What Is a Flash Personal?
A flash personal is a brief, distilled reflection—a snapshot of truth, memory, or emotion. Think of it as a micro-memoir: raw, evocative, and deeply personal. Written in one hundred words, no more, no less, each piece captures a moment of introspection or lived experience. The form demands precision, honesty, and a willingness to face oneself on the page.
This writing exercise can help our discipline of self-discovery. When we condense the sprawling narrative of our lives into paragraphs, we begin to understand what truly matters—what haunts us, heals us, or holds us together.
Why Write In One Hundred?
There is power in limits. Writing in one hundred words teaches us to choose carefully, to listen closely to the language of the self. The constraint forces clarity because every word must earn its place. Sentences become deliberate. Themes, whether light or heavy, are stripped down to their essence.
Writing this way, daily, becomes a practice not only of writing but of witnessing. In just 100 words, we ask: What is true today? What did I notice? What do I remember? It is not about making a point. It is about finding one.
The Rules of the Personal In One Hundred
- Exactly 100 Words: Count them. Not 99. Not 101. This isn’t about being strict for its own sake—this is about honoring the restriction. The limit can help sharpen our focus.
- Must Be Personal: Write from lived experience. Let’s be honest, even when it’s uncomfortable. We are not writing fiction here, but to reveal something real.
- One Moment, One Truth: Don’t try to tell the whole life story in 100 words. Pick one moment. One image. One sensation. Let us explore it with our full attention.
- Avoid Abstractions: Let’s not say “I felt happy.” Say “I laughed when I saw my nephew bury the paper-cut spider in the garden.” Let the image carry the feeling.
- No Titles, No Explanations: Our words must stand alone. We should not be explaining them before or after. Let the experience breathe itself in 100 words.
Finding the Personal Truth
When writing a flash personal, we are not aiming to impress but to express something ordinary with extraordinary clarity. What brings back a memory? How did a voice sound? Were you at some point embarrassed and proud at the same time? Some things that we take for granted make us human – small but they matter.
We don’t need a dramatic story. Sometimes the most powerful personal pieces are quiet. Your friend’s hand on your shoulder. A text message. Dogs barking at the same time every night. These are our materials, however trivial, however mundane.
Writing Prompts to Write One Hundred Words True to Life Moment
When unsure what to write, let’s try beginning with the following:
- A sound that reminds us of home
- A mistake we made and never told anyone about
- That moment we knew something was over
- A smell we miss
- Something we saw that no one else noticed
- A lie we told
- A time we were brave without knowing it
After choosing one, let’s set a timer or if we’re not happy to hear alarms, set a word-count trigger. Write whatever comes to us but let the trigger app bring us back to 100.
What to Rewrite in a Flash Personal
Even though it’s only 100 words, a flash personal deserves care. First drafts are rarely final drafts. Here’s how we should revise:
- Read Aloud: Listen to the rhythm. Hear where our essay stumbles or sings.
- Cut Clichés: “Heart skipped a beat,” “time stood still,” and other overused phrases dilute our truth.
- Strengthen Images: We should make our verbs active and replace generalities with specifics.
- Feel the Ending: Our final sentence should resonate. It doesn’t need to summarize. It just needs to land.
Sometimes our best edits come after walking away from our draft for a day, or a week. Trust this process.
Example of a Flash Personal
- The first time I climbed a mountain, it was Mt. Makulot in Cuenca, Batangas—the test climb for all beginners, they said. I wore the wrong shoes and stayed at the tail end, always catching up, breathless. Going down was worse. I slipped once, dust in my mouth, the dry earth steep and unforgiving. But at the summit, everything stopped. There was Taal Lake, glassy and quiet, cradled by ridges. I didn’t speak. None of us did. The view didn’t just stretch—it opened. That mountain was brutal, but it gave me something I didn’t know I needed: awe. [rewriting this flash personal might poke on missing details, for example, what’s the wrong or right shoes exactly?]
- Today, a new friend—an elder, full of grace—bought me lunch. Lumpiang toge, kare-kare, and humba with rice. She drove her own car. Over the meal, we talked about the martial law years, how we were both too insulated then, unaware, until we met people who weren’t. Victims. Survivors. Friends. We didn’t argue, just listened. She took me to the bank afterward, then drove off with a smile. I watched her leave, grateful. It felt like a visit from someone I’ve always known. Some lunches nourish more than the stomach. This one fed something deeper. I think it was joy. [Rewriting this flash personal, ask, will it help this essay if it specifies the age of the elderly?]
Some title and theme ideas for a flash personal collection:
1. “In One Hundred: Small Stories, Full Lives”
A collection of 100-word moments that explore friendship, food, memory, and the truths that surface in ordinary days.
2. “Seen & Remembered”
Personal vignettes from local lifestyle—snapshots of conversations, losses, joys, and quiet realizations.
3. “Tail-End Stories”
Inspired by our first time experiences— some of the richest stories come from the quiet places, the back of the line, or the end of a conversation.
4. “Lumpiang Toge & Other Memories”
A food-and-feelings themed title—grounded in everyday Filipino culture and the emotional connections that rise with it.
5. “Paggunita: Flash Personals in One Hundred Words”
Using the Filipino word for “remembrance,” to emphasize the reflective and memory-based nature of our writing.
Making It a Daily Practice
Writing a flash personal daily is not about creating masterpieces. It is about showing up. It is about telling the truth before the day forgets it. Over time, we will have a collection—a hundred truths, a thousand images, a self we didn’t know was waiting to be found.
Here are some ways to stay consistent:
- Write at the same time each day.
- Use a notebook, or create a folder in our notes app.
- Share our 100 personals with a friend or writing group (optional times and seasons).
- Don’t skip days. If you must, double up tomorrow—but come back.
Remember: the daily act of noticing is its own reward.
The Power of Small Stories
In a world of headlines and hot takes, the flash personal is a quiet rebellion. It says: this moment matters. This feeling matters. Writing in one hundred words is an invitation—to pause, to look closer, to speak softly and truthfully.
Let’s not be afraid to be tender. Or weird. Or unfinished. We are not writing to be perfect. We are writing to be present.