Story Cards – Microfiction on a Postcard!

Over on The Great Escape we tried an experiment on National Flash Fiction Day. We happened to be at Cardiff Comic Expo on the day, so I asked the guests there to challenge me to write them a story. I got several different prompts which inspired some weird and wacky micro-tales.

The experiment went so well we decided to share the results on the website, and start developing new and improved story cards ready for our next convention. Rather than plain white cards, we’re going to print a selection of designs for people to choose from.

You can see all the “Prototype” Story Cards over on The Great Escape.

What Makes Good Flash Fiction? 5 recommendations for writing short pieces

I’ve been having a think about what makes a good piece of flash fiction, and while I don’t think I can say it any better than David Gaffney does in this article – Stories in your pocket: how to write flash fiction (which came out just before the very first National Flash Fiction Day in 2012) – I thought I would share a few thoughts.

1. Get It All Out First

Or as David Gaffney says in his article, “write long, then go short.” This is actually common sense in a way. When you draft your brain is creating as it goes. It’s natural to repeat yourself as you think of better ways to say what you want to say, on the fly.  You need to repeat yourself because the second or third way you brain comes up with to say something might better than the first.

It’s also natural to explore as you write, which creates tangents, distractions and irrelevancies as often as it discovers vital details. You won’t ultimately want half of what you uncover in a short piece, but you have to dig through rocks to find diamonds.

2. Find What’s Important

I recently took a 400 words first draft I really liked and cut it down to 150 words which I liked even more. I started by critically looking at my draft and highlighting the phrases and words which did the work; the ones which conveyed the story, rather than those that enriched, or worse, obscured it. There were actually very few of them.

3. Be in the Moment

For me, the best flash fiction pieces are scenes. This is a matter of taste, true. But there is a reason behind it: constraining a story to a scene constrains it to one moment.

Long fiction contains lots of moments but in flash fiction you only have a moment to create a moment. It could be the start of something, the end, or a change. It could be a moment of connection, realisation, or enlightenment.

Find the one moment you want to share and make the story about that, however you choose to write it.

4. Let the Reader Work for You

In flash fiction, you have to let the reader be an active participant in the realisation of the vision. I say let because writers can be control freaks about getting across their vision.

You don’t have the luxury to spend words and time on description in flash fiction. Trust that your reader will do this for you. Don’t worry about describing characters and settings, let the action show something of their nature and let the reader make up the rest however they want.

5. It Need Not End Here

Most flash fiction pieces will, by definition, be very open ended. They are short stories, moments, within the unspoken wider narrative of your characters’ lives. Let the idea of that wider narrative be there in the background and don’t stress over explaining it or tying up loose ends.

 

So that’s my top five thoughts on writing flash fiction. If you write something you’re proud of, be brave, share it with someone, or submit it to a publisher!

And on that related note…

The Great Escape Flash Fiction Competiton 2015

The site where I act as fiction editor is running a Flash Fiction Competition this month, in celebration of National Flash Fiction Day on Saturday 27th June.

It’s an open competition with fairly loose criteria, so why not share something you’ve written. Your story might get featured on our site and we could even offer you a spot in one of our anthologies. Visit thegreatesc.com/competitions for all the details.

 

Microfiction Monday – The Pheasant Who Stared at the Sun

Judd Henderson took his normal morning walk at eleven o’clock. He liked the spring. The scent of cut grass, all but forgotten over the winter, heralded the arrival of warmer weather.

The park to the left of his usual route had grown wild with tall grass and a smattering of wild flowers. Standing in the meadow was a pheasant; a male by its colouring. The bird remained quite still, head tilted back, eyes fixed on some point in the sky.

Image courtesy of Dr Joseph Valks

Judd paused beside a park bench and observed the motionless pheasant.

How peculiar.

The bench’s occupant – an indescribable man, hidden as he was behind a broadsheet newspaper – briefly lowered his screen and regarded Judd. He then resumed reading without comment.

Judd left pheasant and man to their business and continued his walk. He made a slow circuit of the park, pausing periodically to examine an interesting flower or beetle.

When his circular route brought him back to the bench, the man was still there. From behind, all Judd could see was a black hat and duffle coat. He imagined the man must be uncomfortably warm, but each to their own. He sat on the unoccupied end of the bench and glanced at the newspaper man. It had taken Judd some time to circumnavigate the park, and yet the man seemed to have made little progress through the news.

The meadow opposite now stood bereft of pheasants. Judd leaned a little closer to the man beside him.

“I see that pheasant is no longer staring at the sun,” he remarked.

The black clad man abruptly folded his newspaper and tucked it under one elbow. He withdrew a brown paper packet from inside his coat, placed it on the bench and strode swiftly away. Judd considered the packet and then the man’s retreating back.

How peculiar.

Thanks for reading. I hope you enjoyed this little tale about miscommunication. Leave a comment with your thoughts if you like.

Microfiction Monday – Discovering Elvis

Image courtesy of Simon Howden

Mr Aberforth pulled the potato from the ground and brushed off the dirt. He threw it into the bucket with the others, but, as it flew through the air, something about it caught his eye.

A strange surge of excitement set his stomach fluttering. He wiped his palms on his jeans and carefully recovered the spud. He turned it over, gingerly.

The way it tapered to a point, like a chin. Eyes which suggested, well, eyes. And, that darker blemish, there, like a mouth. But, most distinctive, the way that top bit stuck up, with a suggestion of a curl.

The face of Elvis Presley stared out at Mr Aberforth from the potato.

He cradled it to him and glanced furtively around the allotment to see if anyone had noticed. Everyone was busy with their own veg. He quickly bundled his tools into his tiny shed and wrapped the celebrity vegetable in a plastic bag.

There wasn’t a moment to lose. He had to show the world!

Mr Aberforth’s Elvis potato makes a guest appearance in the novel I am currently working on, called “Mime”. I felt the moment of discovery deserved it’s own story.

Have you ever found a vegetable that looked like something else?

Microfiction Monday – House Mouse

The food was at the back of a small, white box. Mushkin put her foot on the smooth surface and tested it. Nothing bad happened. She sniffed and felt with her whiskers. Strange smells mixed with the tempting aroma of wheat but none that she recognised as dangerous.

She stretched her little body forward and stuck her head and paws into the box. Then she crawled in completely.

The floor rocked and something clicked. She turned around quickly but the way she had come was now blocked. For a moment, she panicked and threw her tiny form against her close prison but succeeded only in moving it across the floor and not herself out of it.

Then she calmed down and ate the morsel of cracker she’d been after in the first place. She understood that she was trapped and that was bad but no part of her could think her way out. When it started to get light, she slept.

© Copyright Zorba the Geek and licensed for reuse under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0

We caught a mouse in our kitchen last night. We’ve named it Mushkin. I don’t know if it is male or female but we’ll call her she for the time being. She’s actually not a house mouse but a field mouse like the one above.

We think she found her way in through the walls and came in to escape the bad weather we had last week. There might be more of them so we will leave some food out tonight and see if it goes. If there are more I’d rather catch them all and release them all together.

Muskin is currently in a plastic box with some bedding, water and food. She seems pretty chilled out about it all.