Most writers don’t actively consider how they use time in their writing, but every story is entrapped in a timeframe that the author has created. It’s a weird catch-22, but the more you understand how to write time, the more control you have over your story.

In this webinar we’ll examine four ways time can be used in fiction: linear, continuous, long, and meticulous time. Although the examples and exercises are rooted in flash fiction, the concepts and strategies that we practice can easily be employed in long stories and novels.

Many examples will be read aloud. There will be generative exercises along the way and time for questions at the end.

Sherrie Flick is the author of the novel Reconsidering Happiness (University of Nebraska Press) and two short story collections Thank Your Lucky Stars and Whiskey, Etc., both with Autumn House Press. Recent work appears in Ploughshares, New England Review, Pithead Chapel, and Booth. She is a senior editor at SmokeLong Quarterly, served as series editor for The Best Small Fictions 2018 with guest editor Aimee Bender (Braddock Avenue Books), and is co-editor for Flash Fiction America (W. W. Norton, 2023). She lives in Pittsburgh.