  Action/Adventure
This week: Quick-Acting Adventures in a Flash Edited by: Kate - Writing & Reading  
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Greetings! Welcome to this week's edition of the WDC Action & Adventure Newsletter
Each day is a blank page, an adventure to be written, action and re-action ~ be pro-active. Writing itself is action ~ creating an adventure for your readers to embrace in prose or verse. I'm back again in search of adventure and hope you will share with me this exploration and maybe create one of your own in prose or verse.
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Greetings, fellow adventurers!
Okay folks, with the holiday season in full swing, family and day jobs demanding more attention for many of us, writing every day, though a passion, feels like selfish luxury. It's not! Though we may not have a dedicated day, or even hours, to write, revise, or plot an epic poem or novel, we can write an adventure that's active and full. Yes, I'm referring to an action story that's brief, to the point, and fun for the writer and interesting and satisfying to your readers, who likewise may not have the time to cozy up with a novel or ponder an epic in verse or prose.
Yes, I'm talking flash fiction - weaving an adventure that's one fully developed interesting event or the culmination of several events shown through allusion. With the growing popularity of ebooks, editors and publishers also are on the lookout for tales between 300 and 2000 or so words, more easy to read on computer screens and e-readers.
Explore with me the following strategies, one or more of which will provide the foundation of an active adventure for you the writer and for your readers.
 Look for the kernel of an idea. To explore the glass ceiling (women moving up in the workplace) in a corporate environment would encompass a novel or at the least a novella. But what if a woman is not hired for a job she really should have earned, or what if she is hired for a job for which she feels unprepared or unqualified? See where I'm going with this? Or what if it's a guy who's hired for a nontraditional job and reports for his first day? Find a smaller topic and act on it!
Weave the prequel or preamble in the opening paragraph. Use action or dialogue to set the stage for the adventure and draw readers into the main character's mind. Focus on one, maybe two, characters without forcing them to face a number of distracting names and faces. Then move forward.
Start in the midst of the action. What is your character doing and why. A fire rages, a clock is ticking, an alarm goes off (siren or Baby Ben, it's your story ). You don't have to describe all the details; your reader will fill in some of the blanks if you give them a vivid active start. And you can get on with the adventure.
Focus on a powerful or riveting image. Paint a picture with your words; show an eclipse of the sun, a train fallen sideways on the tracks, a house just ravaged by a tornado. An adventure can happen within that picture.
Keep your reader guessing until the end. Move them along, but don't give it all away. Make them want to share the adventure and reach the end with your character. Your reader may have no idea what is going on, or may think he/she knows the gist of the story, but is not quite sure. This will lure them on to the end. When they finish, there should be a good pay off or solution.
Use allusion to known events or places. Your readers can infer much of the background if your story occurs in the Eiffel Tower, or Grand Central Station, but they may not be know why your character's afraid of the train running off the tracks on Murderer's Row (reference Elliot Ness, Cleveland, torso murders). If you use lesser known events, remember to provide the reference early in the story so your character and reader can engage the adventure together.
Use a twist at the ending to provide a satisfying end to the adventure. Since you don't have time to develop in depth your character's history and motivation. Similar to use of allusion, a twist at the end will pack a memorable punch to the action and provide a satisfying resolution to the streamlined fast-paced adventure.
Writing flash fiction is a great way to write everyday, when writers are pressed for time or an epic or novel is in a quandary; or why not just because it's active and fun! Action and adventure in brief, potent doses, is fun to write and to read. Any of the above techniques, alone or combined, can jump-start your writer's pen to weave a creative, active adventure.
Why not give it a shot, pick up a kernel and weave an active adventure for yourself and your readers to embark upon.
Write On!
Kate
Kate - Writing & Reading
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Check out some adventures woven for your reading (and reviewing) pleasure by members of our community ~ I've even included one of mine for a change
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Now, try one out for size yourself ~ check out the following challenges that incite active adventures
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Have an opinion on what you've read here today? Then send the Editor feedback! Find an item that you think would be perfect for showcasing here? Submit it for consideration in the newsletter!
https://www.Writing.Com/go/nl_form
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I thank you for sharing this exploration ~ and, as less can be more, I wish each of you
Yuletide Blessings 
and
a Joyous, Succesful New Year
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Action/Adventure: December 21, 2010 Issue [#4089]
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