Flash NANO - A New Challenge in the Old Year by Allison Symes

Image Credit: Images created in Book Brush using Pixabay photos.

I took part in Flash NANO for the first time in November 2022. Novelists have NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) where the idea is to write 50,000 words over the month of November. 

The flash fiction equivalent sets thirty prompts for the same period. The idea is to have thirty pieces of new flash fiction to edit, polish, and submit.  I did manage to get thirty stories written though, by the nature of these things, some prompts were easier to do than others.

I normally write at least two new flash pieces a week. To write one a day was a new departure. It helps to accept you just write to the challenge. You worry about editing later. 

What was interesting was finding some of my stories were coming in at the 200 word mark, others were at the higher end of flash territory (close to 1000) words. My normal “flash home” is 500 words or under so I assumed that is probably what I’d end up doing. It wasn’t always so. It pays then not to assume!

The moods of the stories I came up with varied too, depending on the prompt, but I was happy with the overall mixture of tales which emerged. I’ve work to do on them all (especially one where I had to take a story and cut its original word count in half), but it is a good feeling to know I’ve got off to a cracking start with a fourth collection at some point.

The prompts issued were varied and all make good writing exercises. Some I’d used before, others I’d not come across, but I loved them all. 

 One was to write a flash tale in the style of a police report. I came up with a humorous fantasy piece here which was broadcast over the Christmas period on an internet radio station much to my delight. It was a great way to mix up approaching writing flash fiction. What was lovely was there was a support group on social media for Flash NANO and that was encouraging and helpful.

I suspect I will end up submitting some pieces to competitions, once properly edited. Have nothing to lose here! 

 Nancy Stohlman is the person behind Flash NANO. Prompts are put on the Facebook page, as well as on her website, and are also directly emailed. 

My approach to the prompts was just to get something down on the day of the prompt. I found that worked. It also meant I didn’t allow myself to put off doing the “difficult” ones though how you define difficult varies. 

I was delighted when a numbers based prompt came up as I’ve used that kind often. I’ve set them in books of prompts I’ve contributed to as well. I’d not tackled the police report type story before.

Conclusion: I am already looking forward to taking part in the next Flash NANO. Being stretched is good for your writing!