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How to Use Adjectives in Flash Fiction

Flash fiction is very short fiction that is over in a "flash," hence its name. Though it is often recommended by professionals that you avoid using extraneous adjectives in fiction, since they tend to tell about the action instead of showing it, flash fiction has different requirements. Due to its very short length, you may find it necessary to use adjectives to convey certain emotions or information in place of standard details. Still, it is necessary to use them correctly to avoid jarring the reader and making your work grammatically incorrect.

Things You'll Need

Highlighter
Printer
Grammar manual

Instructions

- 1
  Study adjectives so you thoroughly understand what they are and how they can be used within a flash fiction story. Adjectives modify nouns, which are people, places or things. For example, in the sentence "The dog is pungent," "pungent" is the adjective modifying the noun "dog." As this sentence demonstrates, an adjective allows you to impart information about a subject with a single word.
- 2
  Write the first draft of your flash fiction story without paying attention to adjectives or any other structural element within the work. Print it out once it's finished.
- 3
  Highlight the nouns in the story with a colored highlighting marker or pen. Look over the highlighted words and determine which need modification. Alternatively, look for parts of the story where a sense of personality, emotion or action is needed. For example, if the main character in the story is being questioned by police, you can insert "He was nervous" where applicable to impart the sense that the main character, for whatever reason, was uncomfortable talking with the authorities.

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