Prompt #54 — Write Like Judy Huddleston

This piece (view here) is amazingly short, and Huddleston leaves out just the right amount of mundane details. Many times, details about break ups or other kinds of life events are cliché or over written, but here, Huddleston avoids tired material by omitting it, and she leaves us with just the present moment and the juicy details.

PROMPT

Flash fiction comes in several shapes and sizes. For some, the max word limit is 1,000, for others it’s 500, and for others still, only a 150 words. NANO Fiction likes its flash quick—but not too quick—at 300 words or fewer. And as much as we would like them to, many first drafts of stories don’t always end up this short. Take piece you’ve already written and reduce it in at least three increments. If the piece is 1,000 words to begin with, reduce it to 750. Then 500. Then 300. Cut anything that could be considered as fat, then cut a little more, cut until all that remains of your story is bits of carved flesh and the bone, and then see what remains.