Fast Fiction: Creating Fiction in Five Minutes

by Roberta Allen

Set a timer for five minutes, select one of the more than 300 "prompts" at random, then immediately start writing and don't stop until time is up.
The rules of Fast Fiction are simple; the results, liberating. By telling you what to write about ("write a story about a coward," "...warmth," or "...a whisper"), the timed exercises focus all your energies on the telling. By imposing a deadline, they force you to write spontaneously, bypassing the inner critic and allowing your voice - as well as surprising images and associations - to emerge on the page.
Step by step, Allen shows how to turn your five-minute writings into short short stories - intense fictions that use language with power and precision. She then shows you how to use the timed exercises to built longer stories and novels. You'll see, for example, how one of her students turned eight of his exercises into a chapter for his novel. By looking at your fiction a piece at a time, the writing process becomes less intimidating and more open to experiment.
Allen illustrates all the possibilities with examples of students' work, as well as a variety of published shorts - from classics by Anton Chekhov and Robert Walser to contemporary pieces by Joyce Carol Oates and Mark Strand.

Genres: Writing, Nonfiction

198 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[Roberta Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Useful for more than flash fiction.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I use this book all the time in my writing classes. It's full of really great ideas. If you want to get words on the page, this is the book you need. Not just for fiction writers either. Memoirists or columnists can benefit too.

[Chaz Love · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my 2nd time reading this one and it has helped me a lot with getting stories written. I discovered short shorts through reading Fast Fiction and I've loved it since.

[Johanna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent writespiration: solid advice coming with friendly tickles, telling the inner writer - that's you - to just get (back) to it.
The sample 'short short stories' are as helpful to read and study as are the author's tips on revising text. Something I particularly enjoyed is the tie between writing and life. Roberta Allen repeatedly suggests digging around the subconscious for the stories we truly want to (and should) tell. This approach may not be for everyone, but for me? Spot-on. The exercises paled in comparison, but by the time I had finished Part I, I had already learned loads, typed up 10 short stories and rekindled my passion for writing on a whim. So I'd say, mission accomplished! Highly recommended.

[Tingles · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read „Fast Fiction“ in German. It was a spontaneous grab in the library. I‘m pleasantly surprised on how much weight the book lays on the writing exercise.

There are literally tons of different prompts and styles of choosing from them. It‘s a great pick that will make you not only have enough ideas for the day, but also how to review, improve and connect the stories with each other.

The first half presents the theory of shortest fiction and shows many examples of the genre and all its variety. This was a drag, at least for me.

Write five minutes. It’s better than nothing. This book will help you getting into that creative mindset.

[Merenwen Inglorion · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn’t read straight through this. Instead, I used it mostly during Nanowrimo when I got stuck on my story. The prompts (the word group ones more so than the pictures) were just what I needed to get through my blocks. The story structure advice given in the beginning of the book is solid, and can be applied to both longer projects and flash fiction.
I look forward to using more of these prompts in future stories!

[Augustus Jasmin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve been reading a bit about surrealism lately, and this book kind of fits in the mix since it’s basically about automatic writing. The advice makes sense and is easy to apply. The process described here may be an antidote to some of the tendencies that bog my writing down. Gotta get into more of the exercises to find out.

[Lynn Ann]

Carry this with me. Awesome.

[Michael Morris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Roberta Allen's Fast Fiction focuses, as one might expect from the title, on writing and refining flash fiction or what she and others call the "short short story." But she does include some information about taking these small nuggets and expanding them into longer stories and even writing novels.

The crux of Allen's method is to write for five minutes at a time, using short prompts to guide the freewriting experience. One could use what she calls a directive, such as "Write a story about a broken promise" or "Write a story about a crime," or the writer could use a picture and one of the questions posed for that picture. An example of the latter is a picture of a house with the question, "Who couldn't wait to leave this house?" The idea is to write whatever comes to mind about the topic until the timer is up without straining to worry about what the inner critic says to stymie the creative process.

As I read, I took some of her advice and modified the process to suit my own goals. I found that the experience of drafting such short works (mine were a little longer) was pretty liberating. I often started with something I thought would lead nowhere only to find an interesting (at least to me) story came out. As of this writing, I have not worked through the revision stage as she suggests, but Ms. Allen really wasn't breaking new ground for me.

So to a degree, I think the process can work. And as I reflect on the book, I think with modifications, the general idea could be used for a number of writing needs, some creative, others not so much. But I do have a serious reservation.

Ms. Allen focuses much of the book on feelings and "energy." Her answer to nearly every question about whether something works or doesn't is that it "feels right." She suggests looking for the lines that have the most energy and working from those in revision. While she talks about her own students work-shopping their exercises, she does not really address the fact that writers are not always good judges of their initial work.

In addition, Ms. Allen ignores the discipline it takes to be a writer, whether a novelist or a writer of flash fiction. I am not saying that feelings are not important, but there are far too many writers working out feelings and writing crap and many who say they are writing, but don't get the right feeling, and so produce next to nothing.

All that said, I think Fast Fiction contains some useful ideas, particularly for those writers who need to try something fresh or would be writers who can't seem to get started. But like most books on writing, one should take what can be of use and ignore the rest.

[Izzy · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the first 20 pages, I did feel there was too much focus on energy and emotion. It felt like I was reading some sort of occult/self-improvement book. For example, the following quote is taken from page 12:

"Energy, feeling, and the writing process are the key words in these pages. If you learn to follow your feelings and go where the energy is, you will learn a great deal about your writing process. When you know a great deal about that, you know a great deal about yourself."

Other than that, I thought the book was all right. I've always found working on a time limit to be difficult as I'm very critical so I thought that it would help me.
There are over 300 verbal exercises but I found them rather bland. Although there were a few visual prompts, I was hoping for more variety as random prompts and story starters were included, but I didn't think that they were particularly interesting--I've come across better prompts online.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book at a time when it seemed I could barely find five uninterrupted minutes in which to write, so I thought if this is all I can do, give it a try. Now I still frequently use the exercise section of this book because I've used it to generate a lot of material. I like the five-minute focus. At first it seemed the alarm was going off and all I had to show for it were filler words. Then intensity and more concrete words and surprise after surprise on the page. Never really used much else of the book because I have my own process for moving raw material to finished stories, but think the five minute process and the exercise section are good and could see using this in a writing class.

[Theresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Roberta Allen's book has lots of good tips, and what I use all the time is her exhaustive list of "write a story about ..." topics. - e.g., write a story about sisters, write a story about something that hasn't happened yet, write a story about a color, etc. In the creative writing class I teach I use that list for homework assignments every week. For day-to-day exercises, I recommend her newer book The Playful Way to Serious Writing.

[Anne Calvert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recommend this book. It was very informative and useful. Even if one has a tried and true style of writing, I would suggest giving the 5 minute exercises a shot. It also seems very effective for writers block. This one is definitely a keeper and will be referred back to often.

[Jessica · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this helpful when I had writer's block. The time limit made it easier to write about the topics.