A challenge that comes up often is, “How do we write fantasy in the short form?” Now, there are a number of beautiful examples of success in short fiction, but what about flash fiction? By its nature we expect fantasy to have sprawling scope. You are creating a whole other world, and that undermines all of the basic expectations we have approaching “realistic” fiction that assumes placement in the world we know. SO…

Is it possible to write speculative fiction in flash? Absolutely! It’s just very challenging. So today, we’ll try one way of taking on that challenge.

World-Building Through Instructions

Imagine a fantasy world. Does it have dragons? Wizards? Magic? Does it have dragons, but no magic? Only give yourself a few minutes so you don’t get sucked into the minutia of elaborate world-building (which can take years), say no more than twenty minutes, but less is great.

Now, with this vague Idea of a world, write some instructions. Is this a list of rules for military recruits? A chapter from a university textbook? A honey-do list? A piece of a political manifesto? Again, limit yourself time-wise. Its okay if you don’t feel finished, you can always come back to it, this is just to help you move through it without getting bogged down.

When you are writing your instructions, allow the specific details that would be assumed, natural, everyday knowledge for this situation do your world-building. If you are writing a travel guide pamphlet for the enchanted forest, write it as if you are a travel guide in that world. Not an outside entity.