Interpreter of Maladies and its inspiration

I finished Ms. Lahiri's collection of short stories (Interpreter of Maladies) during the long July 4th holiday weekend and all I can say is Wow. Lahiri's writing is full of really sensual details along with a set of characters that feel very real, very three dimensional, particularly in their emotional lives and connections with one another. The very first story in the book, A Temporary Problem, is so surprising and quite intense while dealing with its charged emotional material very subtly.

After I read all of the stories I couldn't help but wonder how long it took her to write and refine the work because it was so crisp and precise. I can honestly say I have nothing but true admiration for this collection. It delivered a big payoff in every story, and I think the first story may even be the strongest of the collection.

I've been working on a very short "flash fiction" piece called The Fortune Teller, and I'm really struggling. I want to keep the piece to 1000 words, which is only 4 pages double spaced. I need to find a way to really speed up the action or condense the activities that are going to happen in the course of this 1000 words, but in either case it is torturing me at the moment.

One of the things I've been struggling with in my stories is really letting my characters run amok. They need to get into trouble, get into seemingly insurmountable jams, or get into surprising situations that they're not prepared to deal with...but as I produce my pieces I feel I'm still being too subdued in my treatment of the plot. When I read work like Lahiri's I feel that's a standard worth striving for, and I'm just going to have to continue working on it and writing it all out until I can ratchet up the conflict.