Holly Lisle’s free flash fiction writing class is one of the best free classes I’ve ever taken.
In this short writing class, she gives you a method where you can create flash fiction short stories very quickly; over a period of three weeks.
The three weeks are broken into the three steps of crafting short fiction.
This was my introduction to Holly’s Writing Classes, it was the first class that I found of hers and I was amazed by the insights and the techniques she had and taught to others and I fell in love.
I blasted my way through this writing class and finished within the three weeks as scheduled.
Now that’s true I haven’t finished all the stories completely, but that’s because I loved her classes so much that I went out and bought a number of her other classes in my preferred topics. You can check out my general post about Holly’s Classes here.
This short review is going to go through what I found are the benefits of her free flash fiction writing class.
I guess the best thing is that it’s FREE and it gives you an insight into her teaching style and methods and gives you an idea of whether or not you might want to jump on board some of her longer, more career orientated writing classes.
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How To Write Flash Fiction That Doesn’t Suck – The Breakdown
Name: How To Write Flash Fiction That Doesn’t Suck (Holly’s Writing Classes)
Who’s This Class For: Beginners Through to Published Writers
Format: Online, PDF Lessons
Cost: FREE!
Duration: 3 Lessons, available over 3 weeks
Cancellation Policy: N/A
BW Rating: 10/10
What Is How To Write Flash Fiction That Doesn’t Suck?
Very simply, this writing class is a flash fiction writing class that is delivered over three weeks, over three lessons and will help you create 5 to 10 flash fiction writing pieces that are approximately 500 words long each.
Who’s It For?
This class is for is perfect for beginner writer; it teaches you all you need to know to start writing fiction, and in particular, how to start writing short stories, and how to start writing good enough stories that you can begin to enter competitions, submit to journals and publications.
This class will even give you enough publishable stories for a collection you could publish on Amazon. This collection or individual stories could also become giveaway stories on your website or blog.
Format
This online class is delivered through Holly’s website, Holly’s Writing Classes. Each week you’ll get access to the new lesson in a PDF document and PDF worksheet. As soon as you enrol, you get access to Lesson One.
The following week, after 7 days, you will get access to Lesson 2, and on the 14th day, you’ll get access to Lesson 3, the final lesson of the course.
Once you join up to this free writing class you also get access to Holly’s writing forums and community where you can go and ask questions and ask for support and guidance and even ask questions of Holly herself.
Summary Of The Lessons
As I mentioned before the lessons are broken up into three parts. These Lessons reflect the three parts of a story; the Beginning, Middle, and the End.
The first week, Lesson 1, will teach you how to begin a piece of flash fiction. You will learn to do this by creating compelling characters, and creating interesting problems for your characters to overcome.
By the end of the lesson, you will have written 5 to 10 story beginnings.
Holly asks that you dedicate to 30 minutes a day for 5 days to create your story beginnings.
In Lesson 2, you learn how to craft the middle of a short fiction piece. Specifically, you learn how to create complication that keeps readers hooked, how to develop layers of increasing tension.
And most importantly, you learn a simple, expandable plotting technique that will help you build many short stories in the future, a technique that will great for stories up to 2000 words.
By the end of this lesson, you’ll have written your 5 to 10 story middles.
Again, Holly recommends taking 30 minutes a day for 5 days this week to draft your story middles.
In Lesson 3, Holly covers how to write endings in Flash Fiction, and she does this by giving you two Ending Techniques that will help you finish your story, even if you’ve found it hard before.
In this Lesson, you will learn how to trust your reader to find your meaning, eliminate obvious endings and odious endings, figure out an ending that mattes, write an Opposites Ending, and Write a Dramatic Irony Ending.
You’ll write your 5 to 10 story endings.
Flash Fiction Bonus: Recommended Markets
Within the Forum, Holly has created a thread where you can find current Flash Fiction Markets. You have access to this forum and can add to this thread when you find other markets.
Cost
As I mentioned before the cost of this writing class is absolutely FREE. All you have to do is sign up give your email address to Holly and you’ll be on her mailing list and be able to access the free writing class and if anything else she has indeed free so will also get access to the writing forum for you can talk to us students and get advice and support even from Holly herself.
There are no upgrade’s, no hidden costs at all, this course was designed to help writers like you and me, and also to give you an idea of what Holly’s classes are all about. This class is even marketed at an Intro Class for her bigger classes.
Her other classes do come at a bit of a cost, that’s why she offers this free class to give you a chance to see what she’s really like and to see if you actually like her writing teaching style.
Duration
This is a 3-week class, and it’s designed to be delivered to you once a week after 7 days. It would be fun to have access to the class all the once and to smash it out really quickly, but she’s designed it like this so you take your time and you do the work. So you don’t just read it and don’t do the exercises. She designs her class is this way so you do actually do the work before you get the new information, so each lesson actually builds on the previous lesson.
Cancellation Policy
Holly has an excellent cancellation policy and refund policy on her website but in this case it doesn’t apply because it’s a free class but if you do go on to buy any of her other classes, you typically get a 60-day full refund on her short workshops, and a 14-day full refund on the longer classes, followed by a Per-Week Pro-Rata Refund, depending on what class you get. If you want to know more click here to read her Terms and Conditions.
What I Love About This Free Flash Fiction Writing Class
Finally, we’ve come to the fun part. There a lot of things that I love about this class.
Firstly, it’s a free class with a huge amount of information contained within it. It is one of the best free freebies that I’ve got ever in my whole life and I’m so lucky that I found it because it’s lead me to Holly and the rest of her classes.
Once you sign up, you get access to her free forum where you can talk about your ideas, talk about ideas that you’re learning and the free fiction writing class with other members other students and other prolific writers.
You also have access to Holly herself and can get direct feedback from her, within the Forum environment.
She really breaks down how to write a story in just such a clear manner and she’s so straightforward, I love it.
What I Don’t Love About This Class
So there’s not much that I don’t love about this class. I’d love an accompanying class or some lessons on marketing and how to write collections. But for freebie on how to write excellent short flash fiction stories, this is perfect.
Why Holly Lisle? Who Is She?
Well after all this you might actually be wondering who is Holly Lisle, and how great of a writer is she? Who is she to be trying to teach us how to write? In this section, I just wanted to give you a bit of background on Holly Lisle; who she is and what she’s written and what she’s accomplished.
Holly is very forthcoming about her history; who she is and what she’s got to teach us.
Just have a look at the information found in one of her writing classes, How To Think Sideways. It’s her career writing class for writers wanting to learn how to become a career writer.
So, some facts about Holly Lisle: she has been a pro novelist and full-time writer for more than a quarter of a century now, she has published 34 novels with both major publishers which have been translated into a dozen languages, and she is now publishing independently. She’s also sold a lot of short fiction and has built 20 writing courses to help teach others what she’s learnt.
Should You Get It?
I guess that’s the big question and because the class is free, it really is a no-brainer you won’t lose any time by reading through this material and doing the exercises. And, if you do them as directed, by the end of it you will have 5 to 10 pieces of short flash fiction of about 500 words each of publishable material, which will also be contest-worthy!
I love Holly’s classes and this is one of the best ones because it’s free and because it’s so short. Because you actually get to see what you can get out of yourself in such a short time, and she shows you that you can actually write a story, that you can actually finish a story that you can be proud of.
This is excellent for those starting for those just beginning, for those who have been writing novels but want to try short fiction. This is a great class for everyone and it’s free so I have no hesitation in recommending it. Give it a go and you won’t be disappointed 🙂
Check out the Free 3-Week Flash Writing Class Here:
Write Flash Fiction that Doesn’t SUCK
I’d love to hear how you go with this class or any of the other classes. I’d love to hear your feedback because I know that not many people know about Holly’s classes.
I myself have only found them in the last couple of years and I’ve been reading everything I can get my hands on about how to write for the last 20 years. Somehow I missed her and I guess that other aspiring writers may have missed her too, and I really want to help every writer find her because I really think she’s one of the best teachers out there.
Happy Writing,
Erica
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