A Flash Fiction Story: Mixed Messages

I'm a big fan of Chuck Wendig's blog over at terribleminds.com and he does an awesome weekly flash fiction challenge for interested writers, for the first time I decided to sit down and snap something out. the challenge was to smash different genre elements together and create something that fit in several places. I liked the results. This is the product of one day of writing, and a few quick and dirty editing passes. Hope y'all enjoy.

(I am nervous about 'publishing' my work. Especially something I was forced to spend so little time on. Since there's only a week given in the contest. I'd like to make a bunch of disclaimers, but I'll just let you read it and be the judge. Now, I'll go back to pretending I'm invincible and the BEST.WRITER.EVER. ;) )

Flash Fiction: A Game of Aspects

Mixed Messages

Her name was Marion. She had the body of a pinup girl, and the eyes of a lost soul haunted by some inner grief. Bright blue eyes that blazed out at him from beneath ravens wing curls. She was beautiful and alluring, and Troy wanted her at once.

She sat at the bar drinking a dirty martini like it was going to drown the sorrow she was failing to hide. Troy slid up to her. His grey suit was tailored to fit, and pitching his voice low, he tipped his fedora at the lady.

“Why don’t I buy your next round?” She looked at him, flushed. Her skin looked so pale against her black flowing dress. Black wasn't her color, neither was the sorrow that hung on her every move.

“Oh, I shouldn't.” She breathed, her voice breathy and frail, matching her perfectly as she glanced down.

“Look babe, I can’t stand to see a pretty little thing like you looking so sad. Just let me keep you company.” He bartered, leaning on the bar and stunning her with a smile. Her lips curved slowly, a timid little smile brightening her whole face.

“Alright, but only for a while. I have to meet someone.” That was a mysterious answer, and his interest was piqued, but even as he bought her a round and they talked through the evening, she refused to tell him more.

She looked up to the clock after barely an hour, and her face went pale.

“I have to go now.” She whispered. Troy’s heart gave a wrench, something about this girl called to him, more than any dame ever had. Wherever she was going, she didn't seem happy. Alarm bells were ringing in his head but he didn't heed them at all.

“Let me walk you… wherever you’re going.” He said offering his arm. Her lips tightened, and she looked ready to say no, but her worry made her reach for him instead.

He took her hand and led her to the street. It wasn't far, she said, as they walked out into the night.

“If you need any help… I can help you.” Troy offered, all but begging. She looked at him, sapphire eyes in the dark holding his, her smile so sweet.

“You’re an angel to take me this far, but it’s too dangerous. I can’t let you. He’d…” Here she stops, cringing, a tear in her eye. Feeling suddenly bold, Troy turns her to him, leans down and kisses those sweet lips. Her skin’s so cold in the chill night air, and she stops, frozen at his touch. He pulls back, afraid, and her eyes hold his.

“I’m sorry. I couldn't bear to see you cry.” She smiles, and puts a cool hand to his cheek.

“Oh, you dear sweet man, you should go now before you get in too deep.” She pulls her hand away, almost trembling. It might be the cold, or she might be afraid. Troy slips off his suit coat and wraps it around her.

“It’s too late for me babe. From the moment I laid eyes on you it was trapped in your spell.” Troy wants to see her smile again, but he can’t help feeling grim. “Is it your man, husband maybe? Are you afraid of him?”

She flinches, betraying herself, turning her face away.

“It’s too dangerous. You shouldn't be near me.” She glances at the old clock tower and gasps. “I’m going to be late. I've got to go!”

She took off running, heels clicking in the autumn starlight, and he followed like a fool, chasing her down the winding lane, the amber trees whispering their warnings as he went.

He paused when she fled through the cemetery gate. Old steel arches looked foreboding, and what was a girl like her doing in a graveyard at night? His blood chilled, he could practically hear the warmth and light of the bar calling him back to the clink and pour of a whiskey on the rocks. It would be so easy to turn back, but he remembered the look in her eyes. He couldn't let a lovely lady go into the dark alone.

He pursued her down the lane, losing her for a moment among the headstones. She slipped behind a crypt, and he lost her. A glimpse of grey by the moonlight showed him she wasn’t far, but it was only his coat, left draped over a tombstone.

He heard the sound of voices then, whispers flying susurrus on the breeze.

“You’re late. Where have you been?” A sharp mans voice. Followed by a plead.

“Please. I’m sorry! I couldn't do it. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. It’s wrong!”

The man’s voice was a snarl of rage. Troy felt his blood boiling as he inched closer. There was a pistol strapped to his leg, and he leaned down carefully to slip it off his ankle.

“Do you want to die?! You’re running out of time, Marion!”

That was all he needed to hear, he whipped around the crypt, holding his pistol steady, and faced them. She stood in tears, before a man dressed in black, his skin pale as a corpse, wearing a suit that looked twenty years old.

“That’s about enough!” Snapped Troy. “I don’t appreciate you threatening the lady.”

They both turned to him, Marion cried out.

“Viktor no!” As the man beside her snarled, his teeth like fangs, and leaped across the space. Troy snapped the trigger, the crack of gunfire as he fired again and again. Viktor stumbled, extending a hand, his long nails scratched across Troy’s face as he fell to the ground, stone cold and still.

Troy could feel his arms trembling. This was far more than he’d planned. Still, he knew she was worth it. He went to her, stepping over the fallen man. She stared at Viktor’s body then looked to him, her eyes impossibly wide.

“Oh Troy, you’re bleeding.” She whispered. Troy saw her trembling. She must be freezing cold, so he held her close.

“It’s okay babe. As long as you’re okay.” He murmured.

“Ohhhh…” She gasped. She seemed suddenly tense. “You shouldn't have come.”

“It’s alright. I’d do it again.” He said, with a smile.

“Would you?” She whispered. Her voice sounded so strange, strained and altered. He looked down, into blue eyes turned impossibly black. A gut punch of horror filled his loins yet he stood rooted, trapped in the depths of her eyes. “Oh Troy… I’m so sorry.”

The fangs changed her voice. They changed her face too, but she was still beautiful. She bit his neck, holding him tight, and all he could do was gasp one last weak cry. She held him as he died, tears in her eyes, even as she killed him. His last thought being that it served him right, a girl like that was too good to be true.

As she lay him down beside a tombstone, Viktor stretched and stood.

“There my love… It’s done.”

Marion dashed the tears from her eyes and the blood from her mouth.

“He was so kind.” She bit her lip. “I hate this! Will it always be so hard?”

Viktor grabbed her close and kissed her. She kissed him back, melting in his bony arms.

“It gets easier with every bite my love. Give it time. You only died yesterday.”

Marion smiled at him, a smile that lost its sadness.

“I died to be with you.”

Victor stroked her pale cheek.

“Now he died to be with you.”

The Short Story: How to End It.

Lately I’ve been reading a bunch of short stories. Mostly free, I confess. I’ve been tackling shorts as a way to unwind in between massive editing forays into my own full length novel. Reading while in ‘editing’ mode, has perhaps made me more critical, but I like to think that I understand WHY I don’t like something, not just WHAT I don’t like.

So in a few blog posts hopefully. I’m going to explain some of the pitfalls I see in short stories and some advice on what to do with it.

Disclaimer: I am not a professional editor, I’m a writer. I prefer to read full length novels, but the same rules can apply to writing shorts. Honestly, I think shorts are especially hard to write in a satisfactory way because of the decreased length. As Jim Butcher once said, “It’s like trying to have a knife fight in a phone booth”. You lack room to expand the tale.

But it CAN be done, for example, look a Junior Reader series book. Their larger font usually means their half as long as the page length suggests (compared to adult fiction) yet they find a way to tell a complete story, beginning to end. If you have time, think about picking up a few to look at writing in its simplest form, they’re quick reads, and often fun.

Common crits/bad reviews: “Too Short.”

This phrase can puzzle writers because they’re writing a short, so the length is expected. What the reader in this case usually means is that something about the ending didn’t satisfy. Every story, no matter how short, needs an arc. You have to have a beginning, middle and end. In a short story, it can be too easy to rush to finish, you reach a point then, “andallthisstuffhappenedokayTheEnd.” This isn’t a school essay hastily written the night before. It’s a piece you want people to understand.

To work on endings you need to focus on several key areas:

1.      Did I answer all the questions?

If your story is a serial, SOME floating questions are okay, but you STILL have to get the character to an END, a safe place, a haven, a point to catch your breath. IF you are writing more to it then YES leave a hook, but that cannot be ALL you leave.

Some famous short stories end on a twist, or a sudden question, then that’s it, the author doesn’t write more. I hate that. It’s a cheap trick. Don’t be cheap. If you can’t figure out a good ending without resorting to “and it was all a dream” then your story isn’t done.  (Note: You CAN write dream stories, but you have to leave allusions to the fact that things do not add up. They must be done WELL. All rules can be broken if things are done amazingly well. This is NEVER easy.)

So re-read, if you go on for a paragraph about the glass rose on her desk, and then the rose is NOT important at all, remove it. If you put emphasis on something, make sure it matters, don’t waste the readers time with the extraneous. ANSWER the questions. “Hattie wondered if she’d ever make peace with her mothers passing.” Is this relevant? Does she make peace? Don’t leave the reader wondering.

2. Make your endings satisfy! 

Is your ending: “Hurry! Rush! keep reading! go go! STOP! Where’s the next page? WHAT THE HELL?” Be not the season finale to Game of Thrones on HBO. 

If people are buying a short story, give them resolution. Hooray! Bob survived his death defying injury when he jumped from the flaming helicopter to rescue the baby seal! He lost his limb, but Annie still loves him! People want CLOSURE. If your character is a skeptic, kidnapped by aliens, probed, then dumped in a cornfield, does he drink himself sick and convince himself it was a dream? Or arm himself with tinfoil to PROVE THE TRUTH? 

We want a peek at what will happen, along with what HAS happened. Don’t just say, Bob was a skeptic, then he got taken by aliens, the end. That’s a beginning and a middle, give us an END. Give us a REASON for spending 5 thousand or 20 thousand words with Bob.

3. Is THIS THE END??? Okay, no one wants to hear question marks when they finish a book. They want to know, either a) I’m done with you. or b) Ha, gotcha! There’s a 2^nd half to this coming out later. Decide BEFORE you write/publish/sell what you are going to DO with this story. Many authors who’ve written great novels either get asked, or get motivated, and wind up writing short stories that feature characters from their novels. This is great! It allows people a quick glance at characters that are fully fleshed, have whole histories, and yet come together in a short piece.

Did I say this is great? Let me clarify, this is great when it’s DONE RIGHT. Even some incredible long fiction authors find themselves flailing at a short piece. You have to balance the fact that Thor the Weasel Farmer, has an entire SAGA devoted to his feud with the evil ermine-mongering Pikipsie clan. There’s only so much back story you need, or even WANT to put into a short story. Give readers a taste, a thin veneer, not enough to confuse them, but enough that they can sense the greater depth.

““I knew we’d meet again!” Growled my arch nemesis Ermine Jill.” Just looking at that sentence tells you, they know each other, and if people are curious about their OTHER adventures, you can mention them on the last page in the bio. You don’t need to recap other books.

Okay, what about the new guy. Bob has a great story, Bob is going to tell you his story in five short stories in a series. Okay… Well, here’s my first question, Why did you choose to present a fiction with that much content as a serial short? In some cases, you might do it as a publishing agreement. You get 5 short pieces in a magazine anthology or something. That gives you range to present your work.

But consider the possibility of saying, ‘Gee, I have five 20K word shorts in a series. I could just do some editing, and make it a 100K Novel.’ What you have to determine is if you have individual arcs for each story. Some things just WORK as a Serial. My favorite is Sparrow Hill Road by Seanan McGuire. Each chapter has a rise and fall and flows as its own little story playing into a greater whole.

Here’s what you don’t do: DO NOT take a novel that you are finished with /partway finished /uncertain of chop it into pieces, and then sell it as a series of shorts. Unless you are willing to chop, rewrite, and edit the hell out of that work to make sure each arc reads like a short. Do not lie to the reader and market it as a ‘short work’ when really it’s a Part 1 of 4 of your novel. Or god have mercy on that poor unsuspecting reader who pays for part 2, 3, or 4, and winds up stuck in the middle of a confusing half finished story.  You may know it’s the middle piece. You might even put it all over the description. It doesn’t change the fact that it will alienate the reader.

(I am violently opposed to anyone publishing unfinished work. It’s a lazy shortcut. You finish, you edit, you polish, and you do it right, or you stop trying to sell me crappy e-books. That’s all.)

So if you want to write a serial short, because you wrote one, and loved those characters so much you want to give us more, just make sure your endings feel like endings. There may be things we are left to discover, but give us a place where the action slows, the reader breaths, and we get a little closure. “And Thor wept over Pete’s tiny weasel grave, knowing even as he laid his tiny buddy to rest, he would surely seek vengeance on that conniving Ermine Jill.”

There is an end, and a hint of foreshadowing. They do it all the time in comics. (Not to be confused with TV Cartoons made from comics where they do ‘to be continued’ all the damn time!) Uncertain how to imply continuation while giving an ending? Read a comic. Look at how even as Eric Banner is always trying to avoid conflict, you just KNOW conflict will find him for another issue. Look for allusions to the future, and hints of continuation in the theme.

If you ARE writing a serial? It helps to imply it in the title, “Ambers Honey Pot Adventures: The Tale of the Pygmy King” She has more than one adventure, and the colon implies that the title may be on more than one piece.

So that’s my advice on endings. Answer the lingering questions, Make sure your story arc includes an ending, and do not neglect the arc for a series. If short goes right into another short with no pause, no stopping for breath, no end in sight, then you’re writing a novel, (or novella) not a short.

Tune in next time when I rant about other short story thrills and woes. From plotting to speed, I hope to keep your shorts trim, fitted, and roomy enough to breathe.