Go with your gut. Sometimes the structure comes first, sometimes the idea. Just follow what you’re drawn to and give it the benefit of at least a few paragraphs to see where it might go.
And remember: the trick here is to use your structure to eke out a deeper meaning from your concept, while pretending you’re writing about something as innocuous as ‘how to fold a paper plane’...
Once you have your idea and your format, give yourself 10-20 minutes of freewriting time, brainstorming, or note scribbling. You might dive right into prose, or you might simply write down a list of things that springs to mind in relation to your combo.
There is no need to make it story-shaped at this point. We’re just seeing what thoughts emerge. But if you find the words flowing, by all means, follow that flow!
When you’re done, set your draft aside, congratulate yourself for writing something today, and maybe take a little break.
Next, we’re going to delve a little deeper into the hermit shell to see what’s really inside…
The Hermit Crab Deep Dive
You are no doubt going to get sick of me saying “there are innumerable ways of using [this flash technique]” as we go through the course, but call this the first iteration.
Because just as a hermit crab can use almost anything as a shell (another shell, a plastic cup, a plant pot), so too can you borrow almost any other structure and stick a lil’ flash in it.
That said, there are a few methods of approaching this borrowing that can help you to focus on how you tell the story-within-a-story.
The Self-Conscious Hermit Crab
Some hermit crabs are entirely aware of their own structure. They are not trying to hide the deeper meaning within their shell — they have specifically chosen this vehicle to deliver their story to you in a way that frames your perspective. For example:
High Time knows it is a menu. It also knows it can’t say these things out loud to its mother.
Miranda knows it is a flowchart. It also knows you can’t resist following it, when you might otherwise try to look away.
What Goldilocks Learned knows it is a fairytale. It also knows you’ve made your own judgements of its characters long before you read this version.
Each of these stories is gloriously self-aware and self-consciously structural. When you write a hermit crab like this, you are in full control of that storyweaving, and it’s all about picking the right details, the right images, the right connections to balance up your reader’s expectations and the subversion you’re about to spring on them.
→ Look at your chosen structure and think about what expectations your story could flip. How can you use those expectations to reflect the real story with pointed precision?
The Avoidant Hermit Crab
We’ve already talked about how the hermit crab story can be a clever way of writing around a subject. By dressing up the story and pretending it’s something else, the reader is encouraged to peer through the disguise and discern that deeper meaning (making your readers feel smart is always a great move, even though you’re the one carefully laying out the breadcrumbs for them).
A technique I particularly love in hermit crab stories is when it’s the narrator or protagonist who’s doing the disguising — almost as if they’re desperately trying to tell the real story but they can’t quite manage it without the mask of the hermit crab structure.
How to Wear Your Eyes on Your Wedding and To Misses Delilah, Who Killed My Sister do this beautifully, and in entirely different ways. Wedding has a careful element of restriction and censorship to it, having to weave those hidden responses in amongst its ‘instructions’, while Delilah is an outpouring of runaway thoughts to its intended recipient, perhaps unwittingly letting slip the truth along the way.
Here’s a slightly longer example which uses a subtle alternating technique to contrast and compare how the narrator’s father handles the elk versus his relationship with his daughter, his own memories of childhood, and how all of these unspoken things intertwine with the physical (and visceral) actions of those step by step ‘instructions’: My Father’s Guide to Field Dressing an Elk by Janna Coleman in The Rumpus.
→ Is there a way of writing around the central theme or deeper meaning of your story? Is there a subject that feels too difficult for your protagonist to confront? Look at how your borrowed structure might help you draw it out through subtext, an extended metaphor, or contrast.
The Hybrid Hermit Crab
And then we have a kind of merge of the two approaches above — an abstract or deeply human subject that’s difficult to put into plain prose, coupled with a highly stylised structure. For example:
Hello, My Name is Marley by K B Carle in CRAFT — a masterful interweaving of an AA meeting, a wordsearch, a game of mad libs, and a devastating family history. I particularly love how all these elements meld together so subtly, allowing you to discover more and more meaning the further you read.
Or When the Light Betrays Us Twice by Marisa Crane in Cotton Xenomorph — where two battling thoughts collide seamlessly in the middle. Is it poetry? Is a tripytch? Is it a venn diagram? Is it a flash? How many different ways can you read it?
There are so many layers to these stories that they reward you richly for your time and attention, requiring a much higher, deeper level of thought than if they had simply laid out the story before you.
And it’s this complicity, this work that great flash fiction makes the reader do, that makes it so satisfying.
→ Can you push the bounds of your structure even further? Can you leave more of your deeper meaning in the white space, unsaid? Can you invite your reader to participate in the telling of the story, somehow?
Homework
We have packed A LOT into this lesson! But hopefully it’s given you the tools to tackle a hermit crab story, play with different structures, and experiment with how you tell your story.
See if you can give one of these techniques a try with your chosen idea. Or take another story idea and find a hermit shell that fits. Challenge yourself to draft something, even if it’s just 100 words.
Remember: the great thing about the hermit crab flash is you can try it over and over and over again with different formats! If your first attempt didn’t feel right, try a different shape, combine two together, go foraging and find a brand new structure to borrow.
And please share your findings, thoughts, questions and stories below! I will be checking in on all the lessons this week to reply as much as I can. 🙂
Next up, we’re going to look at two more commonly used flash fiction structures (the list and the repeating flash), figure out why and how they work, and look at different methods of putting them into practice.
But for now, I’m excited to see how you get on with your brand new borrowed shells.
Happy hermit crabbing!
Jo
What great examples and really helpful distinctions between different the explicit and avoidant voice. Running behind but will be working on the exercises in the coming days.
Pairing an exam question with buying a gift.
Relationship 101 Midterm Exam
This exam is worth 50% of your grade. Or maybe 100%. Or maybe 17%. Who can say?
You are buying a gift for your girlfriend of six months. What do you choose:
a. Flowers. You can’t go wrong with flowers, right?
b. Chocolate. Now we’re talking. Maybe she’ll even share!
c. Jewelry. Flowers and chocolate are too cliche, and not nearly expensive enough.
d. A book. Jewelry is too expensive. And she loves to read. It’s one of the things you have in common.
e. A dress. Because she has probably already read anything you would get her.
f. Something sex related. Who are you kidding thinking of buying her clothes? You are almost sure to get the style wrong to say nothing of the minefield of guessing her size.
g. Nothing. She will be offended by the sex thing. Right? This is too hard. Just don’t bother.
h. Flowers. You can’t go wrong with flowers, right?