What drew you to writing flash
fiction?
I had tried writing something longer, but like
most developing writers I kept disappearing down rabbit holes, and the
manuscript became unwieldy and didn’t really follow a coherent path; but after
attending a short writing course I found that the Flash Fiction/Short Story format
suited my style. Its somewhat easier, you don’t have to fully develop
characters, and if you add a splash of science into your story you don’t have to
fully explain it, a two or three word description is enough. It’s not about
being too lazy to write a novel; the short story still needs to be crafted to
hold the reader’s attention, but its about being able to be concise and clear
in your delivery.
What would you say is distinctive about the
form?
You have
to be crisp and concise in your story but ensure that there is a beginning,
middle and end, but often the ending is a simple short sentence.
The format is ideal to give simple snapshots of
life or imagined life.
I find it perfect for writing stories about
time travel – you really really don’t have to explain the mechanisms of time
travel – It Just Is, I mean we all
accept Dr. Who’s TARDIS without worrying about how it works, so you can just add
in some weird sounding particles maybe give them a bolt of radiation, and Hey
Presto you have Time Travel!
It’s
also great for writing stories about the how the old Greek and Scandinavian
gods or Celestial Beings such as the Angels and Lucifer with his Demons deal
with modern life. You don’t have to explain the whys and wherefores, simply put
the old gods never really went away, and the Celestial Beings are always
visiting Earth anyway!
You can also expand on any headline, a short
news item or any strange stories you come across, there’s always something you
can write about.
Essentially you can write anything about
everything.
Do you write in other forms?
I write
some short stories that are about a department of the secret
service called the Committee of Awareness, Knowledge and Enlightenment (The
Cake), which I’m combining into a book called “A Slice of Cake”. All the stories are about 2-3000 words long,
but its not really a novel just a series of linked stories that provide
snapshots of the Service over an 80 year period (from 1944 to 2024), obviously
the central characters change but the overall theme is a constant.
Have you any advice for
anyone who would like to write flash fiction?
Yes, go
on a simple short story writing course to get an idea as to how to structure
the story; and definitely join your local writers group or club. It’s always
useful to have others to listen and critique your stories, and then submit.
Feedback
is good so is criticism!
Of course there’ll be rejections – it’s a way of
life! But persevere, and most of all have fun in your writing.
Tell us about some of the themes in this
collection.
It starts with confusion in the Celestial Office
as the Creation plans go awry and essentially ends with the Archangel Michael
flying to meet his brother Gabriel at the end of days.
In between I explore the issues of immortality,
and ask how did we not know that aliens had influenced warfare in medieval
times, whilst asking questions about Time Travel, I mean whose future do we
travel to?
Some of the stories were written during the
Covid 19 lockdown when the streets were deserted and groceries were delivered,
but how did the old gods get their groceries delivered if their postcode was
outside the delivery zone?
