It’s the last day of Flash Week! Today, we write “The End.” If you’ve gotten this far, you have a four-act outline ready, you’ve drafted the first three acts, and you are ready to write Act Four of this story. If you missed the first six days, I recommend you go back and start from Day 1. We’ll be here when you get back.

For this month’s flash story, we’re going to use a classic four-act structure, and today is all about getting from the dark night of the soul to the end of the story. In flash, the end doesn’t have to be a neat tying off of every question — the most important thing is to leave readers with an emotional punch in the gut.

Here’s today’s exercise:

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

• Show the action taken and decisions made by the character(s) that lead inevitably to the Gut Punch Close
• Punch that gut, hard

Got it? CONGRATULATIONS! You have written a full, complete flash story. What you do with it from here is up to you! You can submit it, revise it, blow it out to a longer story, cut it down to micro — whatever you choose to do with it, including nothing at all, you have officially written a complete story. And that’s worth celebrating.

If you liked writing flash together, let’s do it again next month! The third Monday is February 17, so we’ll start then. Next month we’ll use a slightly different outline structure just to mix things up (and keep learning & growing). I’m thinking story circles.

Tomorrow we’re back to our typical programming — one standalone ten-minute writing exercise a day. Hope to see you then!