Flash Fiction - Competitions

We're now less than a month away from National Flash Fiction Day on 16th May.

I'm a big fan of Flash - I like reading them and I like writing them. The length can be anything from 140 characters ( e.g. HERE) to 100 words (e.g. HERE) 1000 words depending where you look- and that's a massive difference, but this definition seems to cover it nicely:

"Flash fiction work contains the classic story elements: protagonist, conflict, obstacles or complications and resolution. However unlike the case with a traditional short story, the word length often forces some of these elements to remain unwritten: hinted at or implied in the written storyline."
Bridport Prize website

I've listed some of the competitions around which are linking to National Flash Fiction Day in case you are tempted to give them a try:

• Enter now! Lancashire Writing Hub's Flash Fiction Competition closes today - April 20th - and asks for exactly 165 words (including title).
• Manchester's Flashtag writing collective want 500 words or less by Friday 27th April.
• Yearning for Wonderland wants Unexpected Fairy Tales of under 350 words before 29th April.
• Writing on the Wall in Liverpool want stories no more than 3000 characters (letters, not people - that would be silly) on the subject of 'The End of the World' by 30th April.

There are more competitions, events and initiatives at the National Flash-Fiction Day 2012 website

If you have the best flash fiction story ever, you could invest in the hefty £6 entry fee to the Bridport Prize's new Flash Fiction category which offers a first prize of £1000 for 250word stories - which equals £4 a word!

Related post: Short ... and I mean short... stories