Tag: short fiction

  • Other Writers — A Writer’s Shindig

    Photo by Peter Herrmann on Unsplash

    I should have been more on top of this, but recently my fellow writer Ted Wallenius (aka shredbobted) pulled together about a dozen writers to do some short story workshopping and cross-promotion. Six of them made it through the gauntlet (the other six, including myself, started but then a little then a little thing called “Life” got in the way for us). Those brave and creative souls were:

    If you are ever on the lookout for some talented writers and don’t have two pennies to rub together, you can probably find something worth reading from at least one of these six talented individuals. There’s a little romantic fantasy, a little body horror, a bit of absurdity crossed with action flick, several literature played straight pieces, and something I would call speculative fiction.

    It’ll keep you busy for an afternoon, for sure.

    (more…)

  • Rebooting fiction prompts

    Photo by Peter Herrmann on Unsplash

    The last few prompts that have intrigued me enough to write about have a wee bit of a problem when it comes to the stated goals of including more prose fiction to this site.

    As I work on the barebones outlines and start making headway into the actual writing of the stories based on the prompts, I discover that they are regularly exceeding the length of what folks normally consider to be flash fiction (<1000-1500 words by most standards; my personal limit being <2000 words).

    With only the beginning scene for the occult noir story the prompt handed me last week, I am already at 1000 words, which makes it hard to have a middle and end in the next 1000 words. To complicate matters I only have the vaguest notion of where the story might end up, so it could easily be quite a bit longer by the time I’m finished.

    But I’m enjoying this world that’s coming into shape and I don’t want to rush the story just to fit in with an arbitrary limit that no one but myself is imposing on me.

    So, first-off, I will stop calling those prompts “flash-fiction prompts” and just call them “fiction prompts”.

    Secondly, due to the added length, I’m going to post fiction offerings longer than flash-fiction lengths in episodic format to keep the posts within the average attention span. Plus, this particular story will benefit from the technique of employing mild cliff-hangers. I probably won’t post an episode daily when I do this, but I will try not to let it go longer than a week between episodes (I’m also taking additional editing steps that are not common to my posted fiction).

    I also have a rough outline of a story that I may pursue for Jolene’s prompts, and that will likely also exceed my original limits (if I share it at all, it depends on if my take on the humorous tale feels right when it is done).

    Just letting everyone know where my head it at and explaining my thought processes. The first episode from the files of Vivian Locke will post later today. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed writing it.

  • subject 19 — a short tale

    Below is my short fiction response to prompts proposed by Jolene on her post at Poetry & More. Check out the link to see the criteria she gave her readers either before or after reading to support another online author. Follow her, if you want to be really cool.

    I didn’t do a ton of research before writing this (and it is very much improvisational), so read it as a pulp tale, one not intended to leverage realism to any extent.

    It’s story time!

    subject 19

    Subject 19…?

    His head throbbed in time the hum of the machinery all around as Elias stirred.

    Subject 19…?

    With eyes still closed against the brightness of the room beyond his eyelids, he groaned.

    Subject 19? Can you hear me, now?

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