Short Fiction Friday: Surreal Worlds & Emotional Truths from the SmokeLong Winners

It's Friday, writers! And on the blog, that means taking a look at what we can learn from short fiction.

Today, I wanted to turn to the winners of last year's SmokeLong Quarterly Award for Flash Fiction (2024).

Some months, I turn to short fiction because I want to learn something about structure, pacing, or voice. But other times—like this month—I read to feel unsettled, moved, or tilted slightly off-axis. Flash fiction, at its best, can do all of that in just a few paragraphs.

This week, I revisited the winners of the 2024 SmokeLong Quarterly Award for Flash Fiction, and if you haven’t read them yet, they’re strange, haunting, emotionally sharp. What struck me most wasn’t just the imagery or the inventiveness, but the way each story uses surreality to reveal a deeper emotional truth.

Before we jump in, here are the links if you want to read the stories yourself:

• “Octopus Heart” by Latifa Ayad

• “Grocery Store Mama” by Shayla Frandsen

• “Strong Female Character Goes By Her Last Name Only” by Stephanie Yu

Flash fiction often bends reality—not because the writer wants to trick us, but because surrealism lets emotional truth rise to the surface quickly. These three stories are a masterclass in how to use that technique with intention.

While they're different, I think at their core, each of these pieces show how surreal choices can illuminate what is most fundamentally human. In other words, the surreal element becomes a shortcut to interiority.

I really enjoyed these flash pieces, and I hope you enjoy reading my takeaways from them!

—CC

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1) You can bend reality to reveal emotional reality.

In “Octopus Heart,” the surreal premise—an octopus physically gripping the narrator’s chest—feels absurd on the surface.

But as a metaphor for anxiety, suffocation, and depression, it’s devastatingly precise.

The story doesn’t need exposition about panic or heaviness. We feel it immediately because the emotional experience becomes literal on the page.

My takeaway:

When I’m struggling to articulate an internal state, I can ask: What physical or surreal embodiment would make this emotion instantly legible?

Flash fiction gives me permission to externalize the internal in bold ways.

2) Surreal details let grief sit in plain sight.

“Grocery Store Mama” uses surrealism more quietly. You might say it's "heightened realism" or realism with "surreal texture."

The tigers, the decaying produce, the nostalgia-laced grocery aisles... all of it feels slightly off-kilter, like the world is sagging under the narrator’s grief.

The strangeness is gentle, but pointed. It nudged me to notice what the character cannot say aloud.

My takeaway:

Surreal elements don’t have to be loud. Sometimes they work best as subtle distortions, just present enough to make the emotional stakes visible.

3) Voice can do the surreal lifting.

In “Strong Female Character Goes By Her Last Name Only,” the surrealism comes not from magical elements but from the story’s internal logic. It's more like psychological surrealism that we get through the narration.

The character moves through the world as if she exists inside a forensic procedural written about herself. It’s meta, uncanny, and darkly funny. Yet it's always grounded in deep emotion, like longing and loneliness, and unresolved trauma.

In this short piece, voice becomes the mechanism that bends reality.

My takeaway:

Surrealism doesn’t require supernatural events. It can come from point of view, a warped lens, or an amplified trope, if you will, which can serve as a mind reshaping the world to cope.

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Writing the Emotional Truth First: A Short Fiction Exercise

One of my favorite things to do when I read is to think about how I can use some of the techniques in pieces I admire.

I came up with a quick exercise for myself to practice using surrealism to get at emotional truth. I thought I'd share it here in case you're interested in playing with surrealism in your own work

Flash Exercise: The Metaphor Made Literal

1. Choose an emotional truth you want to explore (fear, grief, longing, shame, restlessness).
   

2. Ask yourself: If this emotion became a physical phenomenon, what would it do?

   • Would grief leak from the walls?

   • Would dread grow actual teeth?

   • Would memory rearrange the furniture overnight?
     

3. Write a micro-story (<300 words) where that phenomenon simply exists—no explanation, no justification.
   

4. Let the world react to it as though it’s normal.
   

Remember: Surrealism becomes craft when it’s grounded in emotional clarity.

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I’d love to hear your thoughts and reactions to either the flash stories mentioned or my takeaways (or both!). Let me know what's on your mind via the comments or send me a note!

Peace & Plenty,