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.
98 responses to “Flash Fiction Challenge: A Title And Two Lines”
Awesome Challenge –>https://atcrump.com/2017/09/01/how-to-run-while-falling/ <– Enjoy!
Title: How to Run While Falling. Opening Line: "Some people don't follow direction very well." Closing Line: "The smoke was blue and grey and smelled like a promise."
Thanks Chuck.
This is wildly creative. I’m so impressed with what you made from the sentences. I like how it’s broken into vignettes but tells such a linear story at the same time.
Thank you very much. 🙂
I was not expecting the middle part! You write flawed characters well.
Thank you. I’d hoped to surprise people.
Well, I wasn’t expecting *that*. This was a really well written descent into a kind of social damnation before you offer a glimmer of hope there at the end. Nice work!
Thank you.
This sure made me uncomfortable at times! A very pathetic character that I felt conflicted about feeling sympathetic for. I really enjoyed what you did with the ending. Nicely done!
Thank you very much. It’s always fun when you don’t know who to root for.
Title 3. Opened with 4 and closed with 9. I hope you enjoy.
https://outrageousactsofwriting.wordpress.com/2017/09/02/how-to-run-while-falling/
Wowser. Love the canter. It’s great that the narrator finds a church, and of course the ending. WELL DONE!
Great use of the prompts. Dark, and I feel like you could use this as part of a larger story.
Really cool. Definitely feels like it could be expanded into a larger piece. The memory of the mother really grounds the character and the reader amidst all the chaos.
Thank you. I enjoyed your storytelling as well. If found your story creepy, elegant and powerful. Just like a spider 🙂 Matricentric in style, which I also liked. I can see your spider/human beings populating a trilogy and maybe spinning a web or two on the big screen!
Thanks! That is a really nice compliment. =)
Very cool piece. The imagery was fantastic. A great example of someone we really shouldn’t sympathize with, but we just cant help ourselves.
Title: We Never Heard Them Coming
First Sentence: Deep inside the twisting wood, there is a house, in a gully.
Last sentence: Silence blanketed the meadow.
https://dcxli.wordpress.com/2017/09/02/we-never-heard-them-coming/
As always, feedback welcome!
I liked what you did in so few words. I’ll leave a comment on your blog.
Loved this. Your words painted a picture.
There was some good world building going on here, which is even more impressive considering how little space you did it in!
Thank you so much!
This left me with so many questions, but in a good way! Really enjoyed the mood of this piece.
https://youcantgoback-andotherimpossibilities.blogspot.com.au/2017/09/the-limits-of-our-imperfection.html
Title: The Limits of Our Imperfections
First Line: No one bothered to tell her about this part.
Last Line: She spread her wings and stepped off the cliff.
a little over 1,000 word mark, sorry about that, chief.
enjoy.
I left a comment on your blog. I’m still thinking about your piece. There was a lot going on. Well done.
Just read your comment there. Thank you so much for it. I know there was so much in the content of it… and I had no idea where it was going – but isn’t that half the fun of being a writer? Being taken on that journey inside your mind and imagination?
Of course it is. 😀
Really cool world building. The ending really struck me. I really felt for Eve and her sacrifice.
Oh! Thank you so much! I’ve researched Angels and have been watching a lot of ‘Supernatural’ lately… so some of my story came from this too. 🙂
Isn’t it great when two ideas from two totally different things come together? I read this flash fiction to my Mum yesterday, and she loved it. 😀
OMIGOSH! No 7 in the closing lines is mine!! It’s the actual closing line of a story written and published three years ago, so I’ll be interested to see how others get to that line in their own stories.
Now looking for a combo I can use for something new…
I loved that closing line so much, I built the story around it.
Agreed!
https://theurbanspaceman.net/2017/09/03/when-they-called-her-home-flash-fiction/
Hope nobody minds that I Oxford comma’d my chosen closing line. And yes, comma’d is totally a verb.
This is where three days without sleep gets you, and it isn’t home.
Spooky and atmospheric! Fantastic imagery all around. I love the sense that we’re in a larger, longer work but that it stands on its own. The stuff about fallen angels and whatever-you-call-ems is also compelling but not overdone. GREAT!
Thanks! I already knew that regardless of the titles/sentences, I was going to write a story about angels this week, so it was fun to make that fit.
I enjoyed the imagery in this story. Your description of the protagonist jarred me as it was not what I expected so good job on that! It feels like a longer work, and I could see this as part of a bigger story. Well done.
I absolutely love your prose. The narrator was a total badass. “A sword-wielding black woman standing ankle-deep in eviscerated white boys?” And then you turn THAT on its head! Bravo! And by the way, the Oxford comma is every bit as important as properly sealed grout.
I really want to read more about this character! I really enjoyed her voice and was very intrigued by the mythology and events that transpired in the story. Really well done.
I think this is my favorite thing I’ve read of yours. Has sort of an American Gods vibe. Good stuff!
Title # 2, Opening Line # 3, and closing line #9.
https://laurengreenewrites.com/2017/09/02/i-held-your-heart-once/
I am sad for the narrator, which is amazing in so few words. The cold is palpable, as is the ridiculous desire to make love in the middle of it. Well done!
Thank you for reading mine!
I like the microcosm-like nature of this one. It’s just an experience between two people but says a lot about the narrator’s mindset and the broken relationship/world she finds herself in.
Thank you. My intention was to have the setting imitate the brokenness of their relationship.
This gave me a melancholy feeling. I really enjoyed the descriptive use of language. I loved the image of “his old face hidden in his new one” and “I tried to blow the blue out of my fingers”. Really nice.
Thank you for reading. I was going for melancholy.
Neptune’s rain…
http://wp.me/p7laFr-ql
Fun! And somehow came out dark. These prompts have a way of plumbing my subconscious mind I think…
Really dark. I feel sad for your narrator as she’s trying to hold it all together with these people in her life who are falling apart. I loved the Jackie Chan line. Great imagery. I could picture their world.
Well that one hits you with a bit of a gut punch. The way you sketch out the narrator’s sad and stressful life and how he’s just walking the razor’s edge… very cool.
Really enjoyed the imagery and writing style of this piece. I was a little confused at the beginning with Harry but everything started coming together as the story progressed. Cool use of the prompts.
Predominantly blue, paralleling your title, yet told with such fervency! I can feel the MC’s desperation lifting from the text. How far will one go to keep a family from sinking? Nice work.
Thanks very much for reading!
Title: When They Called Her Home
First Line: No one had ever bothered to tell her about this part.
Last Line: She plucked a hair from the severed head, and threaded her needle.
https://silvenrain.tumblr.com/post/165026203966/when-they-called-her-home
This is the first completed story I’ve ever written. Thanks so much for the challenge and inspiration!
That’s fantastic! Love the imagery. I used the same opening and closing lines with a much different result. It’s so interesting where we go with a prompt.
If this was your first story, it’s a great start. Creepy and cool! I really loved the ending. I also have to admit that I laughed when you used the word “carapace”–it’s such an unusual word, and I used it in my story this week as well.
Thank you so much! I’ve never written a short story before, most of my writing before this has been poetry or unfinished work. I usually start out strong but then have trouble finishing things…I think that having the last line helped me to focus on where the story needed to go. This was such a fun challenge. I learned a lot while writing and continue to learn from what other people are doing with the prompts. 🙂
Endings are hard. I’m like you–I always start well then sort of fizzle out. This prompt was a good one, I think.
Ummm, first time here. Hello everyone. I hope you enjoy my little story better than my husband did. His take: That’s pretty twisted.
https://jellybeenz64.wordpress.com/a-title-and-two-lines/
Yeah, he’s got a point. And well done you! :>
Wow. Disturbing. I like how you weave the title in. I did that in mine too (same title). Great imagery.
I can’t imagine at all why he said that. He’ll be walking soft and looking over his shoulder for the next few days, I’m sure. Good stuff.
https://incognitoscribblings.tumblr.com/post/165035829730/when-they-called-her-home
The pieces for this one didn’t really fit until the end of the process. Strange how things come together.
I love this. You create suspense so perfectly. Well done. The prompts work perfectly with the story you created.
Awesome! I really enjoyed reading this. Great build up of tension.
Nice and suffocating. It almost felt like a Stephen King jam. Great job!
Very much enjoyed your story. Liked how you used the nursery rhyme to set the tone. On it’s own, Mary Mary can be viewed as a religious allegory. You played that well into a psychological thriller context. Unsettling. (in the best way;)
Ooooooh, love myself a sharp revenge story! You held my attention from start to finish. Note to hubby: sleep with one eye open 😉
[…] this week, we get a challenge called A Title and Two Lines, in which Chuck listed ten choices from each week’s entries (none of mine made the cut), and […]
755 words, using title 6, first line 2, last line 8. Please to enjoy!
https://sambrady.wordpress.com/2017/09/06/chuck-wendig-the-empire-of-all-knowing-eyes/
How ominous! I love what you did with the prompts. Very original, and the imagery really stuck with me.
Title: The Limits Of Our Imperfection.
Opening line: Martin spread the folders out on the table. “These two.”
Closing line: She spread her wings and stepped off the cliff.
I first chose the closing line as it was my favourite. Then the opening line suggested the plot to me. And the title… well, I chose the one who could at least fit a little.
Around 1000 words.
https://medium.com/@VicenteLRuiz/the-limits-of-our-imperfection-e49d71286478
Good story. Makes me want to know more about the world and who the kids really were.
Sorry, things are frantic here and I’ve completely forgotten to check comments these past weeks (and other people’s efforts as weel, shame on me).
Many thanks for your comment, I’m glad it makes you want more (don’t we always seek that?).
Nod to the arachnid lovers out there! Magnificent storytelling.
Title: I Held Your Heart Once
First line: The pale pink rabbit, some lost child’s toy, blinked at him from the kitchen chair.
Last line: Silence blanketed the meadow.
https://dirckwrites.wordpress.com/the-current-story/i-held-your-heart-once/
Not done consciously, but somewhat under 1000 words. Possibly done self-consciously, though, as it’s my first outing here.
https://aliceekeyes.blogspot.com/
The Limits Of Our Imperfection
Deep inside the twisting wood, there is a house, in a gully.
Silence blanketed the meadow.
[…] Yet another fine writing prompt from the wonderful mind of Mr Wendig at terribleminds. […]
Hello, Mr. Wendig!
Once again, a wonderful exercise. Glad to participate in this prompt.
I chose:
title: We Never Heard Them Coming
first line: Three days without sleep was the least of my worries
closing line: Silence blanketed the meadow.
paulgrignon.wordpress.com
Comes in a little over 1,200. But close enough. Thank you for providing your legion of fans a chance to indulge their creative spirits in an excellent format.
The Limits Of Our Imperfection
Deep inside the twisting wood, there is a house, in a gully.
Silence blanketed the meadow.
https://aliceekeyes.blogspot.com/
[…] This is a 2-hour-session flash fiction, based on a prompt from Terrible Minds. […]
Title: The Limits Of Our Imperfection
First line: No one had ever bothered to tell her about this part.
Last line: They would never know what she had done.
http://www.mdflyn.com/limits-imperfection-original-flash-fiction/
Nice. The story is vaguely sci-fi without being sci-fi at all. That takes a deft touch. This is the title I suggested, so it’s cool to see such a neat take on it.
[…] is a type of Random Title or Must Include flash fiction offering. Chuck Wendig has been collecting titles, first sentences and last sentences from his readers, ten of each. Now’s the time to select from them…. if you only use one […]
[…] for Chuck Wendig’s Flash Fiction Challenge: A Title and Two Lines Word Count: 2,699 As I wrote I kinda strayed away from the title a bit and the ending could use […]
https://jakashadows.wordpress.com/2017/09/08/flash-fiction-when-they-called-her-home/
Title: When They Called Her Home
Opening Line: The odd man remained silent, forcing a small, copper box into my hands.
Closing Line: I plucked a hair from the severed head, and threaded my needle.
Hi! So, I didn’t have time to workshop this through other people, but I went through a few drafts. Technically, Chuck said to write the damn story instead of 1,000 words, so mine’s around 1,400. I’d be happy to change any of it.
I Held Your Heart Once
No one had ever bothered to tell her about this part.
Silence blanketed the meadow.
http://www.nicolecthomaswrites.com/blog/i-held-your-heart-once
I chose: Title When They Called Her Home
First Line – Deep inside the twisting wood, there is a house, in a gully.
Second Line – The smoke was blue and grey and smelled like a promise.
https://www.janadenardo.com/2017/09/08/flash-fiction-wh…-called-her-home/
This was great fun. It ended up long at just over 1800 and it could have went a lot longer.
here’s the prompts that i ran with!
How to Run While Falling, ft. “No one had ever bothered to tell her about this part,” and “She spread her wings and stepped off the cliff.”
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_YXMqfmIx4Gw8W3IwPuN7XH-TuypzdpbFcVpmGr_PUs/edit?usp=sharing
Since there’s a thousand possibilities there, I went for nos 1, 1, and 1. And strangely, it came in at 1000 on the nose.
We Never Heard Them Coming http://jemimapett.com/blog/2017/09/08/fridayflash-fiction-we-never-heard-them-coming/
I randomly rolled mine with 3d10, though it ended up rather longer than 1000 (closer to 2500):
https://shadowplaytheatre.wordpress.com/2017/09/08/neptunes-rain-cuts-like-diamonds/
5 – Neptune’s Rain Cuts Like Diamonds
8 – The bodies were bobbing on the sea, and a raft drifted behind.
7 – She plucked a hair from the severed head, and threaded her needle.
I liked this a lot. A different sort of world, and very alien. It felt like a retelling of an old myth.
First-time caller, long-time lurker. Thanks for the excuse to get fictional.
http://jameshowden.com/2017/09/electric-boy-meets-conductor-girl-a-short-story/
I missed the deadline – and the word count (I have a toddler crawling all over me!!), but here it is. I’m hoping to get back to edit it later… https://nvrivera.wordpress.com/2017/09/08/flashfiction-how-to-run-while-falling/
I’m a little late here, but I’ve finally finished it.
Title: The Empire of All-Knowing Eyes
First Sentence: The pale pink rabbit, some child’s lost toy, blinked at him from the kitchen chair.
Last Sentence: She plucked a hair from the severed head and threaded her needle.
I cheated a little. The last sentence is actually the second-to-last sentence.
Anyway; here it is.
https://modernauthors.org/2017/09/08/the-empire-of-all-knowing-eyes/
Seems like there have been a few first timers on this challenge. Myself included. Somewhat belated, but here goes. Thanks!
https://noiseinthevoid.blogspot.ca/
So its a bit late… I had to build a place to post it and it is not cooperating lol. Hopefully it works this time.
https://noiseinthevoid.blogspot.ca/2017/09/when-they-called-her-home.html
[…] is what I am getting at. I have decided to accept a personal challenge, one that was inspired by this little baby over at Chuck Wendig’s digs. I have egregiously missed the deadline, but what the hey, […]
[…] Friday, everyone! I follow a wonderful blog by writer Chuck Wendig called Terribleminds. It’s actually more hilariously inappropriate and blunt than anything, and he’s written […]
First attempt. Be gentle.
My first steps: https://medium.com/@dorsey.baraka/we-never-heard-them-coming-932249ac9ea9