Elements of flash fiction

• Flash Fiction


  Characterized by extreme brevity but maintains to create a developed plot and relatable characters
• Word count is essential in the Flash Fiction genre, but there is no set word count that separates it from short stories
• Varieties of Flash Fiction

  • Six-word story
  • 280-character story or twitterature
  • Minisaga or dribble (50 words)
  • Microfiction or drabble (100 words)
  • Sudden fiction (750 words)
  • Flash fiction (1,000 words)
  • Micro-story
• Elements of Fiction


  • Setting
  • Plot
  • Characters
  • Theme
  • Conflict
  • POV Narration
• Plot


  • Man on the road - has destination
  • Man in a hole - purpose is to get out of the situation
  • Man in a tub - sudden discovery; character has to come up with a solution that does not exist
• Characters


  • Protagonist
  • Antagonist
  • Stock
  • Deuteragonist - equally important character but who's life is not talked about in the story
• Flat characters


  Don't have character development
• Round characters


  Have character development
• Kinds of conflict


  • Man vs Man
  • Man vs Self
  • Man vs Nature
  • Man vs Technology
  • Man vs Society
  • Man vs Supernatural
  • Man vs Extraterrestrial
  • Man vs Fate
• POV Narration


  • 1st person
  • 2nd person
  • 3rd person
• 1st person narration


  Confined to the narrator's perspective
• 2nd person narration


  The reader cannot answer
• 3rd person narration


  Limited third person
• Omniscient narrator


  All knowing narrator
• Unnecessary Things by Tatyana Tolstaya

  Tatyana Tolstaya is a Russian writer and publicist who came from the Tolstoy family. She is also a TV host of a Russian cultural television program. 

  Her flash fiction essay has been published in The New Yorker. The flash fiction Unnecessary Things was published in The New Yorker in 2017.
• Infestation by Olga Zilberbourg

  Olga Zilberbourg (born 1979) is Russian-American bilingual writer writing in both English and Russian. She was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia, to a family of Jewish-Russian intellectuals, and subsequently immigrated to the US. She has published three collections of fiction in Russia, some of them translated from the English by the author.

   Like Water, her debut English-language collection of stories, came out in 2019. Infestation is one of the stories in this book.
• Director’s Cut by Etgar Keret Etgar Keret is an Israeli writer. He is known for his short stories and graphic novels. He has gained several awards for his works in Israeli television and film. Director's Cut is one of his flash fiction published in the New Yorker in July 2020.