A Short Guide to Writing Microfiction

It’s like painting a landscape with three colors.

Imagine painting a landscape with only three colors, using any combination to evoke emotion and engagement.

And that’s what the most famous bit of microfiction achieves, with heart-stopping poignancy.

You know the one: “For sale. Baby Shoes. Never worn.”

As microfiction, though, it fills the bill. It communicates a strong sentiment. The reader is hooked immediately, filling in a narrative suggested in a few short words.

It is an exercise in the economy of resources. It requires both discipline and imagination.

Carefully chosen words and phrases must support the spare structure of the plot, evoking engagement, and sparking the imagination to fill in the scant prose. It’s the brevity that is the challenge, evoking the emotion. Every word must count.

Microfiction includes devices found in longer pieces: setting and atmosphere, tension, even a plot twist at the end. The dialogue, if any, must pack a punch, lending emotional realism as it moves the story along its narrative arc.

Writing the dialogue is a bit like imagining the lone cowboy who says, “yep” to everything, but manages to convey a range of meaning and emotion with just one syllable. And maybe a lift of the brow.

Microfiction doesn’t skip these essential story elements. Instead, it strips them down to the bare minimum with evocative…

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