Writing Memoir in Flashes
By Bill Baldwin
It was delightful to welcome Lita Kurth to our May meeting. Lita has a long association with South Bay Writers, stretching back to our East of Eden Conferences in the early 2000s. She has written extensively about flash fiction, including how to utilize it in memoirs. She shared her wisdom and experience this Saturday morning.
Lita brought copies of her book Writing Memoir in Flashes, but spoke mostly of Flash Fiction itself, and the actual methodology of writing it.
What is “Flash Fiction?” Lita explained that it can be defined various ways. The point, however, is that it is short. You can define it as being less than a thousand words, less than a hundred words, exactly a hundred words. Different publishers may define it differently, but in all cases it is short.
Flash Fiction restricts you to a very limited time-frame. The point and challenge is to produce an emotional effect quickly. You don’t have much time! You need to make an impression via fresh language or perspective.
Lita led us through two exercises: one for individuals, one for teams.
Exercise One: Three character compare the soap they use. My thought: one person uses only the most expensive French soap. Another uses Mexican soap hand-made by farmers in her mother’s hometown. The third? They simply buy something at the grocery. If they run out, they smudge on some cooking oil!
Exercise Two (done in groups of three): You live in Tripoli, Wisconsin (yes—this town exists!). You are writing to the mayor of Tripoli, Libya: would they be interested in becoming sister cities? You praise the local grocery store and bar (the only businesses, apparently, in Tripoli, Wisconsin). As my team praised our local produce—including ham—and comfy drinking environment, I wondered whether the Libyans would be impressed or repulsed by the pigs and alcohol. No time to think, though: our writing time ran out!
But that’s the point of Flash Fiction: to get to the Point! Your time and word-count is limited, so you have to pack a punch!
Thanks, Lita for making this clear; and helping us to make every word count!