A few weeks ago I was invited to Hiroshima International School to give an author talk as part of their Reading Week program. That was the initial plan anyway, but rather than stand and waffle in front of a hall full of small kids, we instead came up with the idea of doing writing workshops with the students.
I make my living writing non-fiction books, features and travel pieces, but I also do a little short and micro fiction writing. So, I ended up doing a micro fiction workshop with a group of about 40 students aged 4 to 8. What I’m sharing here (please see the image above) is a piece of micro fiction I wrote for the kids and that I used bit by bit to introduce them to the idea of micro fiction and then the concept of a twist at the end. I’d never tried writing for kids before, nor have I ever taught a large group of kids like this, but it actually worked, which is why I’m sharing it here. After this exercise, they planned, wrote and edited their own micro fiction (with twists) and the results blew me away. They were a great bunch of kids, too. I love writing micro fiction, but now I also love that super-short fiction like this can be a first step to get kids writing their own stories.