I've tried my hand at fiction regularly over the course of my life. There are undoubtedly notebooks full of first chapters packed away in boxes at my dad's. Dozens of stories abandoned after a single session where the itch to create worlds would ebb at the sound of the middle school lunch bell. I think I made enough of those attempts to develop a fear of the medium. This lasted for a decade or more, always at odds with the desire to give it another go.
\nDuring the \"back to school\" years of my late 20s, I found myself with a lot of downtime. Classes were spread throughout the day, leaving hours-long breaks between. These were tough stretches often spent in empty cafeterias or at the watering hole across the road from my academic building. Where better to write than a barstool?
\nSomething I learned in the intervening years was that I work well with constraints. This is something folks with attention deficit issues might relate to. With this in mind, I worked on a structure that would encourage me to write during finite chunks of time. No pressure, but enough barriers to channel my focus into something complete. I wanted something akin to a diary, but with a wider scope than my mundane existence as a commuting student. Flash fiction felt like the most appropriate medium. No definite word count, but certainly short enough to draft in one sitting. This was the genesis of the idea.
\nAs an added constraint and to get the juices flowing, I leverage Michael Fogleman's Random Two-Word Phrases generator. Of the options there, I find the non-alliterative Noun + Noun method the most interesting. I always choose the first pair.
\nAllotting myself at least 15 minutes, I'd write. The only goal was to include the word combination from the generator in some capacity and to have an ending. The expectation is not to write something good, just to write.
\nOf the stories written in the first two weeks, I thought two were strong enough to revisit. I consider that a win. Years later, I did return to those stories and polished them up. While I've kept those close to my chest, I have shared this approach to flash fiction with some friends who caught the writing bug. Enough have taken something from it that I'm sharing it now with you.
\nTo codify the exercise, here are the instructions:
\nIn my experience, stories will range from 200-800 words. Your milage may vary. Happy writing.
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