When you're writing flash fiction, your story generally only has to be 2,000 words or less. But you shouldn’t start thinking that you can bang out a piece of quality flash fiction in no time. Your rough draft may come out quickly, but editing the piece down so that it is as concise as possible and packs a real punch will require some serious thought. Good flash fiction is able to take you through a complete emotional journey in a very limited word count and stay with you for much longer than it took to read it.
If you take a look around the Internet, you can find several flash fiction stories that you can turn to for inspiration. One huge advantage is that you can gobble several of them up in no time at all. I’ve compiled a list of some of my favorite stories of 2,000 words or less that you can learn from, whether you are at the stage of fine-tuning your short story or just getting started.
Here are fifteen great flash fiction stories.
1) “Riddle” by Ogbewe Amadin
This story revolves around young Idara trying to work out whether or not her Aunt Adesuwa is an evil witch. Her mother has claimed that she is but from what Idara knows of her aunt, this can’t possibly be true. “Riddle”, published in January 2018, comes in a small package but manages to ask a lot of big questions about the nature of good and evil.
2) “Give It Up” by Franz Kafka
Author Franz Kafka is perhaps best known for his novella The Metamorphosis, where a man wakes to find himself transformed into an insect. No stranger to paring words down to communicate large themes, Kafka’s “Give It Up” conveys a deep level of hopelessness in just 128 words. He sucks you into the world of the story and leaves you feeling deeply disconcerted.
3) “Likable” by Deb Olin Unferth
Clocking in at just 335 words, “Likable” is a very relatable story where a woman observes that she is becoming unlikable. No matter how secure we may think we are, we have all spent time worrying about how we come across to others. This story taps into women’s fears about getting older and feeling like they are of less value to society as they age.
4) “Something Is In The Air” by SweetChaos
This piece of flash fiction is included in SweetChaos’s sci-fi/fantasy short story collection, The Infinity Library, and also appears in this list of Fictionate bite-size short stories. It tells the story of a captain sent to a potential planet to find a new home for the remnants of his race and ends up falling in love with a female native. “Something Is In The Air” makes very effective use of the journal format, which can be a great way to show time passing quickly in a short story.
5) “Sorry Dan, But It’s No Longer Necessary For a Human to Serve as CEO of This Company” by Erik Cofer
This story takes the form of a satirical letter informing the CEO of a company that he is no longer needed and that a robot will be taking over his duties. With concerns about AI running rampant these days, such a story is incredibly relevant.
6) “A Haunted House” by Virginia Woolf
With novels like Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf is known as one of the most important postmodernist twentieth-century authors and a pioneer of stream-of-consciousness writing. She also had great skill as a short story writer, as one can see in this tale which—unsurprisingly—focuses on a haunted house. This story can help you work on your story and also get you ready for Halloween.
7) “Three Is A Rational Number” by Michele Finn Johnson
This amusing short story gives the reader a glimpse into the melodrama of being a seventh grader. It is wonderfully detailed, and the juvenile voice will bring you back to your own middle school days. This is a good one to get you into the mindset of someone younger and cater to a younger audience.
8) “The Fear Eater” by H.R. Parker
“The Fear Eater” was written by Heather Parker, Fictionate’s own staff writer/editor who also runs our super-fun Discord (check it out if you haven’t already!). This spine-tinglingly creepy tale tells the story of Mathilda, who discovers she can feast on her murderer’s fear. Like “A Haunted House”, “The Fear Eater” is perfect for Halloween.
9) “The Comedian” by Yoko Morgenstern
“The Comedian” features great writing and present tense that really brings you into the story. Many vivid details give you the sights and smells of your surroundings. It may seem like a simple story of two people meeting but it carries some larger themes of searching for one’s identity and feeling trapped in a small town.
10) “Taylor Swift” by Hugh Behm-Steinberg
This very funny story won the 2015 Barthelme Prize. It takes place in a world where people can purchase clones of Taylor Swift. It’s an absurd piece of earthbound sci-fi that you can use to inspire your own story. It’s also a good example of second person (used to great effect in “The Red Shoes” by DoubleBlind, winner of our April 2022 Short Fiction Writing Contest).
11) “Forced Getaway” by SweetChaos
The Infinity Library is full of sci-fi/fantasy flash fiction gems, and I couldn’t resist including another one of them in this list. After returning from work, Jacob arrives home to find his wife missing. I don’t want to spoil the story’s many twists and turns by saying much more, but it is a tense, enthralling read.
12) “Sticks” by George Saunders
“Sticks” is known as a flash fiction classic from a Booker Prize-winning author. It covers several years through the prism of a father’s lawn ornament that he decorates to celebrate holidays and other events. You learn subtle details about the father through the decorations he chooses. This is a story whose emotional journey will really stick with you.
13) “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway
I read this Hemingway story in college and it made a profound impression. It shows that a story can consist almost entirely of dialogue and work beautifully. If you’re like me and love writing dialogue more than anything else, you can learn a lot from “Hills Like White Elephants” about how to make flash fiction consisting mostly of dialogue effective.
14) “War of the Clowns” by Mia Couto
This story begins simply, with two clowns arguing. But then it spirals from there into something larger and larger and out of control. As the clowns resort to more and more aggressive tactics, the spectators are drawn into the violent conflict. “War of the Clowns” shows that you can start with a simple premise and escalate it into chaos in less than 600 words.
15) “Sacrificial Lamb” by H.R. Parker
This is another story from Heather, this one from her dark fantasy flash fiction collection, Arcane: Stories from the Darkness. The language is just beautiful, and the story has a high level of tension that will keep you racing through to the end. “Sacrificial Lamb” was also published in the speculative fiction publication The Kraken Lore on Medium. All the stories in this collection are under 2,000 words and would be great for you to study. You can read “Sacrificial Lamb” here on Fictionate for free and purchase access to the whole collection for just $0.99.
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