Welcome back to Flash Week! Today is Day 4. If you’ve gotten this far, you have a four-act outline ready, and you are ready to start writing the prose of this story. If you missed the first three days, I recommend you go back and start from Day 1. We’ll be here when you get back.

WRITING DAY! Until now we’ve been noodling and what-iffing, and today … today we write prose. Hurray!

For this month’s flash story, we’re going to use a classic four-act structure, and today is all about setting the story in motion. It’s a tall order for ~200-300 words!

Here’s today’s exercise:

Using your four-act outline, write the setup (Act One) of your story. Don’t forget to:

• Introduce your characters and world
• Establish what the main character wants and
• Shake the world out of stasis so the character will act

Got it? Great! Save it for tomorrow, when we’ll work on Act Two. See you then!