Plotting in Flash
The Power of Escalation
I want to focus on how writing flash fiction is different, how there are slight variations or deviations from the longer short story. One of those approaches is the deliberate use of white space, and another is the use of escalations versus the idea of beats or action/reaction and the following causation. Flash can certainly work using beats and this chain of events, but it also has a way of working through escalations. Small moves or phrases, or uses of white space that make things tenser, worse, or better for the characters. Escalations are usually more subtle and sometimes harder to catch on the first reading of any flash, but they can create more tension, reader engagement, and therefore more resonance.
I sometimes talk about flash reading both horizontally as all stories do across the page, but also vertically, this sense of a looming depth below the surface of the prose, but also this feeling of being lifted toward a new, possibly deeper understanding.
Some writers might relate this to the iceberg theory, and I think there are some similarities, but the iceberg theory is all about what’s at the bottom, the unseen, the felt material. But Flash often gives us something more, something rising above the story, something provided by the particular reader—a larger view of the world of this story related to our own experiences of the world. In order to see how escalations and white space can create this kind of vertical depth, let’s look at “Undergrowth” by Melissa Bowers.
The first thing to notice is the structure, how the narrator’s son ages in each paragraph. Already the story signifies its velocity, its way of using white space to hurtle us forward into time and space. Here’s one way that flash works differently than short stories. The white space contains all of the multitudes of scenes, summaries, and being or mundane things this character will have done between the paragraphs. And we don’t need this information because our brains can supply much of what may have happened in between. That provides a sense of arc, of time passing, and allows Bowers to concentrate on the scenes that will have the most impact on the character’s life and, therefore, in the reader’s mind.
Now, Bowers has to pick the most powerful of moments for this story to work. One wrong scene and the story would feel off-kilter, less powerful, and cause the reader to leap out of the story, questioning the writer’s or the narrator’s authority. Lucky for us, Bowers is powerfully on point in this story, especially with the way that she treated each paragraph as a way to escalate the tension, and escalate the potential for harm for the narrator’s son.
Another way to control escalations or create breadcrumbs for yourself as the writer is to establish a central image or metaphor in the opening paragraph. Give yourself something to return to, hopefully at least three times. Shifting the central image or metaphor slightly each time will help with the feeling of escalation and will create plot, especially when you might not have much causation. Here the plot is created by the changing ages of the boy and the way he engages with language and nature.
He is three years old and thinks the word for plant is planet. I should correct him, but I don’t, because I suspect it won’t last—the same way brefkast and sank you sprouted from his mouth for months and then somehow blossomed properly, even without adequate sunlight.
There is resonance in the boy’s mishearing of these words. The boy now has depth, characterization that we’re engaged with, and we are ready to see how he changes or shifts. Notice the lack of visual character description, as we don’t need it, and it would only get in the way of us “seeing” this character. He’s “alive” through his misuse of language. Bowers will then test this “aliveness” as she escalates the story or continues to create danger for this character, for this narrator.
He is nine…I tell him he is not as small as he feels. His doctor tells me she is not seeing enough progress. We’re hoping for visible growth, she says. Brighter spots, happier episodes. I imagine him the way he looked when he was born: shriveled but strong, coated with proof of his own germination. Solid, at least. Something more than a shadow.
Aging, moving horizontally both in reading and in the life span of this character, should provide the character with some strength, and some protection from nature, but here’s the escalation. This boy is not making progress physically even while he is making progress in his understanding of the world, of nature. This counter-pointing is just fantastic. Opposites create tension. Especially opposites in the small spaces of flash. That white space between these years of aging is like a vise, twisting, adding pressure.
He is twelve and I find him in the redwoods just before dusk, kneeling in the brush beneath the trees. With his hands he clears away thick clumps of vegetation—methodically at first, then frantic, the greenery piling up behind him like a hillside. What remains is an emptiness. What remains is a bare patch on the world, as if he has ripped a swath of hair out of the forest. It’s going to be a garden, he says, I’m growing this, see? But I don’t. I can only see what is gone.
The boy wants to make something, to control nature, but all the narrator can see is the loss. Is this because she is looking back on this event? Does she have some kind of premonition? The story doesn’t answer this question and unanswered questions; ambiguity is another way to escalate in flash. The reader knows they don’t have much time left to answer these questions, and they only become closer to the narrator because of this lack of time because of this tension. And flash is pretty special when the reader and narrator start to fuse! We’re moving toward that perfect triangle of resonance when both writer, character, and reader are shifted or changed by the end of the story! If we didn’t get these opposite feelings between the boy and the narrator in this paragraph, this scene demonstrating the boy at this age would not be as powerful. The escalation is predicated on the opposite feelings here, the counter-pointing. These characters are at odds, but it’s subtle. There’s no fight, no explosions, but know something bad might happen. The narrator is slightly ahead of us in the story, creating more velocity. We have to know how this ends!
He is seventeen and one night he doesn’t come home…With both palms, I press against the ground and wait to feel it give. Instead it swells upward from the roots, it bulges in spots, orblike. Beneath the earth there is the unmistakable hum of something spinning and spinning and spinning.
The worst has happened for this narrator. The final escalation. But how do we move beyond this conventional plot point? We dig—pun intended—deeper into the narrator’s feelings or mindset. This is ultimately her story, even if she has been an observer or chronicler of her son’s life until this paragraph. This is a big shift and a fantastic one.
Notice how that central image or metaphor of nature of plants and soil comes back here, how she has to search the ground, how it might be possible to find him somewhere in the dirt. How she expects it to give for her strength as a parent to have more effect on the soil. In the white space and paragraph above, the boy was floundering, but there was always hope that the mother could save him, could help him grow, help him make progress. But the hurtful thing is revealed here. Parents can’t always save their children. But how deeply and freshly Bowers gets us to this theme. How expertly she escalates each paragraph, leading us to this moment of beautiful phrasing, of showing us how desperate this narrator is without using any abstract words of feeling. We are still spinning, just like the narrator, and we’ll never quite be the same. Stories like these, using the craft moves that seem integral to creating great flash fiction, have the power to linger long after the reading is complete.
Prompt: Use a structure similar to the one Bowers uses above. You could use skipped ages for each paragraph or some other unifying counter, such as seasons or months. What are your key scenes, and what scenes can you skip to create tension through white space, the implied movement of time? How can you make each paragraph or scene escalate or move the plot forward? The causation here could be created by shifting the central image or metaphor instead of the character’s actions and reactions. Let the causation between events or paragraphs be implied. This approach might be applied in revising a story that isn’t quite working yet. Sometimes the permission to skip ahead or shift to a new point of view can unlock a story, make it fresher and more resonant!
What I’m reading:
Try At Home:
Find an object left lying in the dirt. Create a story using this object. Create a character that has found or has left this object and create a story out of the character finding or leaving this object behind. Try to shift the object three times to get at a larger meaning for the character as the item shifts. How can the item reveal to the reader this character?
My Classes:
I’m really excited to join the faculty of Writing Workshops Dallas to provide flash writers a 3-Month Flash Fiction Mentorship, starting October 18th, 2021.
The Ideal Participant is someone who is deeply committed to learning how to write flash fiction or leveling up their flash fiction. Mentees should be committed to the writing process and the writing journey and will have a deep appreciation for criticism and feedback concerning point of view, characterization, imagery, plot, theme, and any other elements unique to flash fiction. Participants should have at least 2-3 flash drafts to get started. The mentorship will provide mentees with resources to start and finish new drafts and start the submission process.
While this mentorship is focused on the writing and revising process (micro-level stuff such as sentence structure, diction, punctuation and macro-level such as plot, voice, tension, theme), you will also work toward getting at least 1-2 flashes ready for potential publication. Importantly, this mentorship is about giving writers the necessary tools and skills to be successful writers who may be working without a mentor in the future.
By the end of this 3-month mentorship, writers will have:
1 to 3 potentially publishable flash or micro stories (50-1,000 words in length)
A list of magazines/journals that are ideal places for their work
A plan to submit stories to magazines/journals
A clearer and stronger sense of their writing sensibilities and tendencies unique to their work and style
A clearer sense of future writing goals
The ability to self-critique their writing
How to use model texts to explore and utilize craft moves
If you enjoy these substack letters, I hope you’ll consider working with me on your flash writing!
This article is so helpful. It makes understatement and the use of white space so clear, especially with this piece of fiction—which definitely resonates.