Flash Fiction Festival (💥📖🎉), by The Fuller Zone

(The initial date of the posting of this page, for the record, is March 12, 2024.)

Here’s a challenge for Flash Fiction aficionados and aspirants: Submit your Flash Fiction to the Flash Fiction Festival here on The Fuller Zone! (Please read this entire article for guidelines and other important information. And no AI!)

First: There are three categories of frequency of submission of your Flash Fiction: monthly, weekly, or daily. For all submissions, your Flash Fiction should have been written within a 24-hour period, preferably within the same calendar day. The rough guidelines are that it should be 600-1,000 words, although there is quite a bit of latitude with regard to that attribute of your writing (perhaps about 200 minimum, 2,000 maximum). You should include your name as the author, as well as the date your piece was written. I have also made a point of including start and end times; if you do this, the start time is whenever you start writing the main body of the text (not including the title, in other words); any preliminary research you do doesn’t count. The end time is whenever you finish the main body of the text; any (minor) editing after the fact doesn’t count. But once you start writing, if you take the time to do additional research, the clock doesn’t stop until you’ve written the final word.

Weekly submissions should be on the same day of the week, and monthly submissions should be on the same day of the month (with a fudge factor for late in the month because months don’t always have the same number of days).

Second: You can opt to take up this challenge for a period of three, six, or twelve months, at whatever frequency you have chosen.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The webmaster of The Fuller Zone reserves the right to limit participation in the Flash Fiction Festival, as to the number of authors who submit their work. That’s primarily because there’s only one of me doing all of the posting. There will be updates going forward on this page as to any such limitations. In particular, daily submissions will be most strictly limited.

Oh, another IMPORTANT NOTE: Single submissions are always encouraged, and will be posted as time permits. You should include your full name (actual or pen), date the Flash Fiction was written (including begin and end times, if you have them), and you should stipulate that it is a single submission. (Single submissions will not be accepted on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis!)

So: If you have been following The Fuller Zone for the last few weeks or so, in particular the Flash Fiction section, you might have noticed that there have been daily postings of Flash Fiction for about four weeks straight, including a personal pledge (or threat) by the webmaster, author, and CNO (Chief Nuisance Officer) of this site to post his own Flash Fictions daily for a full year!

But that in itself does not constitute a Festival. As I’m sure you will agree. A Festival connotes participation—yours!

And your participation is encouraged. Add your own voice to the Flash Fiction Festival of The Fuller Zone!

Before you sign right up, however, it’s important to consider the pros and cons (mostly pros, if you want my opinion) of doing writing from the inside of what appears to be a pressure cooker. (Is it really a pressure cooker, or is there something else going on?) Well, if you want the perspective of someone who has written daily Flash Fiction for the last four weeks, here it is:

Pressure? Is it really pressure, or is it something else? If you think you’re feeling pressured to do this thing that you’re doing, and it’s on a deadline basis—well, you’re right! But if you think it’s exclusively that, then you need to think again! I can truthfully testify that for me, the primary ways that I would characterize an endeavor like this are mainly with these words and phrases: Motivation; Intense focus; Thinking on your feet (and outside the box); Inspiration; Finding (or making) new connections; Becoming an idea factory (and writing ideas down!); and Razor-sharp research.

The main attributes, however are the first two: Motivation, and Intense focus. I can’t stress (uh-oh! there’s that word!) too highly how much this kind of exercise and experience can intensify your writing skills. However, you have to give yourself the time and space to flourish; for example, find a place that’s copacetic and conducive to your needs as a wordsmith. And be sure to take your Inspiration wherever you can find it!

So, my experience in the last four weeks doing this daily writing has been one of increased Motivation and a distinct Intensification of focus. There have been ebbs and flows, ups and downs, but I’ve never once regretted spending however long it took to craft yet another one of these Flash Fiction vignettes.

So there’s another lesson to be learned, if you take this challenge up for yourself, whether on a monthly, weekly, or daily basis, and whether it’s for three, six, or twelve or more months straight, which is this: Whatever you do write could easily become the seed for a larger, more intricate work of fiction, poetry, prose poetry, or even some kind of essay.

And finally, there’s this: Just the act of writing itself—which may seem like a struggle at times—will help you flex those wordsmith muscles of yours! This is obviously not an original thought or observation, but it’s true! There were several stories I wrote just recently, often at the rate of about 100 words every five minutes, that just seemed to stream out, as if writing themselves! And if you let your ideas percolate, if you sleep on them and allow them into your dreams, they will show themselves to you in due course—and often, they will lead you to places you hadn’t even considered.

So, here at The Fuller Zone we strive to encourage creative participation in activities such as writing. We welcome Guest Contributors to weigh in with their own unique perspectives in many different ways. But in the case of the Flash Fiction Festival, you need not be a Guest Contributor. You simply need to express yourself succinctly (roughly 600-1,000 words per Flash Fiction) and with passion, and we will consider your story for publication.

Now, it must be stated that, at this time, there is no monetary reward associated with the posting of your Flash Fiction on this site, namely, The Fuller Zone. If you submit your Flash Fiction for consideration, and your Flash Fiction is posted on The Fuller Zone, you will have the satisfaction of joining the Flash Fiction Festival and getting your name and your creative work out there so that people can read it. And you can, of course, help spread the word.

In the event that no one else joins in the fun, it has been established and independently verified that the CNO of The Fuller Zone will continue with his daily postings nevertheless.

But as they say: The more the merrier! Jump right in! The water’s fine!

Questions? You can submit and ask them by using the button below...

As with anything else on The Fuller Zone, this section will undoubtedly evolve over time. Stay tuned!