This week’s flash challenge from terribleminds.com was to choose our story’s setting from a list of options provided by Chuck Wendig. I chose “The Bone Cathedral”.
Interestingly this story sorta fits as a Father’s Day weekend story, though I hadn’t planned it that way going in and only thought of it when I started making this post. It also works as a kind of companion piece for my favorite flash story so far: Timeless Lilac. Sort of the other side of the coin.
Read. Enjoy. Comment.
It’s that time again. This week’s flash fiction challenge from terribleminds.com asked us to pick any 4 of the following 8 words: saw, milkshake, bath, flowerpot, wheelchair, bully, zoo, heretic.
I chose the first 4 and used them to craft this small little tale. Now normally I don’t want to colour anyone’s feelings about the story before they read it, and I particularly don’t want to in this case, but I feel I should say that while in absolutely no way explicit this story could potentially be disturbing to some so consider yourselves warned. On the other hand anyone who reads this warning and gets more excited to read the story will probably find themselves disappointed.
Let’s get something out of the way right now: I love short stories. I’m a big fan of anthologies and magazines. The root of this love for the short format can be found in my adoration for the writing of Harlan Ellison. Even though it’s never going to bring me the kind of money it takes to support a family I fully intend to devote a noticeable chunk of this writing career I’m trying to develop to short fiction. For that reason I’m all for jumping in on crowdfunding projects looking to get new fiction magazines off the ground. At the time of this writing, I’m supporting the Fireside Magazine Issue 2 & Beyond kickstarter and the Nightmare Magazine kickstarter. The way I see it, supporting a new magazine (or an established one for that matter) benefits me and other writers in two ways.
So, this weeks terribleminds.com flash challenge provided a link to a random sentence generator and fairly simple rules. Generate a sentence. Use it as the first of last sentence of your story. 1000 words maximum.
My first randomly generated sentence wasn’t very good, but Chuck decreed that the spirit of the challenge was to use an interesting randomly generated sentence, not necessarily the first one. So I went back and clicked for awhile until I had two sentences that I liked:
A malicious cosmology lusts in the electorate.
Another fountain fears!
I liked them both so much and quickly had a sketch of an idea for each so I decided to write both stories. So this week I’ve got two little bits of flash for you:
This week over at terribleminds.com the bearded overlord has paint colors on the mind and has provided the following challenge:
I’m going to list ten paint colors. Choose one. This chosen paint color forms the title to your story.
Bonus challenge: try to make color a big part of the story. In imagery, plot, character, whatever.
So I picked my color and did what I could with it. These challenges always come with a 1000 word limit and this week I’m coming in at 994. I’m not sure this is a story really. It feels more like a scene, but I’ll let you decide for yourselves. Please feel free to leave comments and criticism below.
Carmen Solana followed the funeral director into the cream-colored chamber with its seamless, curved walls and was startled to find it already occupied. The director, Mr. Perkins, noticed Carmen’s surprise immediately.
I took a vacation with my family this past weekend to Jejudo, a very nice Korean Island about 45mins south of Busan by plane, so my planned post to comment on the first month of this blog’s life didn’t happen on time. I’m here now though so let me tell you some things I’ve learned over my first 36 days of blogging and working at being a writer.