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Flash to a Novel: Publishing Short Fiction and Laying the Foundation for a Novel

MARK SPENCER

Flash to a Novel: Publishing Short Fiction and Laying the Foundation for a Novel

MARK SPENCER

$379.99

07/24/2025 - 10/16/2025

Enroll Now

When Ernest Hemingway was starting out, he focused on writing paragraphs. His first book (in our time, Paris 1924) was a collection of one-page stories. His method was to “write one true sentence” and building from there. “The natural way was the best way,” he says in his memoir A Moveable Feast.

In Flash to a Novel, learn to write powerful, emotionally resonant flash fiction for submission to journals and acquire the skills to build a novel through the meticulous selection and accumulation of details while embracing the process of discovery.

Aspiring novelists often focus on “The Big Picture”—overall narrative structure based on planned-out complications, plot points, and character arcs. This approach doesn’t work for everyone. Focusing on writing flash fiction will enable you to hone the skills you need to create vibrant, vivid scenes with concise, nuanced language and characters—the skills that will enable you to embrace the exciting process of discovery (an organic approach) as you write fiction of any length and free yourself from the shackles of inspiration-killing overplanning.

The class is composed of six two-week sections, but self-pacing within the twelve-week timeframe is fine. A writing assignment is due each session, and the instructor will provide detailed feedback and answer any questions you may have.

There are no textbooks to buy. All course materials are provided.

$379.99

07/24/2025 - 10/16/2025

Enroll Now

When Ernest Hemingway was starting out, he focused on writing paragraphs. His first book (in our time, Paris 1924) was a collection of one-page stories. His method was to “write one true sentence” and building from there. “The natural way was the best way,” he says in his memoir A Moveable Feast.

In Flash to a Novel, learn to write powerful, emotionally resonant flash fiction for submission to journals and acquire the skills to build a novel through the meticulous selection and accumulation of details while embracing the process of discovery.

Aspiring novelists often focus on “The Big Picture”—overall narrative structure based on planned-out complications, plot points, and character arcs. This approach doesn’t work for everyone. Focusing on writing flash fiction will enable you to hone the skills you need to create vibrant, vivid scenes with concise, nuanced language and characters—the skills that will enable you to embrace the exciting process of discovery (an organic approach) as you write fiction of any length and free yourself from the shackles of inspiration-killing overplanning.

The class is composed of six two-week sections, but self-pacing within the twelve-week timeframe is fine. A writing assignment is due each session, and the instructor will provide detailed feedback and answer any questions you may have.

There are no textbooks to buy. All course materials are provided.

Course outline

Course outline

This course consists of six two-week sessions. Each session includes required reading, a "flash lecture," and a writing assignment to be turned in for personalized instructor feedback.

Meet the instructor

Mark Spencer

Mark Spencer is the author of the novels An Untimely Frost, Ghost Walking, The Masked Demon, The Weary Motel (Omaha Prize for the Novel, Faulkner Award for the Novel), and Love and Reruns in Adams County; the best-selling nonfiction novel A Haunted Love Story: the Ghosts of the Allen House; as well as the short-story collections Wedlock, Spying on Lovers (Bradshaw Book Award), and Trespassers.

His short stories and articles have appeared in a wide variety of national and international magazines. He has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize eight times and has received four Special Mentions in Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses. He also won the St. Andrews Press Short Fiction Prize. Trespassers, Mark’s most recent short-story collection, was a finalist in four national book competitions: the Serena McDonald Kennedy Award, the G.S. Sharat Chandra Prize for Short Fiction, the A.E. Coppard Long Fiction Prize, and the Quarterly West Novella Competition.

After earning his B.A. in English Literature at the University of Cincinnati, Mark earned his M.F.A. in Creative Writing at Bowling Green State University and did Ph.D. work at Oklahoma State University.

Mark is a professor of English and Creative Writing in the MFA program and Associate Vice Chancellor in Academic Affairs at the University of Arkansas at Monticello. Several times, Mark has been named to Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers.

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