An example to imitate for your Flash Fictions

I have put together a Flash Fiction example for you to imitate. Read it and let your imagination flow!

You can also listen to the text if you prefer.

Flash Fiction meets Banksy

A flash fiction text is only 150 words short/long. Some say it is 75 words long and others say 1500, but we will write 150 words. In this text you remove all extra words like adjectives, adverbs, names, personifications and metaphors. That means that you as a writer leaves the reader to read outside the text and  to create his or her own images of the characters and setting in the text.

We will use Banksy´s pictures to create our flash fictions to leave an image in our head and to give the reader another one. This is how you write your flash fiction:

1. Choose one picture by Banksy

You can choose from the pictures at the bottom of this page.

2. Start in the middle

You don’t have time in this very short form to set scenes and build character. What do you see? What is going on? Don´t tell us what happened before the scene; focus instead on the present.

3. Don’t use too many characters

You won’t have time to describe your characters in a ultra-short text. Even a name may be too much. Use nouns instead and skip the adjectives.

4. Make sure the ending isn’t at the end

Avoid that the reader stops reading – place the ending in the middle of the story. Give us all the information we need in the first few lines, using the next few paragraphs to take us below the surface. What has happened?

5. Your last line should leave us with something

The last line is not the ending since we had that in the middle. The last line should leave the reader with something which will continue to sound after the story has finished. It should not complete the story but rather take us into a new place; a place where we can continue to think about the ideas in the story and wonder what it all meant. What will happen? Or what happens?

6. Write long, then go short

Exclude all the extra words (i.e. names, adjectives, metaphors) from the text and make sure it only has 150 words.

7. Make your title sweat

The title should have a verb in the present.

8. Proofread 

Let a friend read your text. Then create a Canva with the Flash Fiction in it and E-mail it in to me together with the picture. We will put up the Canvas in the cafeteria. You can use a tag instead of your name, then you have to make one and upload it to your Canva.

Good luck!

 

You find all the Canvas here!

Writing on the wall – by Banksy

To do: you will learn some more about the background to his paintings and we will focus on some of them and do a analyze fo them. We will do this orally.

Background

Here is a timeline of Banksy´s art. It gives us the story of where he started his graffiti and and when he started his stencil work. You will also find out what brandalism is, and learn some about his exhibition and when he travelled to the Mid East. Banksy´s art is not seen upon as a vandalism nowadays but as money spinnig oportunities.

Analysis of his art

Here are some of his art on Flickr.

We are going to analyze some of Banksy´s paintings. When we look at the pictures above try to answer these questions:

1. Describe the picture to each other? What do you see?
2. Is there anything strange about the picture? What?
3. Is the picture trying to tell us anything political? What?
4. Can you see any similarities between any of the paintings?

 

Match up

Match up the paintings with their names on this page if you have some time. Here is a listening exercise where you match up the paintings with a description.

Next lesson you will start your writing based on one of the paintings you have come across.