Flash Fiction Writing Group Helps You Polish Your Stories

If you want to get better at flash fiction, you may want to join an online writing group. This is a group where you submit stories by email and other members offer helpful criticism. When someone else submits a story, you are expected to comment on their story also. This is a great way to get feedback on your stories, and you can get better as a writer from it. Not all criticism is useful, but you'll definitely get some good ideas from an online writing group. Sometimes the group members will tell you where they got their stories published, and that will alert you to good markets for your own work. I've had a great experience with a group called FlashXer, on Yahoo Groups. There are some friendly, helpful people on this group, which is led by Michael Kechula, who must be one of the all-time flash fiction champions. He has had hundreds -- probably thousands -- of stories published in the last 6 years, and he is a good source of information and helpful critiques. There are other groups out there, but this is the one I have had the best experience with. One thing I like about FlashXer is that several times a week Mike sends out a writing prompt, so you don't have to come up with an idea on your own. You just take Mike's prompt and write a story around it. You can learn more about FlashXer here.