Have you ever received an email that began like this?
Dear Friends: Please do not take this for a junk letter. Bill Gates sharing his fortune. If you ignore this, You will repent later... For every person that you forward this e-mail to, Microsoft will pay you $245.00...
I'm sure you have. Ever since its release in 2004, I've had several relatives and friends (including one very bright attorney friend) forward this to me. It usually starts something like this: THIS TOOK TWO PAGES OF THE TUESDAY USA TODAY — IT IS FOR REAL... Just to give it that added bit of credibility that us skeptics need to allow someone to set the hook good and true. Welcome to the world of the urban legend: where popcorn and eggs can be cooked between two activated cell phones, where flashing your lights at a passing vehicle is an invitation to die at the hands of a gang initiation ritual, and where cacti explode spewing baby tarantulas everywhere.
These stories are typically those that "really happened to" a friend of a friend who swears that the story is absolutely true. So you can see how the urban legend is a direct descendant of the oral storytelling tradition repackaged for the internet age. These stories are short, to the point and often have one of the trademarks of flash fiction, the twist ending.
The urban legend explores our fears, dreams and superstitions. We all want to have this secret, privileged knowledge, and as a result, can provide a great source for writing ideas for flash fiction.
My favorite source for urban legends (as well as fact-check suspected urban legends) is www.snopes.com. This site is the definitive urban legend destination on the web which is updated daily.
Here are a few dead tree resources on urban legends:
MythBusters: The Explosive Truth Behind 30 of the Most Perplexing Urban Legends of All Time
Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid: The Book of Scary Urban Legends
by Jan Harold Brunvand
Encyclopedia of Urban Legends
by Jan Harold Brunvand
So if you hear something that seems to good to be true, or is too weird to be true, check it out on Snopes, or better yet, jot down a few notes and see if you can twist it into a good story.
Flash Writing Exercises:
Read many urban legends off of the Snopes site and create one of your own. Make it bizarre but believable. Try researching some weird stories on sites such as http://www.newsoftheweird.com/ or at http://www.weirduniverse.net/ to get the creative juices flowing.
Take an existing urban legend and give it a new twist in an attempt to give it believability.
Use an existing urban legend and try to use it as a basis for a new flash fiction story.