You have given us titles.
You have given us opening lines.
You have given us closing lines.
Now it’s time to pick a batch and write some stories.
The job is easy enough: choose (randomly if you like) a title, an opening line, a closing line, and then write a story with… well, do I need to explain it? Use the title, the opening line, the closing line. C’MON PEOPLE JEEZ.
Length is — well, flash fiction is usually ~1000 words, but let’s forego any kind of length here and say, “Just write the damn story.”
Post at your online space, give us a link.
Due by next Friday, September 8th, noon EST.
Title
- We Never Heard Them Coming
- I Held Your Heart Once
- How To Run While Falling
- Once Hidden, Three Times Found
- Neptune’s Rain Cuts Like Diamonds
- The Empire Of All-Knowing Eyes
- Electric Boy Meets Conductor Girl
- When They Called Her Home
- The Limits Of Our Imperfection
- The Rest Are Your Problem
Opening Line
- “Listen to the goat,” Valerie said, “it will change your life.”
- The pale pink rabbit, some child’s lost toy, blinked at him from the kitchen chair.
- “I told you this was a bad idea!” he shouted.
- Three days without sleep was the least of my worries.
- Some people don’t follow direction very well.
- Martin spread the folders out on the table, “These two.”
- The odd man remained silent, forcing a small, copper box into my hands.
- The bodies were bobbing on the sea, and a raft drifted behind.
- Deep inside the twisting wood, there is a house, in a gully.
- No one had ever bothered to tell her about this part.
Closing Line
- Silence blanketed the meadow.
- We huddled low in the arroyo as wind wailed across the weeping sands.
- She spread her wings and stepped off the cliff.
- They would never know what she had done.
- And that, my son, is how I learned to wrestle alligators.
- And though the light was still blinking in the distance, never again could it harm her.
- She plucked a hair from the severed head, and threaded her needle.
- The children formed a circle, lifted their heads, and watched as the body disappeared into the sky.
- The smoke was blue and grey and smelled like a promise.
- I watched the butterfly escape the spiderweb and I laughed.