Micros (stories 300 words or less), while demanding specific concrete details, also rely on creating tension by using dichotomies or opposites. One way to enter the mindset of writing so short is to consider creating a setting that most people enjoy visiting and making it an awful place. This creates a dichotomy in the reader’s mind, an invisible tension between the usual good connotations of places like a garden or beach. This creates an opportunity for defamiliarization of places we’ve been so many times as to make them almost cliche. The writer’s job is to see things in a new way.
Look at “Sea Air” by Matt Sailor, originally published in Five Points.
Dad was on furlough that whole summer, so the only vacation we could afford was the beach.
Mom seemed concerned—was it safe? But it had been a hard year and I could see it in her eyes. She needed a break.
“You don’t want to go there,” said Mickey, a boy in my Algebra class who used to pull my hair at recess. “There’s still people underneath. At night they walk the coast.” His family was headed to the mountains like everyone else, to ski on synthetic snow.
We stayed at a Radisson that had been in the distant suburbs before the rise. It wasn’t safe to swim—high Atlantic winds were sending debris in on the tides. So we stood on the balcony, watching the surf crash and break against the foundations of demolished houses. On clear days you could see tops of drowned buildings on the horizon, where the city had been.
Our last night, I took Dad’s bird watching binoculars out on the balcony. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t stop thinking of rooms full of water, bodies trapped inside, bloated and blue.
Out in the surf, wading knee deep in the water, I saw a man. Soaking wet, pacing back and forth, his hands dead at his sides. I couldn’t make out his face. But I was sure. I opened the door to Mom’s and Dad’s adjoining room. Mom slept quietly, alone. Where Dad had been, nothing. A tangle of disturbed sheets.
So much essential information in this opening line. A family story with a father that has lost his job, a concerned mom, the idea of the beach not being good enough. There’s an eerie tone we wouldn’t expect by emphasizing the words “furlough,” “only,” “afford,” and “beach.” Simple words but strung together in this opening let us know something is wrong here for this family and this narrator. There’s an undertow of fear here, and we haven’t even stepped onto the beach yet.
This story has power in its subtle shifts. We’re always off-kilter not only by making us rethink a familiar setting but by its structure as well. Sailor uses very little backstory or exposition; a definitive strength of the micro, is its constant velocity. How quickly, but deeply can you get the reader from beginning to end and still create poignancy?
You don’t want to go there,” said Mickey, a boy in my algebra class who used to pull my hair at recess. “There’s still people underneath. At night they walk the coast.” His family was headed to the mountains like everyone else, to ski on synthetic snow.
There is power and subtlety here in letting a classmate impart this information. Not to mention the dead people. Should the narrator believe him, should the reader? Sailor creates tension in this quick slip of backstory that if just given to us by the narrator, would have been a static piece of summary. Micros rely on this kind of energy, this fight against the static. Due to his father’s job circumstances, our narrator is forced into the deviant, the uncool. Remember that first-person narrators must be affected by their own stories. It’s rare that stories work by a first-person narrator merely observing.
Here’s a snippet of an interview I did with Matthew Sailor for New Flash Fiction Review:
TD: In “Sea Air”, the narrator says of a friend that “His family was headed to the mountains like everyone else, to ski on synthetic snow.” How much of fiction should be a fight against what everyone else is doing? Is that the aim of fiction, to show characters in their divergence from the norm?
MS: As for characters, I think divergence from the norm is very often what makes a story worth telling. The moment that a character does something different or unexpected or against what society expects is very often the moment at which the story starts.
Consider how to write against these “like everyone else” moments. Micros dwell in the unknown, the uncool, the unexplored.
Sailor uses another simple trick of using short transition phrases: “before the rise,” “Our last night,” and “Out in the surf…” Micros rely on these shorthand descriptions to move quickly, subtly, maybe explosively-- How can we layer these bursts of language, description, and insight to create mosaics of multiple narrative elements?
This isn’t a story about the main character’s actions, but a refusal to act, or someone else acting instead of the main character. So how does Sailor get away with this? He forces us to share with the narrator’s imagining of the death and destruction caused below by the flooding. A place both figuratively and imaginatively and physically he can’t go!
Firmly conjoined with the narrator in only 300 words, we’re asked to imagine what this will mean for his life, just how far this father has gone with “hands dead at his sides.” Micros, possibly more than longer stories, can still be satisfying even if they leave us asking questions, and facing the dread of our own rising fears.
Prompt: Start with a place used by many people passing through. A rest stop, a hotel lobby, a train station, an airport… Let the details be filtered through the main character’s point of view and senses. How are they seeing this world through the particular lens of their current feelings? What past event is putting pressure on these feelings or putting pressure on them to act in a way that’s not quite typical of their behavior? Can you state their desire? What stops them from following through with getting their desires? How can you escalate the stake to create movement and resonance? How can these stakes keep us thinking about this character after reading the story?
Some flash I loved reading in 2022!
Try At Home: Find a story draft that isn’t quite coming together. Have you included enough figurative language? Is there a central metaphor/image? Brainstorm several phrases using figurative language and see where this can be included in the draft! Is there a deeper meaning? How does the metaphor help to change/shift your character from the beginning to the end? Is there a piece of the setting you could add to put pressure on the character to act?
Writing with Me:
Hi Tommy, I would sign up for the April 15 workshop but I have my ongoing workshop at the same time. If my plans change I’ll be there.
Please keep posting your classes. Zoom is the only way I want to go. Wet Ink didn’t work as well. I enjoy your posts. Thank you.