Flash Fiction Friday #1

Today marks the beginning of Flash Fiction Friday.

What’s Flash Fiction Friday, you asked? Why, it’s a festival of sorts. It is, in fact, a festival where writers write flash fiction according to a prompt, then sign up to be on the list, opening themselves up to laughter, accolades, and even jeering. But no pie throwing. I think. I hope. :p

So whaddya have to do to get involved? Why, you have to write a piece of flash fiction. But not just any piece of flash fiction, oh no! It’s flash fiction, no more than 250 words, based on the following picture:

First, write your flash fiction and post it to your blog or website.

Second, add the Flash Fiction Friday weekly html code to that blog post or website page. Alternately, you may make it an entry before or after your flash fiction. Hint: It’s html code, so you’ll have to do it in html view. Most blogging platforms should support this, if not all. This week’s code is:

~~<IFRAME SRC="http://www.lmashton.com/fff/fff1.html" TITLE="Friday Flash Fiction #1" width="500px" height="300px">~~

~~</IFRAME>~~

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript" src="http://www.lmashton.com/fff/fff1.php"></script>

Third, either leave a comment to this post or email me at lm (at) lmashton (dot) com to let me know you’re participating. Deadline: Thursday, 30th August 2006 (as long as it’s Thursday somewhere in the world, it’ll be accepted.) If you’re emailing, please use FFF#1 in the subject line. Either way, please provide me with:

The permalink to your blog entry. It will be in a form such as http://www.janedoe.blogspot.com/2006/08/see-spot-run.html
Your name as you’d like it to appear and/or the name of your blog
The title to your flash fiction piece.
If your piece has profanity or adult themes, please provide a warning.

Fourth, check out the other entries for the week and comment.

Fifth, and most importantly, have fun!

Please note, if the html code is not easily visible on that entry or page, I will remove your entry from the list. Also, if you remove the html code, you will be removed from the list.

If at any time you woud like to be deleted, please let me know.

That’s it! Welcome to Flash Fiction Friday!

And here’s what the code will look like on your page:

Wondering about the purpose behind the code? It puts your link up on the sites of other participants, and theirs on yours, so your page rank improves along with everyone else’s. Everyone wins.

Edited to add: Since this is the beginning of Flash Fiction Friday and some people are having problems with the word limit, please keep in mind that, while I feel the exercise is valuable, we’ll be flexible in actual word counts. Include your flash fiction anyway. This is, after all, more about exploring writing and enjoying the process than anything else.

Edited again to add: The iframe code did not work the way I thought it would, so have instead replaced it with a script that will do what I think it should. Please replace the iframe code in your blog with the script code.

Please read the entries titled Flash Fiction Friday iframes code and the new flash fiction friday script code for more information.