Microfiction Tip Collection - Part 3
Originally published on Substack as Notes Sept 2025
Microfiction Writing Tip: 8/09/2025
As writers, we often ask other, more successful writers what the secret is. Without fail, I have only ever received one answer:
Write.
Just write.
It doesn’t matter what about, or even how good it is.
Pick up a pen or sit at a computer and write.
And do it every single day.
I promise you’ll get better, just by jumping in and doing it.
Microfiction Writing Tip: 8/09/2025
Read more.
Whatever you’re reading now?
Read more.
The more we read, the better we get at writing.
It’s osmosis.
The techniques, the turns of phrase, the things that you love to read, you will absorb them and emulate them when you sit down to write.
It’s most important to write.
The next most important thing is to read.
Microfiction Writing Tip: 8/ 09/2025
Saw this tonight. Great advice!
Microfiction Writing Tip: 9/09/2025
I only just learned that Neil Gaiman is no longer in favour, due to his alleged illegal actions. I’m not litigating that… Except to say, if he is guilty his actions are horrible and reprehensible.
Prior to this, I took his online MasterClass, and he said this, which I found enlightening (and possibly prophetic):
“Characters always, for good or for evil, get what they need. They do not get what they want.”
Microfiction Writing Tip: 9/09/2025
Not exactly geared for microfiction, but great advice for longer form writing and still of use here:
Dan Harmon’s Story Circle:
1. Start off with a character that is in their own zone of comfort.
2. The character realises/discovers/expresses some “need” or “desire” that needs to be fulfilled.
3. To make this happen, the character enters an unfamiliar situation.
4. They need to adapt to the new situation.
5. They then try and succeed to get what they wanted.
6. In the process, they pay a heavy price for it.
7. It wraps on the party’s return from the challenge and into their familiar situation.
8. We then see that they have changed.
Dan Harmon doesn’t give his characters what they want, he gives them what they need. Or he DOES give them what they want, they pay a heavy price for gaining it, and they return to the start, realising how much that desire has actually cost them, why it was wrong for them, or how the pursuit of it has changed them. It’s all about the journey, not the destination.
"Community" Sitcom Discussion Part III: The Story Circle
PART I to my post about the “Community” TV show was too long, so I split it into three sections. Part I is generally what I love about the show. Part II is about the References and Humour in the writing on “Community”. This final chapter, Part III, is about Dan’Harmon’s famous Story Circle and how he - and you - can use it to weave a great story. Let’s…
“Describe your characters beautifully if possible, and truthfully at any rate. Any captivating protagonist should be someone you can imagine in the center of all sorts of scenes.”
Microfiction Writing Tip: 9/09/2025
Advice from another master:
“Observe strangers. Let your own version of their life story shoot through your head — how they got where they are now, where they might be going — and fill in the blanks for yourself.”
“Eavesdrop. Listen to the way people speak, but pay special attention to their silence.”
Microfiction Writing Tip: 10/09/2025
A word of warning from my writing hero, Stan Lee, about “dumbing down” the language for readers:
Microfiction Writing Tip: 10/09/2025
While I think he’s making a different point, this is still good advice for the writer:
https://themindsjournal.com/not-write-life-words/
Thanks for reading.
Let me know what you think about any of these. Helpful? Not helpful? Why/why not?
Links to the rest of the collection:
(Also found in the “Writing Tips” Section on the menus at the top of the Microcosm Substack)
👏👏👏Great tips