Guest Post: Laura Besley on Writing Flash Fiction

Today's guest post is from my flash fiction guru, Laura Besley.  Originally from the UK, Laura currently lives in Hong Kong where she teaches English as a second language.  She is a published author, her short story "Dear Sylvia" can be found in As We See It:  Hong Kong, by the Hong Kong Writer's Circle.

Laura maintains a blog, Living Loving and Writing, wherein she shares the flavor of Hong Kong and the product of her flash fiction adventures.

Find my review of As We See It: Hong Kong and an interview with Laura here.

  —A Chaotic Mind

And now, our feature attraction:

Little and Often — How Flash Fiction can help you improve your writing

by Laura Besley

Background

Flash Fiction is the new kid on the block, so to speak, and the definition isn’t yet 100% concrete, but basically it’s a piece of fiction that is really short. Flash Fiction is usually between 250-1000 words, but I’ve personally set my limit at max of 500 words (no minimum). Due to people’s increasing lack of time and the fact that it can easily be read on an iphone or ipad, the popularity is growing.

On 4th May 2012 I started a writing challenge: to write a piece of flash fiction every day and to put ‘the best of the week’ up onto my blog on a Friday and that’s how, for me, Friday Flash Fiction was launched.

Book Review & Author Interview: As We See It: Hong Kong Stories by The Hong Kong Writers Circle

Book: As We See It: Hong Kong Stories
Author: members of The Hong Kong Writers Circle
Pages: 260
Format: Kindle
Publisher: The Hong Kong Writers Circle
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
Book Source: Personal Purchase
Category: Anthology/Short Story
Style: Brisk short stories with rare language, primarily suspense/thriller themes

Synopsis from GoodReads:

Why do we read, if not to experience the world from a perspective other than our own? Why do we write, if not to deepen that experience by putting ourselves in another’s place? We write about the unknown in an attempt to know it. We explore the mysteries of life in an attempt to understand. By keeping an open mind, we welcome the surprises that life has to offer whenever we open another door, peek under a rock, or turn a page.  read more . . .

Background:

I first met Laura Besley on Book Blogs, a networking site for writers and bloggers, shortly after I read Shanghai Girls by Lisa See.  In the book, in the 1930s, residents of Shanghai look down on Hong Kong as somewhat provincial, and so stumbling upon this anthology intrigued me.  I was curious to see the other side of the story, which is in itself kind of freaky, in that the Writers Circle chose SIDES as their theme.  The concept of a writers association compiling their work for an annual publication also captured my imagination and I wanted to investigate the execution.

I recently had the opportunity to chat with Laura about the book, writing, the HKWC, her blog, and Hong Kong.  We prearranged our dates (13-hour time difference) and place (Google Chat), I wrote up a few questions to have ready, and we went from there.   I have included that discussion below, with a few minor editorial changes for punctuation and continuity. Laura provided the graphics. 
Enjoy.  I know I enjoyed the chat as much as I enjoyed the book.

Laura in Norway

Author Interview:  Laura Besley

me: [delete a bit of chit-chat] Are you ready to start?

Laura: Sure Fire away

me: Okay. Why don't we start out with a brief bio. Where you're from originally, a little bit about yourself, etc.