The Flashiest Fiction

I've started writing flash fiction. Or microfiction, you might hear it called. Very, very short stories. The first one I've written was 112 words.

Incidentally, I've finally started using the Instagram account I've had for months. I've never been one for posting selfies, and I don't have anything interesting to take pictures of. So I've decided to write very short stories, put them in a square with a nice background, and post them to Instagram.

Just like books are divided into length based categories (novellas, novels, epics), so too is flash fiction. The term "flash fiction" itself is used for stories 1,000 words long. "Sudden fiction" is 750 words, "microfiction" is 100, and a "minisaga" is 50. A lot of them show up in literary contests where the goal is to have exactly that number of words.

I'm not so particular, so I'm using "flash fiction" in the general sense. I'm not so much constraining myself by word count, but by overall size.

Foreshadowing Firearms

This post might have been written on time, but I went to a concert on Wednesday. Bad Wolves, Breaking Benjamin, and Five Finger Death Punch (click links for musics). Totally worth it to get tickets down on the floor, by the way.

But anyway, we're here to talk about writing. 

You may have heard of Chekhov's Gun. It's a… I don't know, a rule, that says, "If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there."

Basically, if you bother mentioning a thing, it should be important at some point.

Monsters and Mayhem

I have a lot of things in my head.

I've had a few random ideas for my current story, involving time travel, human sacrifice, the usual. I also have this gnawing in my brain, in my very soul, to finish The Long Road.

I don't know why that story is so important. I mean, every year, I sit down to write a NaNo novel, and I say, "This will be the one." The Great American Novel. The story that's going to change the world, even if it's just my little corner of it. It's the story that will make sense and I'll be able to show it to everyone without cringing. Every year, I say that.

And every year, I write a pile of complete nonsense, with a few good gems sprinkled throughout, the needles in my haystack.

A Story About Something

Writing Desks and Ravens: Freedom Edition.

And what's more free than freewriting?

I've started writing for Camp NaNo. I still have pretty much no idea what it's about. Some kind of Lovecraftian horror, I guess, judging from what I have.

Basically, I started with a single scene that popped into my head. This one tiny moment. Just… this:

Blood seeped through his fingers as he lay in the grass. In the dim light, the indistinct form of the creature edged closer. He was done for. There was no escaping now.

The thing was only six feet from him. It could have turned and finished him off. But it didn’t. It kept moving, right on past him. He wasn’t a threat anymore. He was already dead.