Flash Fiction Challenge: Three Haikus Tell One Story


Last week’s challenge: “Choose Your Motif

The haiku.

Three lines in syllables of 5 / 7 / 5.

You’re going to use the haiku form to tell a story.

I’ll be nice: you can have three haikus to tell that story.

Hew to the 5 / 7 / 5 structure — yes, there are other permutations of the haiku form, but we’re going to go with the base level structure we all know and love from English class.

This week has a prize:

If you win, I’ll toss you a copy of each of my writing-related e-books. That’s both Penmonkey books and all four of my “lists of 25” books (starting with 250 Things).

You’ll get those e-books in PDF format.

You have till next Friday to post your three-haiku story in the comments below. That is to say, by February 8th at noon EST. You get only one entry, so choose well. (Multiple entries will disqualify all entries.)

I’ll choose my favorite the week following.

Now go forth and haiku the hell out of this place.

Or, rather:

The terribleminds

haiku challenge is now live

for you to conquer

EDIT: Winners!

THREE WINNERS, DECLARED. I know, I said one but c’mon. This was a very, very hard challenge to judge. Because so many good options. Sooooo many. Anyway. The three winners:

UrsulaV!

Valerie Valdes!

and…

Spenschwartz!

CONGRATS, HOOMANS.

Hit me up at terribleminds at gmail dot com, if you please.

— c.


165 responses to “Flash Fiction Challenge: Three Haikus Tell One Story”

  1. jingles echoing through darkness

    giant shoes tapping
    Jingles puts on his makeup
    cigarette burning

    he opens a drawer
    removes a vial, syringe
    wets the needle’s tip

    he’s eager to play
    bulb of his spitting corsage
    filled with sweet poison

    -Belly Peterson

  2. Running from danger

    Trying my best to survive

    Blurring the future

    A flurry of pain

    Blood smeared blade grins my way

    The world now blurring

    Stumbling consciousness

    Looking for help where theres none

    Black void beckoning

  3. Tantrum

    Story betrayed Russ.
    He pouted, threw down, shouted,
    “Stories are not real.

    “They do not matter,
    Dressed-up lies for children’s eyes.”
    Story stayed silent,

    Hurting but content.
    Russ can go catch twenty-two,
    As Story abides.

  4. Uncle Sungei, look!
    The white egrets are leaving!
    Is your grass not sweet?

    Summer calls them north.
    While my beard grows greenly wild,
    Egrets will return.

    Uncle Sungei! Why
    Is your beard shaved – the fields paved?
    Are the egrets late?

  5. “I cannot write it
    until it is complete here.”
    He pokes his temple.

    She bites back her sigh
    and merely nods. It will
    fall to her, of course.

    Nothing is ever
    written in this house until
    she picks up her pen.

  6. It happened like this:
    One moment they weren’t here,
    And the next, they were.

    The invaders came,
    They saw, they conquered, and then
    They laid down and died.

    In just an eye’s blink
    We were defeated. Again.
    CONTINUE? YES / NO

  7. Knick-knacks from their shelves
    tumbled with each violent shake.
    No common quake, this.

    From the bric-a-brac
    littering the old shop floor,
    Several inches deep,

    A tiny hand rose.
    Another, and another…
    The figurines lived.

  8. Outside my window
    was a nightmarish creature
    lurking in the dark.

    Can’t be what it seems…
    evil in my own backyard…
    staring back at me.

    Chill runs down my spine,
    realize just a reflection.
    It’s right behind me!!

  9. “Follow the Clues”

    Smokey-eyed silhouette
    The curvy distraught wife asks
    “Who killed my husband?”

    I follow wild geese
    I wait as the cards unfold
    Dice roll on the board

    Not Colonel Mustard
    In the kitchen, with the pipe
    It was the butler

  10. THREE WINNERS, DECLARED. I know, I said one but c’mon. This was a very, very hard challenge to judge. Because so many good options. Sooooo many. Anyway. The three winners:

    UrsulaV!

    Valerie Valdes!

    and…

    Spenschwartz!

    CONGRATS, HOOMANS.

    Hit me up at terribleminds at gmail dot com, if you please.

    — c.

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