Lesson 5: Where to Find the Secret to Stories That Stick

Liminal space - what it is and how to use it.

This is lesson 5 of 12 in Jo Gatford's 'Smash Your Flash' for The Forever Workshop. Today's lesson is a paid one, no pressure though. The next free lesson will be on Monday May 20th. Find all previous lessons and more info about this workshop here.

Hey there, and welcome to another edition of Smash Your Flash. This is our first subscriber-only lesson, so an extra special thanks for joining in!

Over the next few lessons, we’re going to explore ways of developing and deepening the ‘snapshot’ flash structure, starting with a deep dive into liminal space…

You may have noticed that an effective snapshot story is often set in between two moments; between a before and after; here and there; on the cusp of a decision or reaction. 

Often, these snapshots are frozen in time because the tipping point is so significant that it has either changed the course of the character’s life, or is about to. Sometimes it’s such a huge moment of potential change or choice that the story can’t even contain it — we’re left with a hypothetical future in which we decide what happened next, after the story ends. 

This, my friends, is the beauty of liminal space.