Tag: flash fiction

Kathy fish, Writing Prompts & Craft Articles

Bonus Unexpected Sabbatical: March 19

Kathy Fish

Let’s feel the power today, friends! I don’t know about you, but I could use a Super Hero right now. To that end, I want you to consider… this sheep:

“This sheep escaped a farm and spent 6 years in the mountains, during which time he grew 60 pounds of wool. Wolves tried to eat him, but their teeth could not penetrate the floof. You don’t have to turn hard to survive the wolves, just be really, really soft and fluffy.”

Your prompt for today:

Create a character who has an UNEXPECTED skill/quality/feature that makes him or her or it INVINCIBLE. Your flash can be funny or absurd or terrifying or dramatic, but create a sort of Unexpected Super Hero and set up some obstacles for them. Let them slay dragons (or pandemics). Pit them up against adversity and let them show us what they’re made of (even if it’s floof)!

Bonus points if your Super Hero is an animal because animals rock! Go forth and write!

Nancy Stohlman, Uncategorized, Writing Prompts & Craft Articles

Bonus Unexpected Sabbatical: March 18

Nancy Stohlman

‘But I don’t want to go among mad people,’ said Alice. ‘Oh, you can’t help that,’ said the cat. ‘We’re all mad here.’ ~ Lewis Carroll

I’m sure the world is feeling pretty mad to you right now. One of the reasons I love absurdity in art is because I believe when we stop looking for TRUTH with the capital T, when we embrace the madness, we’re able to see the more subtle, more real, and usually more potent truths bleeding through the surface of “silly” or “weird.”

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SO…let’s enter the madness and embrace the weird.

Write a real story, something that happened to you or someone you know that was so ___________(insert adjective here) that no one would believe it’s true.

BUT, when you write it, do not stay bound to TRUTH with a capital T. Instead, invite the story to get even weirder, allow exaggeration and hyperbole to take it in strange directions, and see if something even more interesting starts peeking through.

Writing Prompts & Craft Articles

Bonus Unexpected Sabbatical Prompt: March 17

Kathy Fish

How are you feeling today? Maybe you feel like I do: Anxious, fraught with unease and uncertainty. It’s a feeling we normally seek to escape, right? Today I’m asking you to lean into your uncertainty and use it in your writing.

“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart…live in the question.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke – Letters to a Young Poet

Your prompt then is this:

Maybe have a bit of fun with the rarely used omniscient POV. Adopt an odd all-seeing voice perhaps. Then give us a character who is mired in uncertainty. Shit’s about to go down, either dramatically or more subtly. The uncertainty will be deeply uncomfortable for your character, but deliciously compelling for your reader. Your first line should go something like this:

“[Character name] doesn’t know [about the thing that’s about to happen to the world or to herself]…”

Take it from there. Go where the writing takes you. Set off without a map or compass or plan. Lean into uncertainty in today’s practice..

Kathy fish, Writing Prompts & Craft Articles

The Power of Juxtaposition & Creative Alchemy: A Microfiction Prompt

Kathy Fish

Choreographer Twyla Tharp in her book, The Creative Habit, encourages creatives to keep a journal of the things we see (hear, taste, smell, etc.), especially when they are juxtaposed in interesting ways that draw our attention, be they intentional or accidental. 

It’s tremendously useful to keep a journal of the things that particularly draw your attention in your daily life. Maybe the idea of writing lots and lots of pages of your inner workings every day doesn’t appeal. But you can jot things down. And when you’re stuck, go back and look at them again. I have these odd notes on my phone: snippets of overheard conversation, a phrase from a song, peculiarities of the natural world (or of my neighbors down the street). Lots and lots of photos. Collect images and ideas you’re attracted to. Put them in your phone or folder or spiral notebook, whatever. Just don’t rely on memory!

Doing this, coupled with some daily “down time” (even if only for 15 minutes) will work magic on your creativity. 

It’s about openness and receptivity to, well, a sort of creative alchemy. 

Via: Giphy Flying Rene Magritte GIF by Feliks Tomasz Konczakowski

Juxtaposition is defined as: “the act or an instance of placing two or more things side by side often to compare or contrast or to create an interesting effect.” (Merriam-Webster)

Poets are great at juxtaposition. Haiku writers and mosaicists specialize in it. They jam two or more very different ideas or images together to create new meaning and associations. It’s why we so often get an “ah ha!” experience from reading poetry. Filmmakers and photographers and visual artists of all stripes also make powerful use of juxtaposition.

But flash writers can (and should) make this a part of their toolbox as well. 

In Joy Williams’ collection Ninety-Nine Stories of God, (a book I highly recommend), there’s a flash called “Veracity” that manages, in a scant couple of hundred words, a brilliant juxtaposition of church pews, a birthday bounce house, a dog, and a ’64 Airstream Globetrotter. And every single one of these elements feels necessary and significant. 

My flash, “Foundling” (below) uses a similar jamming together of elements in a very short space:

Foundling

They discovered the baby in the grass, under the snapping cotton sheets. The clothesline spun and creaked, throwing light, then shadow, on his face, his wee head smooth and curved as a doorknob. The woman didn’t bend, only drew her hair from her eyes. He smells like Malt-o-Meal, the little girl said, hoisting him. Support his neck, the woman told her. It’ll snap like a pencil. Christmas Eve, her husband had packed and left for Cincinnati. Now, as raindrops dotted their arms, and the woman’s skirt flicked her calves, he came rushing through the gate, holding a newspaper over his head, calling Margaret! Margaret!

 

The exercise below will have you bumping together disparate objects / images / ideas in micro form to see where it takes you, what surprises you, what you unearth. You may discover new meaning is created when juxtaposing two disparate objects, ideas, or images. Forcing yourself to do this in a very small space actually serves to ramp up the power of juxtaposition. Very little room is left to “explain” yourself. You must allow what your unconscious delivers to you. The results are often delightful or disturbing, but always surprising.

Microfiction is variously defined by different word limits. For our purposes, let’s say 150 words or fewer. Microfiction often resembles prose poetry. The line between flash and prose poetry is wafer thin at times. But please set aside any need to categorize your work at this juncture. Allow whatever emerges. 

So! Your prompt:

  • I want you to combine two or more disparate elements as compactly as you can, bump them up against each other, in as tiny a story as possible. 
  • Don’t worry in this first draft about “making sense”…your unconscious has a tendency to make its own kind of beauty and sense. It’s what we are wired to do, after all. Find the patterns. And if we can’t find them, we create them.
  • Choose ONE from List A and ONE from List B and get to work!
  • Try to keep to just 150 words or fewer if you can.

List A

tangerine 

ghost

disco ball

Isaac Newton

surgeon

List B

Saturn

Marilyn Monroe

fortune teller

continental drift

funnel cloud

This prompt will be easier if you allow whatever delightful or disturbing weirdness ensues and resist the urge to explain it. Enjoy!

Interviews, Uncategorized

Flash Fiction: The Crush that Blossomed into a Love Affair–an interview with Marcy Dilworth

Nancy Stohlman

Marcy

Kathy and I are thrilled that we will be working with Marcy Dilworth for the first time this August in the gorgeous Rocky Mountains of Grand Lake. Here Marcy and I chat about flash fiction, best writing advice, and even exchange some favorite quotes.

Nancy Stohlman: The biggest challenge most writers have is finding the time to write. How do you “retreat” in your day-to-day life in order to honor your creativity?

Marcy Dilworth: Argh. I’ve worked really hard to create time to write. And have succeeded. Except for the part about reflexively succumbing to distractions. Whether they’re of the social media variety, or the false necessity of ticking something off my endless list of to-dos (which we all have, whether they’re written or not!), or the household chore that shouts my name (also a false call – if I weren’t writing, I certainly wouldn’t be filling my free time with vacuuming), or fill-in-the-blank, I struggle with shutting them out. But I keep trying! The best motivation to block all that out is to remind myself how good it feels, how satisfying, to be immersed in writing something I value.

Tell us about your relationship with flash fiction?

My relationship with flash fiction? It started as a crush when I met FF in a wonderful class led by Caroline Bock. Over time, it’s blossomed into a love affair, albeit one where I still have much to learn about my partner.

I LOVE that description! What is the best piece of writing advice you ever received?

Read your writing out loud. Hearing your story amplifies rhythm, tone, awkward phrasing, even logical gaps. Sometimes it’s a happy surprise; nearly always, it reveals things that can be improved, tightened or eliminated.

That is one of my favorite pieces of advice as well! What piece of your own writing are you most proud of?  Where can we read it (if it’s available)?

I’ve published one creative non-fiction piece and the rest fiction. Because the CNF is about my mom, and it’s close to my heart, it’s the piece of which I’m proudest. I’m so grateful to Literary Mama for choosing this, Orange Communion.

Wow, this is gorgeous. And I also know you are also funny–I love the piece you shared with me from the “red sweater” Flashnano Prompt: North Pole Bombshell.  So, have you ever been to Colorado before? What are you most looking forward to?

I’ve been to Denver a couple times – decades ago for a business conference, and last summer for a day-long layover. I’m looking forward to experiencing the real Colorado, mountains, crisp air, sky clear and unencumbered by suburbia’s light pollution, quiet, green . . . I’ve been enjoying it in prospect ever since I signed up for the retreat!

Yes, Grand Lake and Shadowcliff are really the jewel of all that is “real Colorado. Respond to this quote about mountains: “He who climbs upon the highest mountains laughs at all tragedies, real or imaginary.” ― Friedrich Nietzsche

Nietzsche is not known for being comforting, but that’s how I read this. It’s a suitable companion to a quote I come across in my “Writing Ideas” document every week or two – “There are seven billion people on this Earth and I have the audacity to think I matter.” – George Watsky. These quotes prompt me to let go of the irritations, worries and in-the-moment problems that cloud my vision, and just get on with it – where ‘it’ is doing what good I can and leaving the rest.

I love that Watsky quote, thanks for sharing it (I love quotes if you can’t tell)! Finally–tell us something we don’t know about you?

I love basketball, played in high school, coached my son’s team for many years, and am a feverish fan of the University of Virginia Cavaliers. I’ve got the season tickets (in the nosebleeds) to prove it!

Anything else you want to add?

I smile dreamily every time I think about “High Altitude Inspiration in Grand Lake.” This is going to be great!

Me too! We are so excited to have you and work with you in person, Marcy! Thanks for taking the time to chat with me!

Marcy Dilworth has been writing short fiction and nonfiction forever, but only recently started inviting anyone to witness it. Her stories have been published in Blink-Ink’s 10th Anniversary edition, Literary Mama, Writer’s Resist and 72 Hours of Insanity: Anthology of the Games: Volume 7. She earned her English degree at the University of Virginia, and her sense of humor and wonder from her kids. She lives in her recently emptied nest with her husband and their precocious rescue pup, Kirby.

Marcy’s Twitter address: @MCDHoo41.