Flash Fiction

by C.L. Phillips

I'm experimenting with flash fiction, that is mysteries under five hundred words. I'm struggling to set the hook and land the story.  So I've come to Working Stiffs and my dear friends for advice.

Here's a little something I call THE HOBBY.  What do you think?

Mary Wilson stared through the peep hole in her front door at the clean cut young man standing on her porch. Against her better judgment, she opened the door. “May I help you?”

“Ma'am, sorry to disturb you. I'm selling magazine subscriptions to pay my way through community college? Would you be interested in supporting me?” The young man smiled, his short dull brown hair waving in the wind.

Mary smiled. “Of course, come in. May I get you a glass of iced tea? You must be parched.”

“That would be so nice.” He wiped his shoes on the welcome mat and enteredthe humble bungalow.

“Follow me in the kitchen. Sit here.” Mary pointed at the worn kitchen chair, the paint peeling from years of careful use. “Would you like an apple?” She took the butcher knife from the block, and made quick work of quartering the apple. She poured the glass of iced tea and sat the apple before the young man.

He drank greedily, his thirst obvious. He wiped the back of his hand across his moist lips. “Ma'am, do you know which magazine you would like?” He pushed the catalog toward her. “The ordering information is right there.” He pointed at the fine print on the back of the page.

“Do you have Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine? Or perhaps something with true crime?” Mary fingered the edge of the butcher knife, as her smile started to slip.

“No, but we have People Magazine, Time, and Newsweek. Would you like one of those?” His voice fluttered with a quiver.

Mary gripped the knife. “No, I would not. I. Have. One. Hobby.” She accentuated each word with a sinister pause. “What did you say your name was?”

“Um, I didn't.” He wiggled in his chair, his youthful swagger evaporating. “I'd better be going.” He snatched the catalog from the table, nearly tripping over the cat as he ran to the front door.

Mary fingered the blade and sighed. Oh well, it was for the best.  She cleared the dirty glass from the table, placing it in the sink. As she gazed out the window at her collection of brightly painted wooden crosses, each with a single name painted in black.

She only had one hobby.

Flash Fiction Contest

We moved this post to the top to encourage more entries to our contest. Two readers have posted their stories in the comments and both are awesome! Please read below and enter your own stories. (Note that the first contest to guess the Working Stiff is over.)



We Working Stiffs have a little surprise for you in February. We're calling this month February Shorts, or Flash Fiction February if you prefer alliteration. Either way, we think it'll be lots of fun!

In addition to fantastic guest bloggers Hank Phillippi Ryan on Thursday, February 4th, and Nancy Martin on Thursday, February 18th, we'll be blogging about shorts. No, not the ones you wear! (Although knowing this gang, that's not entirely out of the realm of possibility.) Since February is the shortest month, we thought we'd have some short story themed posts throughout the month.

And that's not all.

We have not one, but TWO contests. Jennie Bentley and Wilfred Bereswill have generously offered to donate a book to the winner. One winner will get Jennie's book, the other will get Will's.

The first contest will be on Friday February 5th. On Jennie's post that day, there will be 200 word stories that begin, "If you have to die, February is the best month for it." The catch? The stories will be anonymous. You won't know who wrote them! Your job will be to figure out which Stiff wrote what story. The reader who gets the most right, wins a book! In case of a tie, Jennie will pick the winner at random from those who tied.

We also have a second contest. Using the same opening sentence, "If you have to die, February is the best month for it," post your own 200 word story in the Comments. (Stories may be less than 200 words, but any that are over will be disqualified.) We'll gather them throughout the month, and Working Stiffs will pick a winner.

POST YOUR 200 WORD STORY IN THE COMMENT SECTION OF THIS POST.

Drumroll, please....

by Jennie Bentley

The results are in for the first part of the Flash Fiction contest, better known as The Guessing Game. The other part, where you, gentle readers, post your own 200 word stories, starting with the sentence, “If you have to die, February is the best month for it,” in the comments section of a certain post you’ll find if you look to the right of this... that’s still ongoing. At the end of February, Wilfred Bereswill is graciously giving away a copy of his book, “A Reason for Dying,” to the guest story determined to be the best of the bunch.

This time around, the prize is one of my DIY books: “Fatal Fixer-Upper,” “Spackled and Spooked,” or “Plaster and Poison,” or an advanced reader copy of “A Cutthroat Business,” first in the Savannah Martin real estate mysteries.

You know, I had no idea when we started this that it would be so hard to match stiffs to stories. I figured everyone would get at least me and Will and John Lutz matched correctly, since our work is readily available even if you’re not familiar with it already. Imagine my surprise when no one – and I do mean no one – guessed that I wrote #2.

Yes, folks, the male POV 3rd person science fiction piece is mine. I figured if I wrote first person female like I always do, you’d know right off the bat that I wrote it. So I decided to be devious. Even so, to me, it still screams in my voice, loud and clear. The sentence structure, the rhythm, the flow... Yet even Will – whom all of you; every single person – thought had written it, told me that he if he didn’t know which entry was his, he’d have thought he wrote mine.

I’m going to take that as a huge compliment, y’all. Little old girly-girl me wrote male POV well enough to fool everybody!

Here’s the actual rundown of who wrote what:


1. Will
2. Jennie
3. Joyce
4. Gina
5. John Lutz
6. Pat R.


Nobody got’em all right. A few of you got a few. The person with the most matches, interestingly enough, was someone who doesn’t know any of us: Kris the Cajun Book Lady! Congratulations, Kris. Email me or DM me with your address and your choice of reading material, and I’ll get a book in the mail to you!

Thanks for playing, everyone! And don’t forget to post your 200 word Flash Fic pieces in the appropriate place for a chance to win “A Reason for Dying.”

Flash Fiction February

By

Wilfred Bereswill

Well, I get to kick off Flash Fiction February.  First things first: enter the Flash Fiction contest.  BIG PRIZES and PRESTIGE!  A win will go on your permanent record, although it probably won't land you an agent.  See Joyce's post immediately preceeding (SCROLL DOWN) this one for details.   WAIT!  Don't click the link yet, finish reading, then go back. 

We're hoping this is a very interactive and fun month.  Short month, short stories. So what’s the big deal?  I think most people believe that writing a short story is easy, or at least easier than writing a full blown novel.  Personally, I don’t think so.

When my aunt encouraged me to try writing, she meant I should write a short story, not a novel.  I didn't listen.  The first thing I wrote was a novel of 105,000 words.  That became A Reason For Dying.  My second manuscript is currently at 110,000 words.  While I was writing my first novel, I took an advanced fiction class put on by the University of Missouri’s MFA Program.  The entire class was dedicated to short stories.  About halfway through the class we were given an assignment to write an original short story.  Of course, it had to have a clear beginning, middle and end.  It had to be no more than 2,500 words.  Since the novel I was writing about was about a natural viral outbreak that was mistaken for an act of terrorism, I decided to write a story about the hopelessness of the Spanish Flu Pandemic. In Flew Enza was the title. 

The first draft was over 4,000 words.  After some serious cuts I pared it down to 3,200.  I went back gutted it down to 2,800 words and that was it.  I couldn’t take it down any further.  Or so I thought.  

That’s when I really learned about economy of words, that in a short story, every word counts. If a word can serve double duty, well it would have to take on the extra work.  Your adjectives and verbs need to be especially powerful.  Here are a few really bad examples.

A man leaves a bar.  Well, you could say:

He sipped the last of the cognac, flipped a twenty to the valet and slid behind the wheel of the Mercedes. 

Or

He crushed the empty beer can against his forehead and stumbled across the parking lot to his rusty Chevy.

Basically the same action, but you’ve said volumes about the characters without going into details.  Each picture you gain from reading the sentence is completely different. 

In a novel you have the luxury to devote a chapter to show (not tell) the reader how stressed your character is.  In a short story that chapter can be replaced by:  She popped her last Valium and flushed it down her throat with the last of the whiskey.
 

Okay, that’s an extreme case, but I hope you get the point.

Anybody who has written a manuscript and prepared a query knows how difficult writing short concise stories can be.  Try taking a 105,000 word, high concept thriller and distill it down to a 5 page synopsis.  Then, concentrate it down to 2 pages.  Then one.  And finally, write 2 or 3 paragraphs that would go on the back jacket.  Oh, and try doing all that in the same writing style you used in the novel.  It’s some of the hardest writing you’ll ever do.  If it’s easy for you, you are insanely talented and I'm insanely jealous.

It is merely my opinion, but I think in the age of the Kindle, e-Reader, and now the iPad, short fiction could become popular again.  Priced similar to a song on iTunes, a digital short story is cheap, an easy read and in our fast paced lives, can be read in one sitting. 

I hope you enjoy this month and I really hope you give our little flash fiction challenge a go.  Flash fiction puts you to the extreme test and I’m putting up a signed copy of A Reason For Dying to the reader story I like best.

And just maybe, some special guests will stop by and post a flash fiction piece of their own.

So, what do you think?  Is it harder to write a good short story or a novel?

This just in.  Speaking of Short Fiction February, The Kill Zone members, a group of great authors and equally great people has released an anthology of short stories in ebook format callled Fresh Kills.  They are talking about it on their blog this week.  You might go visit them.

A Different Kind of Point of View -- You Can Play, too

By Pat Remick

Speaking of Point of View... as we have been for the past few days, my husband and I recently entered the same monthly “Flash Fiction” contest sponsored by the New England Chapter of Mystery Writers of America and one of us won (and turned out to be a bad sport about it, too, I might add).

The contest rules are simple: Generate the opening of a story with a given sentence, but write no more than 100 words. Our sentence was: “I was glad to find that the ground hadn't frozen yet.” We took those 11 words and each used our individual "point of view" to generate a story. As you'll see in a moment, the results were very different.

And, in what I hope will be a fun experiment, you can weigh in on which one you prefer (the loser is hoping to win the popular vote). My goal in all this is to try to remind the writers and readers among us just how subjective the process of creating - and evaluating -- fiction can be.

I believe it is so important to keep this in mind, especially when we are trying to find agents, publishers and readers. Just because one person doesn't love our writing, doesn't mean another won't -- as long as we don't give up on ourselves. We all need to maintain a positive "point of view."
Now for the Flash Fiction smackdown. I've listed the entries in random order -- well, as random as you can get with 2 entries -- so have a read and decide which one YOU like best.

I was glad to find that the ground hadn’t frozen yet. Mother Nature loved me. Last night at the camp, Harold had humiliated me. “A pistol on the partners hunting trip? Idiot!” This morning in the woods, I’d emptied it into his body. Now a shallow grave, dead leaves across the top, maybe a few branches. Tonight’s snowfall would cover everything. One fewer partner. A growl on the left broke my concentration. A scrawny wolf appeared from the brush, then another straight in front of me, then another to the right, and one behind. Maybe Mother Nature loved Harold more.

OR....

I was glad to find that the ground hadn’t frozen yet. It makes it so much easier to clean up the blood. The sight of crimson tentacles spreading through the fresh, white snow would set the wrong tone for the New Year anyway. While most people have traditions like making resolutions they’ll never keep, eating black-eyed peas or buying a new broom, I like to start mine with a clean slate. Unfortunately, that means getting rid of the old by Dec. 31. Good thing the fireworks and popping champagne corks make it hard to hear my Glock do its work.

Now go back up to the box at the top right part of the page and vote for the one you prefer. (It's anonymous so no one will know what you think -- but I'd appreciate it if you'd pick mine.) Voting closes at midnight. UPDATE--VOTING NOW CLOSED. Or, if you'd like, go to the comment section and share your 100 words that begin with "I was glad to find that the ground hadn't frozen yet."