Chuck Wendig: Terribleminds

Flash Fiction Challenge: Six Random Titles

Click this link.

It’ll give you six random titles.

Click it only once.

And choose one of those six titles as the title of this week’s flash fiction.

Flash meaning: under 1000 words.

Your story is due by Friday, the 10th, at noon EST.

Post at your online space, link back here.

Easy-peasy, poke-and-squeezy.

Click, pick, and write.

terribleminds

197 responses to “Flash Fiction Challenge: Six Random Titles”

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  1. The end of that post verges dangerously close to “jiggery-pokery” and “applesauce.”I’m keeping a PC eye on you, Chuck.

    Reply

  5. Hmmm.

    “The Ragged Abyss”
    “The Third Girl”
    “The Flame of the Years”

    I’m so tempted to just write three….

    Though, I suppose, I should just pick one for this, and keep two in pocket for when I’m out of story challenges.

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    • Great story! Realistic super hero stories have always been a vice of mine. I was hooked quickly. Also, it was wonderful light-hearted finish.

      Reply

    • Thanks, guys 🙂

      I’m wondering about the font being hard to read. Is it too small? I’m very new to blogging, and I’ve gone back and forth with this. This story is in the Blogger “normal” sized font, and some of my previous posts (like the fairy wings one) are in “large,” which looks freakishly gigantic when I’m writing the post, but not so much on the blog. Anybody else using Blogger? Which do you go for?

      Reply

      • I think it might have more to do with the layout / the font than the size. I’ve fairly recently switched from Blogger to WordPress because I prefer the Terms & Conditions of WordPress a bit more, but functionally all of the platforms are fairly similar.

        Depending on how knowledgeable you are of HTML, you should be able to tweak the font size in the code directly in the post, but that could take away some of the responsive element, and the browser settings can still impact the user experience.

        If you want to be really hardcore about UX, you can download Firefox, Opera, Safari, IE, and Chrome, and check out how it looks on all of them. (Probably should check it out on a phone / tablet as well) but that’s more of a designer issue and not something you should have to necessarily worry about as a writer.

        Alternatively, as readers, there are options. I tend to use the ‘Reader’ mode of safari, which reformats stories into my system font in black text on a white background. For those using other browsers, each one should have a ‘Zoom’ functionality that will let them enlarge the font size of a specific page. It’s ⌘+ on a mac, but windows/linux should also have a shortcut built in.

        Hmm, that was a bit longer and more ramble-y than I intended. Hope some of it helps.

        Reply

      • I feel as though Google has abandoned Blogger and I’ve always found getting the formatting right to be a chore. My current loves are WordPress and Squarespace, but there are a lot of good platforms out there. Bruce Sterling uses Tumblr, and I’m certainly not going to argue with him.

        Reply

    • I really loved this. You captured the inner emotions of the character really well, and I love seeing a super hero’s human side.

      Reply

    • Hey Furyious, I really enjoyed your story. I thought it was going to be kind of science-fictiony… And I would have liked that. But I absolutely loved the direction you went! It’s a lovely lesson hidden in a great story.

      Reply

      • Thanks for all the kind words. I wrote that in the evening after a late shift. I have since gone back and reread it a few times, and now wish it had been better edited (or edited at all LOL).
        I wasn’t sure where it was going to end. When I go there, though, that’s what came out of my fingers!! Sometimes the stories do write themselves, don’t they?

        Reply

  23. Hi, here is my piece. I wrote it at one in the morning, where sleep did not find me but the bones in fingers were aching to move. I had a really fun time writing this. It started off as a story but it didn’t really flow well for me, so I went back to my roots and it came so naturally. Thanks for reading.

    https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5631538103597709339#editor/target=post;postID=7198951182530483816;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=0;src=postname

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    • That’s the danger of the randomizer, I suppose, but I have to say I like what you’ve done with the least worst of them. Nice job of world building, and you’ve created fleshed out characters with hints of other stories buried throughout.

      Reply

    • This was awesome. I agree with Fred here as well – your worldbuilding feels rich and detailed, and I would love another trip into this world. At first I didn’t like that they wore veils, but then I thought, hey, they live in the desert. Wouldn’t want to choke on sand… 🙂 Once again, awesome story.

      Reply

  29. I got Forgotten Ashes, The Azure Mist, Angel of Time, The Rainbow’s Waves, The Woman of the Voyages and Death in the Tales. That last one caused me to channel my mother for 337 words:

    http://samkdsonlinepace.blogspot.com/

    Given so many leftover words I might play with one of the other titles later in the week.

    Reply

  36. Well, rats. I got a couple of good ones and “magnificent flames” merged with an idea I’d been kicking around for a contest. At 998 I decided to kick it up a notch and go for the contest entry. Final word count went 2200, but I think it’s solid for an entry. I’ll have use another from the six for a flash piece later this week

    Reply
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