Flash Fiction: The Art of Compression

Telling a complete story in just a few words is one of the most challenging—and most satisfying—things a writer can attempt. In this six-week flash fiction course, you’ll sharpen your prose through carefully designed prompts, creative constraints, and an ever-tightening word count. As you craft shorter and shorter stories, you’ll learn how to make every sentence, and eventually every word, carry weight.

We’ll begin the course with a 1,000-word story, then move to 500 words, 250 words, 100 words, and finally to ultra-compressed forms like single-sentence stories and six-word fiction. Along the way, we’ll read examples of flash fiction across these forms, and discuss the techniques that allow short pieces to feel complete, surprising, and emotionally resonant.

A key part of the process will be revision. You’ll experiment with compressing existing pieces into shorter forms while also generating new work each week. This approach allows you to see how compression transforms narrative—and helps you discover how much power can live inside a small space.

Throughout the course, you’ll share work, and receive constructive feedback from me and your coursemates. By the final week, you’ll revise and present a favorite piece developed during the course. You’ll leave with a portfolio of flash fiction in multiple forms, along with a stronger command of clarity, economy, and narrative precision that will strengthen your writing as a whole.

Who This Course is For

This course is open to writers of all levels who want to experiment with flash fiction and strengthen their command of clarity, precision, and revision. It’s especially useful for anyone interested in learning how constraints and shorter forms can sharpen their storytelling.

Learning and Writing Goals

Learning Goals

In this course, students will: 

• Learn the how-tos and benefits of writing fiction within constraints.
• Practice precision, critique and generation.
• Work with revision and critique as ways to move past writer’s block and better one’s own work.
• Analyze and incorporate techniques found in other’s fiction.

Writing goals 

In this class students will:

• Generate several new pieces of flash fiction each week. 
• Revise previously written flash pieces. 
• Receive weekly constructive feedback from me and course mates in class and via Wet.Ink. 
• Hone their fiction writing, critique, and revision abilitities. 

Zoom schedule 

Beginning Sunday, April 12th, we will meet on Zoom each week on Sunday evenings from 7-8:30 PM Eastern time. 

Weekly Syllabus 

Week 1: 1000 words 

We will discuss the 1000 word short story, reading some examples, then have time to write our own story and share it with the group. Then in the wet ink platform we will post a story for critique by Alexander and others in the class.

Week 2: 500 Words.

We will read and discuss an example of a 500 word story. We will then revise our 1000 word story into 500 words. We will share about this process, then write a new 500 word story and share some of it as well. Then in the wet ink platform we will post a 500 story for critique.

Week 3: 250 Words

We will read and discuss some 250 word stories, then revise our previous story from 500 into 250 words. Then we will write some of our own 250 word stories which we will share. Then in the wet ink platform we will post a 250 word story for critique by Alexander and others in the class.

Week 4: 100 Words 

We will read and discuss some 100 word stories, then revise our previous story from 250 into 100 words. We will then write some 100 word stories of our own and post them to the wet ink platform for review and critique.

Week 5: Micro-Micro fiction

We will read some six word short stories as well as some stories that are a sentence. We will attempt to revise our ever shortening story into a sentence and then into 6 words. We will then practice some more 6 word stories and share.

Week 6: Presentation

In this final class each student will share a revised version of their favorite pieces from the course and we will celebrate and discuss the work we have done together.

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and reserve your spot in the course.

$445.00Enroll Now