A guide to writing awesome flash fiction...

Decide that anything that short must be supereasy to write because if it takes years and years and years to write a novel, it probably takes 17.5 seconds to write flash fiction. Decide to write some flash fiction the next time you have 17.5 seconds to spare.

2) After discovering that some American publications pay for flash fiction, decide to embark on a lucrative career writing flash fiction for lots of American money. Believe you can do this because many people have complimented you on your spoken English skills. Picture yourself getting millions of dollars and an Oscar for your writing. In the glow of your imminent awesomeness, write something and call it flash fiction. Tell yourself it is okay that you finished it in less than 17.5 seconds because people with good spoken English skills tend to write faster than others.

3) The next day, look at your flash fiction piece. Do not be appalled by the fact that it is complete garbage. Do remind yourself that this is flash fiction so someone has to pay you American money for it. Add words like ‘therefore’ and ‘because’ to it so that the piece makes a little more sense but not too much sense. Add exclamation marks to make it dramatic. Add words like ‘vermillion’ and ‘coconut’ to give it an exotic Indian air which you feel will be a sure hit with the Americans.

4) Send your work to numerous publications without reading their submission guidelines or what they actually publish. Bristle with bright and audaciously ferocious hope. Feel this hope quietly cough and die as you start to receive a steady stream of rejections in just a few hours. Think of the phrase ‘my heart sank’ and realise that you can actually feel this happen each time you get a rejection. Realise that even after you get used to the rejections, your heart still sinks each time you get one. Feel your heart sink again and again and again.

5) When you can no longer keep track of how many rejections you have received, read your flash fiction piece slowly to yourself. Read it many times so that it soaks deep into your memory and never goes away. Realise that not only is the piece complete garbage, you knew it was complete garbage all along. Resolve never to write flash fiction again.
6) Spend the next few months having recurring nightmares that you are being chased by angry Americans who claim your flash fiction gave them cancer. Try to cope with your subsequent fear of sleep by reading all the magazines that rejected you. Read their archives. Read anything and everything you can find that is connected to flash fiction.
Read impassioned arguments from people who believe flash fiction is awesome and from people who believe flash fiction is killing literature. Read tweet fiction, nanofiction, drabbles, ficlets, minisagas, fables, microfiction, 69ers, 55ers, prose poetry, vignettes, experimental, horror, surreal, cyberpunk, irreal, mainstream, bizarro, new weird, multimedia, western, steampunk, erotic, zombie and really bad flash fiction. Read flash fiction with plots, with no plots, with one character, with no characters and flash fiction that says it isn’t flash fiction. Read poetry. Read lots and lots of poetry.

7) Read sign boards, magazine ads, newspaper articles and dialogue from plays. Discover that words can be rearranged or removed and this can change everything. Rearrange and remove words from famous poems. Read folktales, lists, anecdotes, jokes, lies, feghoots, spam, love letters, Nigerian fraud emails, frame stories and technical manuals. Listen to how people talk. Listen to the spaces between their words. Describe these spaces in your head. Describe them in ten different ways using different sets of words each time.

8) Talk incessantly about flash fiction to your friends. Watch these friends leave you because all you ever talk about is flash fiction. Talk to your fish about flash fiction. Talk to strangers about flash fiction. Talk to yourself about flash fiction.
9) One day, your best friend or lover will become very dramatic and leave you. They will say things like ‘I’m letting go? You’re not even trying to hold on!’ Visualise the act of letting go of something that isn’t holding on. Look at and listen to all the things they are saying to you by not saying anything. Think of all the words and spaces that have led up to this moment. After they leave, find a piece of paper and a pencil.
10) You are now ready to write a piece of flash fiction.