Tag: fiction (page 6 of 17)

This past week I said some nonsense about how writers can and maybe should deal with setting.

Which means, the topic of today’s challenge shall be: you guessed it, setting.

Behold last week’s challenge: “FIRE OF THE GODS.”

I’m going to give you five whacked-out settings.

You may choose one, and set your story within that space.

What five settings?

Here goes:

Lunar Brothel

Abandoned Amusement Park

The Bottom of the Ocean

Penthouse Apartment during the Apocalypse

Fairy Tale Forest

There you go.

Interpret as you see fit.

The key is, when writing, to never abandon the setting — do not go outside of it. Further, make sure that the setting helps to drive the story. The setting should almost be a character in its own right.

Bring it to life.

You have — drum roll please — 1000 words.

Story due in by Friday, noon (EST), March 30th.

Do not put your story in the comments below — place it online (somewhere, don’t care, long as we can read it) and provide us with the link so that we can go and ogle your pulsating brilliance.

Now get to penmonkeying, penmonkeys.

Last week’s “I’ve Chosen Your Words” challenge was a tricky one, but some admirable tales came out of that one. You will go and check it out, won’t you? Good.

This week, I talked a bit about creativity and said that it was the fire we stole from the gods.

And I thought, “Hmm. Fire.”

Fire.

FIRE.

Excellent.

Last week I gave you words, this week, I give you a title:

Your story will be titled: “The Fire of the Gods.”

And that’s it. That’s all I demand of you.

Well, besides the standard parameters, of course. The story must be under 1000 words. Post it at your blog (not in the comments here, or I may delete it), then link back so we can all see it.

You’ve got the traditional week. Get the stories in by Friday, March 23rd, noon EST.

Now write, won’t you?

Last week’s challenge — Song Shuffle! — is alive and absorbing your gaze.

Forgive the lateness of this — but yesterday, my PC took a shit-bath and now I’ve gone and pulled the Mac Mini from off the television and am using that as my current ‘puter.

Here’s the challenge:

This past week, I talked about word choice, so it seems only fitting I choose words for you.

I have, in fact, chosen 20 words.

You must choose 10 of these words and use them throughout your ~1000 word flash fiction story.

Might be tricky, but hey, that’s why this is a challenge and not, say, me tickling your privates with a feather.

The ten words:

Beast, brooch, cape, dinosaur, dove, fever, finger, flea, gate, insult, justice, mattress, moth, paradise, research, scream, seed, sparrow, tornado, university.

You’ve got a week. Friday, 15th, by noon EST.

Post your stories online (not here in the comments, please) and link back here.

Now go and gnaw on the words I have chosen.

Last week’s challenge — “Tell a story in five sentences” — is all tied up and cinched with a bow. Those looking for a winner to that challenge, keep your eyes peeled on that blog post. I’ll announce at some point today. It’s a toughie, as usual, because, fuckadang, so many good options.

I loved this challenge so much, I’m bringing it back a second time.

As they say, second verse, same as the first.

Here we go:

Go to Your Favorite Music Player. Dig out your digital music collection.

Maybe this is iTunes or Spotify, or use Pandora if you’d rather go that way.

Hit SHUFFLE, then “Play.”

Translation: pull up a random song.

The title to this song is the title to your story.

Use the song for inspiration, too, if you feel so inclined.

Word count is the full-bore double-barrel 1000 words, as usual.

You’ve got a week. Get your stories in by noon EST, March 9th. Just to be a little bit of a dick, I’m going to close the comments after that point — I don’t set a deadline for gits and shiggles, after all.

Post at your blog. Link back. You know the drill.

Now queue up some tunes and get thee to some wordsmithy.

Last week’s “Make Me A Sandwich” challenge went pretty apeshit — closing in on 50 submissions at the time of this writing. Go check it out, won’t you?

*blink blink*

Somehow, I have fooled 10,000 of you into following me on Twitter.

This is insane, and suggests that most of you are spam-flavored sex-bots, sex-flavored spam-bots, or brain-diseased serial killers with a penchant for loudmouthed idiocy in the form of questionable writing advice. Either way, it happened, and there you all are, spambot-or-no. So, I thought I’d thank you by giving away a little something-something, bow-chicka-bow-dow.

But I’m still going to make you work for it.

I want you to tell me a story in five sentences.

(Yes, a complete story.)

No longer than 100 words total. The shorter, the better, in fact.

The permutations of the story beyond length are up to you: I don’t much care about genre or subject matter or any other fiddly bits. All I care about is the brevity and, by proxy, the potency of the tale at hand.

Deposit your storytelling awesomeness direct in the comments below. Do not put it at your blog.

You get one entry. So, write strong and choose wisely.

You have until Monday (2/27/2012) at noon EST to get your entries in. Then, by the following Monday, I will pick my favorite out of the whole big-ass bunch of stories.

The writer of my favorite story gets a prize package. Which is not a euphemism for my penis.

Prize package includes:

(1) hard copy of Double Dead, signed.

(1) hard copy of Human Tales anthology (story in it by me), signed.

(1) digital e-book copy of: all of my writing books (including the newest, 500 More Ways To Be A Better Writer), Shotgun Gravy, Irregular Creatures, and, when it comes out (late April), Blackbirds.

(1) handwritten postcard by moi.

Now, if you’re international, you can still enter — but, you’ll either have to pony up for shipping or just accept the digital e-books (i.e. no Double Dead, Human Tales, or postcard).

So, that’s it.

Five sentences.

Buncha giveaway stuff.

Monday’s the end.

Come on and tell us all a story.

* * *

EDIT:

All right. Time to call a winner and then, for giggles, a back-up winner.

First, let me say — some very good stuff here. Also, some very not-good stuff here. And some puzzlingly improper stuff — stuff that didn’t abide by the rules, stuff that fell prey to very easy-to-fix mistakes.

(Also: a curious thread popping up of dudes killing wives or girlfriends. Entries like that are unlikely to ever win anything, by the by.)

So.

Two winners. First winner wins everything I listed. Second winner wins only e-books of my writing-related books (five books in total).

First (grand) winner: Damien Kelly:

“On hurricane day, Daddy said, “Let’s put on our overcoats, and ride the dying storm.” I was nervous, but I trusted him and put on my coat and my boots. We ran around the yard a few times, and circled the roof, just to be sure we knew how to fly. Then we lifted our coat tails and jumped on the hurricane, bound for all points on the compass.
Impaled on broken branches, in a tall oak tree, staining its bark with my blood, I can see my house from here.”

Second runner-up:

Exi!

“A haiku class? Sure!”

“My boyfriend will meet us there.”

Damn it all to hell.

You guys need to email me at terribleminds [at] gmail.com.

Congrats!

Last week’s challenge — “The Unlikable Protagonist” — filled up with some of my favorite entries to date. Go and read the stories from that challenge — you’ll find them interesting, I suspect.

Yesterday, I interviewed author James R. Tuck and Tuck said something that stuck with me:

“You can write a whole page on a character making a sandwich and if you do it right it will be gripping and compelling. Have your character make a banana and mayonnaise sandwich while they discuss killing someone, or divorcing their husband, or sleeping with their girlfriend for the first time. You can turn that sandwich into a load of character detail.”

And I thought, well, shit, that’s true.

Every scene has to be infused with drama and conflict — you have to make every moment count, even if it’s just a guy making a sandwich or a girl squatting out in a field during a long road trip to take a piss.

Then I thought — hey, this should be a flash fiction challenge.

And so it is.

You have up to 1000 words to write a story — not a scene, but a story — where a character makes a sandwich. Any kind of character, any kind of sandwich, but the point is to infuse this seemingly mundane act with the magic story-stuff of drama and conflict. Make it the most interesting “person-making-a-sandwich” story you can possibly make it. It needs to grip the testicles. It must twist the nipples. It must not let go.

That’s your task.

Same details apply: you’ve got one week (ends 2/24 at noon EST). Post story at your blog or webspace and link back here so we can all swing by and have a little looky-see.

Now get cracking.

Make that sandwich. Write that story.