Hello, my name is Mark, and I teach flash fiction at Flash Fiction Magazine. In addition to teaching for FFM, I also work as an English professor with an emphasis on writing instruction, and I hold an MFA in creative writing.

Over the years, reading and editing thousands of stories for Flash Fiction Magazine, it’s become remarkably clear that there are many aspiring writers out there trying to get published.

When I say aspiring, I mean people who want to be writers, people who have good, sometimes great ideas, but they clearly lack some of the basic fiction writing skills necessary to transform or translate their ideas into engaging stories.

I don’t mean to say this with disdain or elitist, editorial judgement. All submissions that we receive and consider for publication demonstrate serious effort on the part of our authors, and it’s truly exciting to see so many people putting their best words forward.

But let’s be honest: some stories simply work better than others. Some stories engage us in such a way that they pull us out of our heads for a time and leave us feeling changed.

In this “How to Write Flash Fiction” crash course, I am going to give you some of my best tips on writing flash fiction and fiction in general. By the time you finish the third lesson, you will have some key insights and helpful tools to write more compelling stories that engage readers and impress editors.

Here are three things that you can expect to learn:

1. You will learn how to begin engaging readers through their senses rather than their minds.
2. You will learn how to begin creating and writing compelling and memorable characters.
3. You will learn the secret (it’s not really a secret, but few writers do this) that separates amateur writers from the professionals.