EDIT/NOTE: Also, Jared Meyer found this article on structuring 5 minute films.
http://www.channel101.com/articles/a...?article_id=29
While the flash fiction points below are general strategies, the article gets into act structure and length for a 5 minute movie.
Here's some advice on writing "Flash Fiction", i.e. ultra short fiction for the web.
Unlike The Novel and the Full Length Screenplay, which bear some similarities in strategy and form, this structure and methods for Flash Fiction and Flash Films, fairly identical.
So I'm cutting and pasting what I found here, because it echoes my own sentiments to a "T" and it's easier than writing it all out myself.
Though I can take or leave #6, you will find that the most successful films in past DVXuser fests have made use of a fair number of the rest of the 7 points.
I've ignored 1,2 or 3 at my own peril and as a result I have some "flashily edited" shorts that cram lots of info into 5 or 6 minutes, but if you have a good idea and can take advantage of some or most of the formal strategies below, then you will be will be will be well on your way to doing very well in a DVXuser Fest.
EDIT / NOTE: This is not a "you must have a twist ending" thread, nor is it a "twist ending is always the way to go" thread. This is just food for thought. Likely one or a few of the points will be of use to someone. The twist ending is just 1 of the 7 points that may be of use to the writer of incredibly short fiction on the screen or page. The value you give it relative to the other points is up to you. Having said that - it's not my intent to discourage discourse on the subject, just to clarify the intent of the thread. OK ... here's the tips ...
...
Writing Flash Fiction
By G. W. Thomas
http://www.channel101.com/articles/a...?article_id=29
While the flash fiction points below are general strategies, the article gets into act structure and length for a 5 minute movie.
Here's some advice on writing "Flash Fiction", i.e. ultra short fiction for the web.
Unlike The Novel and the Full Length Screenplay, which bear some similarities in strategy and form, this structure and methods for Flash Fiction and Flash Films, fairly identical.
So I'm cutting and pasting what I found here, because it echoes my own sentiments to a "T" and it's easier than writing it all out myself.
Though I can take or leave #6, you will find that the most successful films in past DVXuser fests have made use of a fair number of the rest of the 7 points.
I've ignored 1,2 or 3 at my own peril and as a result I have some "flashily edited" shorts that cram lots of info into 5 or 6 minutes, but if you have a good idea and can take advantage of some or most of the formal strategies below, then you will be will be will be well on your way to doing very well in a DVXuser Fest.
EDIT / NOTE: This is not a "you must have a twist ending" thread, nor is it a "twist ending is always the way to go" thread. This is just food for thought. Likely one or a few of the points will be of use to someone. The twist ending is just 1 of the 7 points that may be of use to the writer of incredibly short fiction on the screen or page. The value you give it relative to the other points is up to you. Having said that - it's not my intent to discourage discourse on the subject, just to clarify the intent of the thread. OK ... here's the tips ...
...
Writing Flash Fiction
By G. W. Thomas
With the advent of the Internet, editors are looking for shorter works, more easily read on a computer screen. The current term is "flash fiction", a tale between 300-1000 words long. Longer than micro-fiction (10-300 words) but shorter than traditional short stories (3000-5000 words preferred by most magazines), flash fiction is usually a story of a single act, sometimes the culmination of several unwritten events.
This article will offer several strategies for writing flash fiction. Used by themselves or in combination, the writer can focus their story to that brief, interesting event.
1) The small idea
Look for the smaller ideas in larger ones. To discuss the complex interrelationship of parents and children you'd need a novel. Go for a smaller piece of that complex issue. How kids feel when they aren't included in a conversation. What kids do when they are bored in the car. Middle child. Bad report card. Find a smaller topic and build on it.
2) Bury the preamble in the opening
When you write your story, don't take two pages to explain all the pre-story. Find a way to set it all in the first paragraph, then get on with the rest of the tale.
3) Start in the middle of the action
Similar to #2, start the story in the middle of the action. A man is running. A bomb is about to go off. A monster is in the house. Don't describe any more than you have to. The reader can fill in some of the blanks.
4) Focus on one powerful image
Find one powerful image to focus your story on. A war-torn street. An alien sunset. They say a picture worth a thousand words. Paint a picture
with words. It doesn't hurt to have something happen inside that picture. It is a story after all.
5) Make the reader guess until the end
A little mystery goes a long way. Your reader may have no idea what is going on for the majority of the story. This will lure them on to the end. When they finish, there should be a good pay off or solution.
6) Use allusive references
By using references to a commonly known story you can save yourself all those unnecessary words. Refer to historical events. Use famous situations from literature. If the story takes place on the Titanic you won't have to explain what is going to happen, who is there or much of anything. History and James Cameron have already done it for you. Beware of using material that is too obscure. Your reader should be able to make the inferences.
7) Use a twist
Like #5, the twist ending allows the writer to pack some punch at the end of the story. Flash fiction is often twist-ending fiction because
you don't have enough time to build up sympathetic characters and show how a long, devastating plot has affected them. Like a good joke, flash fiction is often streamlined to the punch-line at the end.
To read step by step examples from a short story by the writer see the original article
HERE
EDIT: A few more endings that work well on shorts.
A STRONG BUTTON: In some way we get new information, the world is opened up, at the very least, some point is underscored.
A CYCLICAL ENDING: This will all happen again.
THE HIGH GROUND:
THE STRAIGHT ENDING: Things progress in a straight line to a foreseeable or probable end.
You are an artist and you reject the notion of a twist ending. You think they are cheep and gimmicky and insulting to the viewer and who knows, maybe you're right.
The straight ending CAN work. It's just very hard to do in short fiction. In a feature, at the end of the 2nd act, you do every thing you can to suggest that the protag cannot possibly get what they set out to do.
Then in the 3rd act they get something different and better than what they set out for which may just be a different perspective in the face of total failure.
But you don't really have all that time to have the characters want something, spend time trying to get it, seem like they won't be able to get it, switch gears and get it another way or get something else, because you don't really have time to dwell on the end of the 2nd act.
The idea with button, cyclical and twist endings is that they often seem to provide more order than the straight ending by making the viewer feel that there was some reason you just showed them what you showed them by very economical means. They lend themselves more to an "Ohhhhhhh, I get it" moment.
What you may want to avoid is a completely straight trajectory where you suggest something might happen, and then it does, and then that's all there is to your film. This can potentially leave viewer with a "yes and?" feeling.
While that might look like this in feature:
1) Boy meets girl
-----
2) Boy pursues girl and makes some progress in the face of many setbacks until ...
Something happens that will keep boy from ever getting girl. Oh no.
-----
3) Boy gets girl.
(you could substitute Superman learns of a bomb threat, makes progress towards stopping it through a series of wins and losses with the bad guy, looks like he will certainly fail, then somehow wins)
But in the short form, you run the risk of this happening:
1) 1) Boy meets girl
-----
2) Boy pursues girl
-----
3) Boy gets girl
This will almost invariably lead to the "yes and?" feeling. To pull it off you must give us a dazzling and rich character study and have the experience of what the characters are going through be enough for your pieces to stand on, or have some other element that's so well done it makes your piece worth watching ... in five or 6 minutes.
Of course if you attempt this you'd probably start with what would be the end of the 2nd act in a feature.
2.5) There is anbsolutely no way in hell that this boy and this girl (who are in the middle of their story) will ever be together,
----
3) Somehow they get together
For more see post #7.
...................
This article will offer several strategies for writing flash fiction. Used by themselves or in combination, the writer can focus their story to that brief, interesting event.
1) The small idea
Look for the smaller ideas in larger ones. To discuss the complex interrelationship of parents and children you'd need a novel. Go for a smaller piece of that complex issue. How kids feel when they aren't included in a conversation. What kids do when they are bored in the car. Middle child. Bad report card. Find a smaller topic and build on it.
2) Bury the preamble in the opening
When you write your story, don't take two pages to explain all the pre-story. Find a way to set it all in the first paragraph, then get on with the rest of the tale.
3) Start in the middle of the action
Similar to #2, start the story in the middle of the action. A man is running. A bomb is about to go off. A monster is in the house. Don't describe any more than you have to. The reader can fill in some of the blanks.
4) Focus on one powerful image
Find one powerful image to focus your story on. A war-torn street. An alien sunset. They say a picture worth a thousand words. Paint a picture
with words. It doesn't hurt to have something happen inside that picture. It is a story after all.
5) Make the reader guess until the end
A little mystery goes a long way. Your reader may have no idea what is going on for the majority of the story. This will lure them on to the end. When they finish, there should be a good pay off or solution.
6) Use allusive references
By using references to a commonly known story you can save yourself all those unnecessary words. Refer to historical events. Use famous situations from literature. If the story takes place on the Titanic you won't have to explain what is going to happen, who is there or much of anything. History and James Cameron have already done it for you. Beware of using material that is too obscure. Your reader should be able to make the inferences.
7) Use a twist
Like #5, the twist ending allows the writer to pack some punch at the end of the story. Flash fiction is often twist-ending fiction because
you don't have enough time to build up sympathetic characters and show how a long, devastating plot has affected them. Like a good joke, flash fiction is often streamlined to the punch-line at the end.
To read step by step examples from a short story by the writer see the original article
HERE
EDIT: A few more endings that work well on shorts.
A STRONG BUTTON: In some way we get new information, the world is opened up, at the very least, some point is underscored.
A CYCLICAL ENDING: This will all happen again.
THE HIGH GROUND:
THE STRAIGHT ENDING: Things progress in a straight line to a foreseeable or probable end.
You are an artist and you reject the notion of a twist ending. You think they are cheep and gimmicky and insulting to the viewer and who knows, maybe you're right.
The straight ending CAN work. It's just very hard to do in short fiction. In a feature, at the end of the 2nd act, you do every thing you can to suggest that the protag cannot possibly get what they set out to do.
Then in the 3rd act they get something different and better than what they set out for which may just be a different perspective in the face of total failure.
But you don't really have all that time to have the characters want something, spend time trying to get it, seem like they won't be able to get it, switch gears and get it another way or get something else, because you don't really have time to dwell on the end of the 2nd act.
The idea with button, cyclical and twist endings is that they often seem to provide more order than the straight ending by making the viewer feel that there was some reason you just showed them what you showed them by very economical means. They lend themselves more to an "Ohhhhhhh, I get it" moment.
What you may want to avoid is a completely straight trajectory where you suggest something might happen, and then it does, and then that's all there is to your film. This can potentially leave viewer with a "yes and?" feeling.
While that might look like this in feature:
1) Boy meets girl
-----
2) Boy pursues girl and makes some progress in the face of many setbacks until ...
Something happens that will keep boy from ever getting girl. Oh no.
-----
3) Boy gets girl.
(you could substitute Superman learns of a bomb threat, makes progress towards stopping it through a series of wins and losses with the bad guy, looks like he will certainly fail, then somehow wins)
But in the short form, you run the risk of this happening:
1) 1) Boy meets girl
-----
2) Boy pursues girl
-----
3) Boy gets girl
This will almost invariably lead to the "yes and?" feeling. To pull it off you must give us a dazzling and rich character study and have the experience of what the characters are going through be enough for your pieces to stand on, or have some other element that's so well done it makes your piece worth watching ... in five or 6 minutes.
Of course if you attempt this you'd probably start with what would be the end of the 2nd act in a feature.
2.5) There is anbsolutely no way in hell that this boy and this girl (who are in the middle of their story) will ever be together,
----
3) Somehow they get together
For more see post #7.
...................
Last edited:
