Fast Fiction

Book excerpt: 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.