(The flash fiction story “What Kira Packed” by Heather Bell Adams was first presented by Milk Candy Review on December 11th, 2025.)
(Image from Milk Candy Review)
You know what “writing advice” I hate getting more than anything? “Less is more.” And the hair’s breadth of a runner up to that infuriating maxim is, “Show don’t tell.” These two bits of advice are the Tweedledee and Tweedledum of the writing world, who get marched out by lazy editors and inept writing instructors when they need to say something enigmatic yet mildly profound, which can be interpretation in any way, other than with a coherent explanation. Those two phrases have been used so often, that the words have been rendered meaningless.
But then Heather Bell Adams writes “What Kira Packed,” and finally, there is an articulate, rational, and svelte work of flash that says in a clear voice – this is how you write less without telling.
This piece is under three hundred words, using a structure devise of what Kira packed going to and then back from “camp.” It is heartbreaking in its simplicity, knowing the “change” Kira endured at “camp” and how what she’ll be coming home with what may include trauma, repression, self-loathing, and depression. This is a gut-punch of a piece, a brutalist’s honesty here, but Heather Bell Adams also leaves just enough vague, forcing us to use our imaginations to fill in what is left undefined. This creates a unique and individual horror for each of us as to what “really” happened at this camp.
This is how you do it, and do it impactfully, with intent to get to the marrow of a story.
Bravo.
