Using Imagery and Symbols to Flesh out Flash Scenes by Melanie Faith

The beauty of flash is that readers fill in much of what’s not written based on the focused details we craft. We flash writers create entire scenes and encapsulate characters’ motivations using just a few well-placed images and symbols.

Use these guidelines to flesh out your flashes succinctly: 

• What one item or place represents your protagonist’s struggle? Include a reference to it in your draft. Be as specific as possible and consider adding concise sensory details. For instance: holey red sweatshirt is far more visually evocative (and says more about your protagonist’s background, style, and socio-economic status) than old shirt. 

• What food, landmark/symbol, or location best represents the setting of your flash? Mention it, instead of detailing the whole city (as you might in a novel-length work). For instance, if it’s set in Philly, then it’s a cheesesteak. If you write sci-fi or fantasy and the setting is the moon, how about some craters or one of Neil Armstrong’s boot prints? If it’s Saturn, break out a ring reference. 
• What’s the main conflict between your protagonist and the antagonist? Begin your piece where one character is already in the heat of an argument with another character. Even better: lob some dialogue between them that demonstrates the conflict. Don’t work up to the argument (as we frequently do in real life) nor go off on tangential, passive-aggressive comments (again, this isn’t everyday life).  Let’s say your protagonist, Inga, wants to move while her love is dead set against it. No need to have a paragraph where Inga flashes back on horrendous Midwest winters and how she can’t take one more. Jump straight to her pronouncement over take-out Moo Shu Pork (or, even better, while eating a “Happy Family” combo—irony, anyone?): “I took the job in Ft. Lauderdale.” As her love’s fork clatters to the table top, you’re all set to give the other character a snappy comeback that will increase the tension. Your flash scene has opened with high stakes for Inga and for your reader. 
• What details might you trim that are tangential? If you include any images or symbols that don’t add to the conflict, tension, and main struggles of the narrative, they must go. Immediately. If you’re not sure where those excess images are, ask a beta reader or friend to read your piece and point them out to you; it can sometimes be challenging to “kill your darlings” when we get attached to certain pet phrases or images, but other readers can spot them a mile away. Let your friend find them, and let them go. ​

Try this exercise: Choose a setting. Jot a list of images and symbols associated with that particular place. Choose one of the items you noted and include it in your opening paragraph, whether through dialogue or exposition. Write for twenty minutes on the clock. Go! 

Melanie Faith is an English professor, tutor, auntie, and photographer. She sometimes teaches online with a mug of tea and chocolate at the ready. Her poetry is forthcoming Fredericksburg Literary and Arts Magazine and The Meadow. Her photography is forthcoming in Sand Canyon Review and has been used as covers for poetry books and literary magazines. She loves visiting the Butterfly Palace with her darling nieces. Recent publications include a poetry collection, This Passing Fever (FutureCycle Press, September 2017), a craft book for writers called In a Flash!: Writing & Publishing Dynamic Flash Prose (Vine Leaves Press, 2018, available at Amazon) and Poetry Power (forthcoming, also Vine Leaves Press). Read more about her writing, photography, and publications at: https://www.melaniedfaith.com/blog/