Write Something New Today: Just One Paragraph

A flood of tiny stories

In case you missed it, June 15th was National Flash Fiction Day, and Twitter was awash with the FlashFlood — a 24 hour stream of flash fiction stories posted by the tireless team at NFFD.

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I spent all weekend scrolling and reading — over a hundred tiny stories; tiny glimpses of humanity in flash form.

(Including mine!)

And despite being part of the flash fic community for, oh, a loooong time now, it still astonishes me just how much work a story can do in the space of just a few paragraphs.

Or maybe even just one.

Here are some of this year’s FlashFlood stories that do just that — a whole tale in a single paragraph — for your inspiration and/or reading pleasure (click through to read each one in full, then come back here for a mini writing exercise):

Whistle Down the Wind My Lass by Sandra Arnold

Every Spring the woman digs her garden wearing the riding boots her daughter wore the day she galloped her horse through the river his hooves shooting spray high into the air each drop twisting and turning in the sunlight and glittering like gems…

Cumulonimbi by Christine H. Chen

It's raining fathers, faceless fathers, featherless fathers, good, bad, rad fathers straight from a crowded sky, migrating fathers descending on faithless daughters, rebellious daughters of nameless fathers…

History Lesson by Lori Yeghiayan Friedman

Three apples fell from Heaven, one for the storyteller, one for the listener and one for the eavesdropper…

Combat Baby by Naana Eyikuma Hutchful

Her body is an open wound. Which is to say that there is a boy with hunger in his eyes, in the growl of his teeth, who loves the safe ambiguity of the dark, whose hands hijack everything in their path, like a forest fire…

Words Fail Me at the Grocery Store Checkout by Esmé Kaplan-Kinsey

My girlfriend of three years breaks up with me on the curb outside of Safeway. While she’s talking, an old lady dressed in purple comes biking by, and I stare at her so I don’t have to look anywhere else…

Tissue Paper Whispers by Ali McGrane

The wind is changing. Early morning traffic spurts like water from a stuttering tap. I have no memory of sleep, but the dream threads tell me otherwise…

Ordinary Miracles for a Good Christian Boy by James Montgomery

Perhaps it was the parade, how it glittered, with its floats, floating? Or the cheers of the rainbow-clad crowds, who raised their flags and placards, reviving your downtrodden spirit?

End of the Road by Audrey Niven

After the travelators and the toilet stops, important people striding, their loyal cabin bags trailing, following yellow signs for Exit, purple for Connections…

Ingrid, of Course by Jeanine Skowronski

Ingrid nabbed that fallen star, the one that long lingered low over our row houses; a shiny lure that we swore we could — we would — swat from the sky once we grew tall enough to climb the old water tower on Wild Goose Road…

One.

Paragraph.

Each.

How different, how unique, how fascinating, how full of character and life and heart and thought they all are.

Not only that, but how concise, to tell a story in such a modest little chunk of prose.

AND what a great lesson in cutting down an idea to its bare essentials and challenging yourself to create a narrative with the constriction of a single paragraph.

You could do it right now.

I mean, why not? It’s just a paragraph, right?

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WRITING EXERCISE: One ‘n’ Done

Write something new today. Super quick. Don’t overthink it. Just one paragraph. A handful of sentences. Let one lead to another. Jump from thought to thought.

And perhaps let those stories above inspire you with their opening gambits.

Here are some springboards to leap from:

• Write about something that happens every year during a particular season, eg: “Every Spring/Summer/Autumn/Winter…”

• Lean into surrealism and have bizarre things fall from the sky: “It's raining [something weird]…”

• In a similar vein, begin with the line: “Her/his/their body is a…” and finish the sentence with something unexpected.

• Write a story full of queries; each line ending with a question mark?

• Set your story in the aftermath, using “After…” as your starting point

Or see what other ideas emerge from reading through those one-shot wonders, one after another.

The only rule here is to try to keep your story to one paragraph. Don’t worry about structuring a beginning, middle and end, or making a big splash, or even making sense.

Just write a paragraph of something today…

Then maybe try another. Or try again tomorrow.

And let me know how it goes.

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Things to do with your paragraphs:

Head over to The Forever Workshop and learn how to develop your flash fiction with my Smash Your Flash course »

Gather up your words and send them to me for fresh-eyed feedback and editing »

(Oh, and if you just wanna keep on reading, click here for the full list of this year’s National Flash Fiction Day FlashFlood stories.)

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