Notes on the Previous Five Stories

Well, better late than never. I just felt I should close the loop and finally post these long-shelved notes on my most recent stories (most recent as in, from a year ago).

All but one of these stories came from story prompts from the now defunct (alas) Flash Fiction Friday.

“The Spell of Opening” came from the cue: “Write a story where a door figures prominently in the plot. Word limit: 1,000 words.” Thought I’d try my hand at a wizardly tale.

“Blasé” arose from the cue: “Write a story in which your protagonist encounters some sort of double or doppelganger. Word limit: 1,200 words.” I like turnabout reveals.

“Fever” was the product of the cue: “Write a springtime story about love using these words: kiss, breeze, kite, skunk, and mud. Word Limit: 1,300.” So, ummm, yeah. I made a foray into animal erotica. What can I say?

“Mirror, Mirror” came from a desire to write another science fiction story – and conjure up a tall, breathtaking blonde. What can I say? I have a thing for tall women.

“The Palanquin Ride” was my response to the cue: “Put your story in motion, tell it from the vantage point of the journey, not the destination. Word Limit: 1,500.” I love this story. It was a nice capstone to this recent period of creative writing which, alas, seems to have run its course. For the time being, anyway.

Notes on the Previous Six Stories

Went through a dry spell for several months, but finally began writing again at the turn of the year. Another bunch of stories, most of them coming out of story challenges from Flash Fiction Friday:

1. “The Birthday Party” came from the cue: “Write a story about planning a surprise party, and let us know the outcome. Word limit: 1,500 words.”

2. “Stranded” came from the cue: “Write a story about someone stranded. Word limit: 1,400 words.”

3. “The Stories of Your Lives” came from the cue: “Write a story set in or that includes an afterlife. Word limit: 1,200 words.” (Extra note: this was a prompt that I provided to FFF.)

4. “Rejoinder” came from the cue: “Write a story where a door figures prominently in the plot. Word limit: 1,000 words.”

5. “A Hostage in Time“ came from the cue: “Write a story about someone time traveling, describe as best as your narrator can, whether he’s a common man or a brilliant scientist, the experience. Word Limit: 1,600.” At over 1,900 words, this one went way over the limit.

One was my entry to the latest round of Three-MinuteFiction:

6. “Calling Her the Next Day” came from the 3MF challenge: “Write a story in the form of a voice-mail message.” As with all 3MF rounds, stories could not be longer than 600 words. This was my entry.

More to come!

Notes on the Previous Six Stories

The latest batch of stories were mostly responses to prompts from Flash Fiction Friday:

“Opening Salvo” came from the cue: “Write a story of gripping suspense, with a ‘ticking bomb’ of some sort. Word limit: 1,500 words.”

“Moira” emerged from the cue: “Use this starter sentence to write your story: ‘We need to talk about Kevin.’ Word limit: 1,300 words.”

“A Valentine Trinket” was the exception: I came up with it cueless. It is, as the title says, just a little doo-dad about Valentine’s Day.

“Falling” arose from the cue: “Write a story that begins with this sentence: ‘Call me Maybe.’ Word limit: 1,000 words.” Went way over the word limit on this one.

“Translation” and “Spells” came from the cue: “Write a story that features a full moon and its effects on characters in the story. Word limit: 1,300 words.” I meant to make this a suite of three stories, but the third one just wouldn’t jell. The second of the stories, “Spells,” also went over the word limit.

All of these were fun to write!

Notes on the Previous Four Stories

“A Lakeside Tale” was a lark that came out of nowhere – always a gift. I just saw a pretty woman in my mind (although admittedly, I always see pretty women in my mind) and got to thinking about how that sight tends to make an idiot of most men, and how nice it would be if somehow a guy – even if only in fiction – somehow managed to keep his wits about him even after he has made a complete ass of himself. This story is what came out.

“The White Book” was my and my niece Emily’s entry to Three-Minute Fiction's latest round. As I wrote, I had already written a couple of other pieces in response to this round’s challenge of writing a 600-word-max story whose first line reads: “She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally, decided to walk through the door.” But I wanted Emily to try her hand at writing, so we agreed to get together and each write a story, and whatever we wrote we would send in. Unfortunately, I discovered that the rules didn’t allow minors to enter the contest. To try to get around this, I suggested that we do a collaboration instead, and I would submit our story under my name.

I don't think I ever had as much fun (co)writing anything as this story, which Emily and I wrangled into shape over a couple of very pleasant days. I mostly steered and I did provide the twist ending (and put in some constraints: she wanted to include a bunch of adventures, and I had to tell her that we only had space for maybe one scene in a 600-word story), but the main idea and the great, weird imagery – the people with beaks, the medieval costumes, the skates made of animal bones – are hers, from her Social Studies lesson on the Black Plague. During a lunch break, I got to telling her about the Monty Python Black Knight scene, and when we went back to writing, we decided to add a black knight into the mix.

It turned out that we were probably disqualified anyway, since another rule of the contest was that a story should be the sole creation of the person submitting. But – what the heck. As I said, the experience of writing this story with Emily was priceless in itself.

The next couple of stories came from prompts from Flash Friday Fiction.

“Fear” came from the cue: “A story about fear using the words: dark, crunching, eerie, monster, and fear. Word limit: 1,313 words.” I had been wanting to write a story where a protagonist’s experience with a primal emotion shatters his self-conception. I had anger in mind, but when I saw the prompt on Flash Friday Fiction, I figured fear would do as well.

“By Mokelumne River” arose from the cue: “Write a Western short story using these words: rope, dust, whiskey, medicine, and ceremony. Word limit: 1,500 words.” I had thought that of all genres, the Western would be the most difficult for me to write, but it turned out to be very easy. All I had to do was think back on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, one of my favorite movies, and Firefly, one of my favorite shows, and try to emulate the tone and the penchant for twisty turnabouts of those two entertainments. I can only hope I succeeded somewhat.

Notes on the Previous Six Stories

Sometimes stories come at you sideways. Working late one night, the image of a guy lying in bed in the dark seeing the visage of a lost love just as a new love has become a possibility came to me unbidden. So I put work aside and wrote “Night Voices” as an exploration of that image. Some things are just more important than work.

The latest round of the Three-Minute Fiction contest opened in March, and this time the challenge was to begin a story with the sentence “She closed the book, placed it on the table, and finally, decided to walk through the door.” As always, the story had to be 600 words at most.

I kept playing around with so many story possibilities that went nowhere that I decided to go meta and incorporate several story beginnings into one whimsical tale: “Round 8.” The story was too self-referential to be my entry; in fact, I hesitated even posting it here (a lot of the bits are inside jokes), but obviously I decided in the end what the hell.

“Canciónes de Amor” started off as a possible entry, with the contest line being the first line of the song stanza that starts the story. But the stanza kept bugging me; the story required lyrics that were mediocre, and what I had written was downright awful. So I chucked the original stanza and came up with a different one – and there went the first line mandated by the contest.

The story I ended up submitting for the contest was one that I co-wrote with my niece Emily (which I can’t post here until the results are announced – in a few weeks). After we had sent it off, I felt that I needed to write just one more story that wasn’t a lark, that actually had the required first line, that wasn’t co-authored; just a straight-up story of my very own in response to the contest challenge – just for my own satisfaction. “Stepping Through” was what I came up with.

A few months ago, I found a flash fiction website, Flash Fiction Friday, that offers weekly story prompts that anyone who cared to could use to write stories. The next two pieces arose from a couple of the prompts.

“Wild Heart” emerged from the cue: “Take your typical fairy tale villain or monster and make them the protagonist. Must use ‘something wicked this way comes’ as a line in the story. Word limit: 1,200 words.” Rather than write about a wolf or a witch or a wicked stepmother, I went with a creature from Philippine folklore instead – the tikbalang – and wove a fable around it.

“Driving Away” was in response to the cue: “Write a story where your protagonist is mistaken about something they ‘know’ to be true. Length: up to 1,200 words.” The obvious route was to create a character who was cocksure about some belief, comfortable in his certitude. Contrarian that I am, I decided to write instead about someone who was absolutely certain about his flaws. Someone, in other words, a lot like me.

Notes on the Previous Five Stories

A bunch of tales slightly longer than three-minute (600-words-or-less) stories this time, though all still falling under the realm of microfiction (which seems to be the literary form that suits my temperament best – more on that later, maybe). Origins:

1. “Walking Home” was a counterweight to the story immediately preceding it, “Silent Sue,” in which I met a sad little girl who was well and truly lost. I wanted to reassure myself (and Sue, in that strange oneiric way that is one feature of our imaginations) that sometimes little lost children can be found – or can find themselves.

2. “Possessed” came from a story suggestion by Lily Rose: a demon is possessed by the spirit of a human and requires an exorcism to get rid of it. Given the subject matter, the prospect of going into the dark to pull this one out made me more than a little nervous, and yet no story in this blog came out as easily as this one did. And it actually came with bits of sweetness inside it. Weird.

3. “Dreams” more properly belongs in the previous suite of five stories since it, like “Silent Sue,” was written in response to Mary C. Charest’s challenge: construct a dream within a dream – where one dreamer starts and another wakes up. I actually made a draft of it before I wrote “Silent Sue,” but it took me longer to get it into shape, so it got left out.

4. “Made in Heaven” was written because nearly all my recent stories have been somewhat bleak and I wanted to come up with something sappy and sentimental and unambiguously upbeat for a change. So, yeah, I wrote a love story.

The accompanying photo, by the way, was one I took from the real White Island, off the island of Camiguin in the Philippines, where I did feel like I was walking on the ocean itself, under a sky on fire. Sadly, although I was with people, I wasn’t with anyone special.

5. “Silent Screams” came about from a simple, innocent goal: to write a science fiction story. This is what emerged. What can I say? Whole sections of my brain are mucky and apocalyptic. And apparently raving lunatics and caustic bitches live there. (“And he was such a nice, quiet guy…”)

Notes on the Previous Five Stories

As I wrote, the five preceding stories were written to meet story challenges posted in the Three-Minute Fiction Facebook page. The stories and the challenges, in order:

1. “Uncool” was in response to Justina Ireland’s challenge: the story would have to include the word “shenanigans” and at least one reference to bacon.

2. and 3. “I Like” and “Visitors” were in response to Terri Zeller Wallace’s challenge: it would have to include a “healing,” contain the word “smörgåsbord,” and feature at least one reptilian character. (Because “I Like” went over the 600-word limit of a three-minute story, I wrote the other story, “Visitors,” to fall within the limit.)

4. “Vertigo” was in response to Rick Amicon’s challenge: someone would have to fall down in the story.

5. “Silent Sue” was in response to Mary C. Charest’s challenge: construct a dream within a dream – where one dreamer starts and another wakes up.

Serendipity note: As I was writing “Vertigo,” my computer monitor started to shimmy. 3.2 earthquake. Honest to God.

Notes on “In the Glade” and a Teaser for Upcoming Stories

The challenge for the recently concluded round of the Three-Minute Fiction contest was: a story of 600 words or less in which one character arrives and another leaves. (The winner and runners-up are posted on the website.) “In the Glade” was my entry.

I love this story. No surprise there: this blog is precisely meant to be a repository of things I have written, crafted, and made that I am proud of and that have been my joy to create (which means this blog is probably going to be dotted with these proud parent asides). But I love this story particularly: for the effort and grief it took to write it (yes, grief is part of the process), for the gift I was given as I was writing it, and for the way so many odd pieces of me came together in one strange place.

* * *

Three-Minute Fiction has a Facebook page where writers, would-be writers, and fans come to shoot the breeze. A little more than a month ago, I posted a question: If you were the judge, what would your story challenge be?

The post generated a lot of responses, some of them whimsical (William Lowe: a discussion of what kind of pizza to order), some of them hilarious (Alan Pratt: a cheese grater must exchange actual dialogue with a main character, gasoline must be consumed as an aperitif and only one mammal may appear in the story), some of them earnest (Emily Smith: a story with a character who has a flaw they do not know about).

I had a lot of fun writing for the contest, and I was aching to continue riding the creative swell, so I decided to take on several of the challenges, to use them as prompts to write more stories, just for fun.

The next five stories in this blog (which I will post as I am able) are what I came up with in response to the challenges.

Postscript to “In the Glade”

I was working on this story deep into the night on Saturday, Sept. 24, trying to finish it by the Three-Minute Fiction contest deadline the next day. About 3:00 am, I went downstairs for a smoke break when I found this very young, petite woman passed out in the stairwell of my apartment building. I asked her if she was all right, and she roused and sat up. I could smell alcohol from her. She was so out of it she couldn’t remember what apartment she came from or had been heading to. I couldn’t even figure out from her incoherent statements if she lived here or was just staying with someone. At one point, she even asked what city she was in. She kept saying, “This is not good, this is not good,” and that she just wanted to sleep.

I couldn’t leave her there. If someone found her they might call the cops, and I wanted to spare her that trouble. I told her she could crash on my couch and sleep it off. I took her to my place, I gave her a glass of water to rehydrate and left a plastic container nearby in case she had to throw up. She fell asleep. I continued working on my story and turned in a little after 5:00 am.

About 5:30 am, when I was in bed but not yet asleep, I heard her leave my apartment. I heard her in the hallway knocking on doors. I didn’t hear any response. Then she knocked on my door, having given up or thought better of it, and I let her back in. She was so distraught. I found out she was staying with a friend. She thought she had somehow left her friend’s place and fallen asleep on the stairs, though she couldn’t remember having done that. And she couldn’t remember her friend’s apartment number. I said she couldn’t go around knocking on doors so early in the morning, so just get some more sleep, we’d figure things out later. She went back to the couch and I went to bed.

At 8:00 am, I woke up, she was sitting on my couch, still very upset. She still couldn’t remember what had happened that caused her to end up in the stairwell; it was all a blank to her. She kept repeating how this was the worst night of her life. I asked her her friend’s name, which was Debra. I went out and knocked on one of my neighbor’s doors to see if she was Debra, and found that my neighbor had heard knocking at 5:30 am and had been so frightened she had called the cops. I had to explain to her the circumstances and reassure her that there was nothing to be worried about. I went to the apartment manager’s unit to see if he could tell me what Debra’s apartment number was. He was upset that I had woken him up so early on a Sunday morning. He wouldn’t tell me the apartment number (which I understood: a matter of confidentiality), so I asked him if he could give Debra a call and let her know her friend was with me, and to call me.

I went back to my place. She and I decided to go downstairs and look around, to try to find her car or try to figure out where her friend’s apartment was. She couldn’t find her car (or couldn’t remember where she had parked), which upset her even more. She knew her friend’s apartment was on the poolside part of the building, so we went to the pool area. Looking up from there, she thought she recognized her friend’s place through one of the windows. We went to that apartment, she knocked on the door, and it was the right one. Her friend let her in, and I went back to my place. I got a few hours more of sleep, then was able to finish my story in time.

It was only towards the end that I learned her name. I asked her just before we went down to look for her car. Her name was Wendy.

True story.

(October 2011)

Notes on “To His Coy Mistress” and “Suo”

For several years now, NPR’s All Things Considered has been running a short, short story contest called Three-Minute Fiction. The idea is simple: people send in stories that can be read over the radio within three minutes – that is, stories of 600 words or less – and an author-judge selects from among the entrées what he or she considers the best of the lot. To make things even more interesting, the judge will toss in a challenge: stories must include certain words, for example, or start and end with specific lines. The contest has generated a lot of enthusiasm, with thousands of submissions each competition round, from professional and aspiring writers alike. After all, anyone can tell a story of a few hundred words – and at that length, a novice or amateur has a chance of coming up with a gem of a tale as well as the most polished of writers. So, therefore, many try.

A regular NPR listener, I had been aware of the contest and listened to some of the winners read aloud on the program. (There are small prizes awarded – signed copies of the author-judges’ books, usually – but the real reward is the exposure your story gets from being read on air and posted on the NPR website). But the thought of joining the game myself never crossed my mind – at least, not until I was driving around the Haight in San Francisco one evening earlier this year in January, heard on the radio that another round of the contest was coming up, and was suddenly determined to submit something of my own. What gave rise to my resolve at that particular point in time is a tale in itself – one that would take considerably more than 600 words – and maybe someday I’ll tell it, when I’m feeling a little more rash and a lot more self-revealing.

In any event, that particular round required a story (of 600 words or less, of course) that had one character making a joke and one character weeping. What came up for me was the first story in this blog, “To His Coy Mistress.” I’m quite fond and proud of it, since, well, I wrote it. Also, it’s the first piece of creative writing I had done in a long, long time that was longer than a haiku or short verse, so its service as an icebreaker endears it to me all the more.

Many months later, the next round came up, and the challenge this time was to have a character come to town (or village, city, whatever) and another one leave. “Suo” was my first response to that challenge, one that I did not submit since it’s pretty bleak (among other reasons), and yet one I also hold in much affection (see reason stated in previous paragraph). I came up with another story that I did submit, which I will post at a later time.

Anyway, that’s how these first two stories came about.