Break Through Writer's Block with a Narrative Experiment

One thing I love about the short story form is that it allows freedom for experimentation. When I begin a story, I never know what I’m going to do with it, where it’s going to go. To me, short stories—especially flash fiction—are the most enjoyable kind of writing, because, in the early stages at least, they’re pure play.

When I’m feeling stuck on a novel-in-progress, I often take a few days off to write a story or a series of flash fictions. This helps me shake off the creative cobwebs and get back to the joy of writing. The most free I ever felt writing was the period when I was writing the stories that would become my first book—when it wasn’t yet a book and there were zero expectations. I didn’t have an agent or a publisher. I wasn’t even certain I was writing a book. It was just me and a Mac Powerbook Duo (without the dock) and every minute I could squeeze out of a day to write.

As you write short stories, I encourage you to play, to break rules, to do something you haven’t done before. If you’ve been writing for years and you’re in the midst of a long project, take a couple of weeks off to get back to the love of writing, without the pressure of what it might become or who might read it. Here are a few non-traditional story structures to try:

A numbered story is often tied together by associations, with no clear narrative line running through each section. The pleasure of the story may be derived from the sense of friction among the sections.

A great numbered story is Kelly Link’s Flying Lessons. The story is told in twenty snippets, interspersing “Going to Hell: Instructions and Advice” with narrative pieces about a character named June. It’s weird and wonderful and worth trying to imitate if you want to practice writing a numbered story.