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Consists of seven syllables:

• Five in the first line
• Seven in the second line
• Five in the third line

Note theses are syllables NOT words.

Includes a description of something in the natural world, or an indication of the season, or both. Is usually written in the present tense.

Examples:

An  old silent pond

A frog jumps into the pond,

splash! Silence again.

-- Matsuo Basho

Over the wintry

Forest, winds howl in rage

with no leaves to blow.

-- Natsume Soseki

 Flash fiction is a brief fictional narrative that still offers character and plot development. Some commentators have suggested that flash fiction possesses a unique  literary quality in its ability to hint at or imply a larger story. 

Try writing a flash fiction, or microfiction, story with no more than 100 words.

Example:

  I walk away from Lake Shasta, into the woods. I love my friends on the houseboat but need alone time. I spot a large bear print and am instantly sober. Not safe, must return but which way?

Fear stabs as I know I’m lost. Think, I’d walked east but can’t see the sun for direction. Fear again, breathe. “Help! I’m lost!” I yell then listen. Again, again, silence. 

Think, moss grows on the north of trees, west there, I walk checking trees, until I finally see the lake and hear music. The relief feels wonderful, until I see the bear.

--Joy Bechdolt

 This exercise will help you with exposition, and describing specific things in great detail. The key to this prompt is to look away from the object while you describe it. Pick something, preferably  something that’s in the room with you, and give yourself about a minute  or less to examine it.

Then, look away from the object – seriously, don’t look at it again! –  and write out the most detailed description about the object you can.  Don’t make anything up. Pull from your exact memory of the object from  just moments before. Give yourself about five to ten minutes.

When you’re done, take a look at the object again. A really close look,  this time. Compare your current examination of the object to your written  description, and take note of all the small, subtle details you’ve left  out.

This exercise will help you realize how much detail there is in the  world that your writing can leave out completely incidentally. If you  want, write a new description of the object with all your new-found  understanding of its subtle details, and compare the before and after  texts. Which one do you prefer?

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instructions