1. aka Flash Fiction

2.  Structure and Design: with only a few pages of working room, writers cannot digress. Every piece of the story must interact effectively with the others.  100 - 2000 words  Characters: should show both good and bad sides and should be capable of changing, even if they don’t ultimately rise to the challenges that face them.

3.  Dialogue: what characters say to one another. The best dialogue reveals who the characters are and moves the story along.  Setting: where and when the story takes place. Detail and description illuminates characters and propels a scene forward

4.  Point of view: keeps us in the characters’ minds; dictates how much we learn of their internal, unspoken thinking  Tone: the speaker’s attitude toward his listener  Style: how writers say what they have to say

5.  Readers must be left in a different place than when they started.  Short-shorts are more intense and surprising.  We’ll be looking at three short-shorts to analyze and review the elements of fiction:  “Crossing the River Zbrucz  “The Baby”  “Marzipan”

6.  Plot: a series of events in a story  Protagonist: the main character on whom our attention is centered  Antagonist: the person in opposition to the protagonist  Flashback: a return to a previous point in time  Flash forward: cutting to the future  Suspense: anxiety about the outcome of an invent in a story

7.  In medias res: in the middle of things  Exposition: the history leading up to the present moment in the story (in a short- short, this should be condensed)  Rising action: the escalation and complication of the central conflict  Climax: the point of maximum dramatic attention and the turning point of the story  Denouement (falling action/resolution): the working out of the remaining complications