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The signature of flash fiction is its length.  Or better still, its lack of length.  It’s not very long.  Now, I’m not going to try and give some hard, fast numbers on the number of words in a flash fiction story; but if you’re writing stories between 100-1,500 words you’re writing flash fiction.

Like I said, 100-1,500 words is not written in stone.  What is written in stone about flash fiction is the following.

• No unnecessary words
• Something must happen
• There must be a significant event with closure
• There are three basic types of closure
• Closure can be a summation, a change in direction or a realization
• A sparse use of adverbs and adjectives
• A beginning, middle and end

And that’s the beauty of flash fiction.  It has all the elements of a longer story in fewer words.  In other words, the writer must write short on a long subject. 

I have several flash fiction stories on AuthSpot.