This Is a Turning Point: No, Seriously—Isolating and Defining a Turning Point and Why It's So Damn Important
Lesson 6 - At the crux of every smashing piece of flash is a strong turning point, here's how to make one of those.
This is lesson 6 of 12 in Jo Gatford's 'Smash Your Flash' for The Forever Workshop. Today's another paid one, but we’ll be back on Monday with another free lesson!
Right. So.
We started this week talking about what a piece of flash fiction isn’t. It’s not simply a character sketch or a scene setting or a vignette. It’s not just a list of things or a borrowed hermit crab form. It’s not merely a snapshot of a moment.
Sure, these are all great starting points, but it has to be more than that.
Back in the very first intro lesson, ‘a deeper meaning’ was listed as one of the vital ingredients for flash. Obviously that’s more than a little vague, but… such is the vast variety of flash fiction, and the many intangible and seemingly magical ways you could bring that meaning about.
So far, so unhelpful, right?
Let’s get more specific, then. As we saw in the previous lesson, many flashes exist within some kind of liminal space — lingering between one thing and another; caught at a bursting point — which creates a subtle kind of movement, even if the actual ‘action’ exists in a hypothetical future, after the moment.
But within that, there must be some kind of catalyst for movement. For change. For a shift. For the story to turn.
