Flash Fiction Thread

  • Thread starter Deleted member 5560
  • Start date
D

Deleted member 5560

Guest
So, another user posted a thread asking for feedback on their short story, and I was excited to discovered it was essentially a piece of flash fiction rather than a short story. It reminded of how much I love flash fiction, both to read and to write it, and I thought I would make a little writing thread for myself to post some of my old flash fiction work, and to start posting some new things.

If you don't know what flash fiction is, also know as micro-fiction and easily compared to vignettes, they're very very small pieces of writing, anywhere between 50-1,000 words, that try to take advantage of brevity and tight writing to evoke moods and concepts and the idea of a larger story rather than a full narrative itself the way a short story, novella, or novel are designed to. There's lots of different terms for specific lengths of flash fiction - twitterature, dribbles, drabbles, sudden fiction, micro-story, etc.

The most famous piece of flash fiction that most people probably know about was supposedly written by Hemingway:
For sale: baby shoes, never worn.

So, this is just a thread I made to post flash fiction in. Feel free to share your own if you get the idea bug!
 
D

Deleted member 5560

Guest
The Lou Trilogy

Africa.

  • Was it... South Africa? Yes. It was South Africa. An orphanage, a nun called Louisa, and a defective agent. Everyone called her Lou. His head twitched every time they called out. Holed up in that building that managed to be even sweatier on the inside than the outside, the kids huddled in the corner, the taste of Sister Lou's blood still on his lips as he levelled the rifle.

    He took the shot.

Stains.
  • After a while, all cheap motel rooms feel the same. A vomit coloured head ache waiting to happen, with lumpy pillows and taps that whine if you don’t hit enough pressure. Bibles with pages missing when cigarette paper ran out and coffee stains on the furniture. You get an empty mini-bar and a soul full of whiskey.
    Sitting on the very edge of the single bed with his face buried in his hands, Lou waits for his life to get better, while his heart sinks with the knowledge it never will.

Stepping On His Shadow.

  • "What are you listening to?" The stranger her mother brought home asked Carol, his voice vaguely interested but mostly bored, and his eyes sad underneath the good humour.
    "Spice Girls." She answered, too entranced to reply with her usually sharpened wit.
    His face hardened, and he responded with a snideness she'd usually find offensive. "You shouldn't listen to the Spice Girls. They'll rot your brain. You should listen to Louie Armstrong."
    Carol listened to Louie Armstrong long after the stranger had left, and thought about the sadness and gentle loneliness that had haunted his shadow.
 
D

Deleted member 5560

Guest
jack
  • His voice is like sex. Smoke and sex. His throat is lined with fuck-me carelessness, roughness and passion, and it has its way with his words on their way up, causing them to come out his mouth bedraggled and worse-for-wear, but so very pleased.
    It has layers to it. Beneath the breathless quality that runs up your spine there is a whole mixture of personality. He thinks over every word before he lets it out, hoarding those which he thinks give too much of himself away.
    If he likes you his voice has a laugh to it. It isn't a snide mockery at your expense. It's a softness of affection that seems to roughen up his words as much as smooth them out. He wears his smiles in his vowels.
    Last, hiding so carefully, so cautiously, ducked behind the laughter so that you would never know it was there, is the story of his past. It's sewn into the desperation, the bitterness, the fear, and a jagged shard of loneliness.
 
D

Deleted member 5560

Guest
esteban
  • The phone made his sister sound worse than she actually was. Shriller. Angrier. More urgent. He smiled indulgently into the phone as she told him that their parents were worried, that he was being an idiot, that they called the university and they were still willing to accept him back, that so much money had gone into his so-called education, that he was a disappointment, anything to get a him upset, angry, something. Desperate for a reaction.
    And then he told her he loved her, and smiled when he hung up on her indignant shriek, dropping the phone into the toilet and flushing.
 

Lukha

mother of all ships
Joined
Mar 5, 2019
Messages
88
Points
73
OOOOH I like these! Huh, I never really knew flash fiction was a thing, but I love little snippets like these. It makes me curious for the story, but gives me just enough to be content with the scene I've just witnessed. They usually evoke a weird nostalgia in me, like I'm getting a glimpse into someone's life through a window as I pass by. Love it! :blob_melt:
 
D

Deleted member 5560

Guest
OOOOH I like these! Huh, I never really knew flash fiction was a thing, but I love little snippets like these. It makes me curious for the story, but gives me just enough to be content with the scene I've just witnessed. They usually evoke a weird nostalgia in me, like I'm getting a glimpse into someone's life through a window as I pass by. Love it! :blob_melt:
Dank ewe bb ;-; Yeah! You put into words exactly what I love about flash fiction. It's just this tiny little moment that lingers with you, like seeing a woman crying on the bus and then remembering it a year later and wondering to yourself if she ended up being okay. It's also a very fun writing exercise to do if you're feeling burnt out form more formal writing, because you can just focus on the fun parts, like a snappy back and forth dialogue or really evocative writing.
 

Lukha

mother of all ships
Joined
Mar 5, 2019
Messages
88
Points
73
Dank ewe bb ;-; Yeah! You put into words exactly what I love about flash fiction. It's just this tiny little moment that lingers with you, like seeing a woman crying on the bus and then remembering it a year later and wondering to yourself if she ended up being okay. It's also a very fun writing exercise to do if you're feeling burnt out form more formal writing, because you can just focus on the fun parts, like a snappy back and forth dialogue or really evocative writing.
Well post more because it's nice to have something good to read while I'm writing the next chapter for WDfR! It's also really refreshing so I like it a lot :blob_hide: I'll be lurking here if you decide to post more...
 
D

Deleted member 5560

Guest
that summer
  • It was the kind of heat that was so humid it felt like even the air was sweating. They'd intended to go down to the creek to catch tadpoles, but when they'd arrived they'd found that the creek had up and left - headed towards cooler climates.
he can still see her smile when the sun hits just right
  • There were only two things he'd remembered about his mother, of which he himself had neither: just how softly gold her hair had been, and the certainty of her faith.
    No one wanted to have to be the one to explain mortality to a child, so they'd left him to figure it out on his own at the funeral. The sun through the stained glass window of the angel cast a colourful blanket over the closed casket, tucking her in to sleep. He just stared, fascinated by the thing.

    The angel had such softly gold hair.
 
D

Deleted member 5560

Guest
written on phone while looking at this (below):
  • the grey skies folded over, being kneaded into sunshine blue by god’s hands. choppy grey water climbed and tumbled over itself in its race to reach the shore, where it greeted its old friend with enthusiastic aplomb, leaping upon the sand and planting a kiss on its old lover’s face.
767
 
Last edited by a moderator:
D

Deleted member 5560

Guest
It was lucky there wasn’t a need for words between them, as the band was playing so loud that one couldn’t hear their own thoughts over it. He gently got to know the guiness in his glass, while she slammed back vodka beside him, leaving self restraint by the wayside.

By the time the bartender shooed them out, they were about the same level of tipsy, and set about roaming the night streets for the welcoming glow of the next pub that would willingly embrace them.
 
D

Deleted member 5560

Guest
She sat on the shore, asking her questions to the wind. Every frustration, every uncertainty, every insecurity that plagued her. Thoughts that chaotically tumbled over themselves in her skull, desperate to be the worry she obsessed over first. She spoke he throat hoarse, never expecting any kind of answer. It wasn’t until she got up to leave that the words came carried back to her over the soft ripples of the lake.

“Maybe you should try yoga.”
 
D

Deleted member 5560

Guest
writing from an izakaya and it is loud here!! had a few drinks, just wanted to share the booze love :blob_highfive:
 
D

Deleted member 5560

Guest
Something a little different, I guess. Not exactly flash fiction, just an excerpt of a private piece I'm writing for a friend about a married OC couple moving in to a suburban neighbourhood and then things take a dark turn, but I just kinda let myself get as mean-spirited as I possibly could about suburbanite mothers:
 
D

Deleted member 5560

Guest
Simon Fleech was a man of quietness. He was the man you’d see hunched at one end of the bar, quietly, with only peanut salt and empty bottles for company. He’d stare straight ahead at the world of nothing he inhabited and he’d always be only halfway through his beer, but the empty bottles would somehow pile up. He was the man you saw at the grocery store, late in the evening, the only thing he had resembling a social life being the two line back and forth with the cashier. He was the man who’d grab a basket but always got enough to just carry about in his hands. It would be microwavable dinners and hot sauce. You’d meet a hundred Simon Fleechs in your life, in shirts that had holes at the seams and patterns so faded you only knew it was plaid by the flannel. You’d see the smile; quick and nervous, a little late to the party, halfway settled by the time it should be gone. His fingertips were more dye than skin - dyed black and blue bruises from ink and yellow from nicotine. His face had five o’clock shadow two minutes after shaving. His shoulders were sloped and hunched forward in the universal posture of “Pardon me, I’m just keeping myself to myself”. And if you introduced yourself, after a bit of prodding, he would shyly pull out a leather wallet that was probably worth more than its contents, and pass you a card with the corners worn down soft that read, in Kinko’s very finest discount print:

Simon Fleech
Private Investigator
Sorcerer-For-Hire
 
D

Deleted member 5560

Guest
Four witches:

𝓢𝓾𝓶𝓶𝓮𝓻​
As they set the pyre alight, the voices of her own friends and family screamed that evil must be cleansed in fire. She agreed, and brought sanctification to the whole rotten village.​
𝓐𝓾𝓽𝓾𝓶𝓷​
Even if their hearts yearned for each other, fate would not allow their love. The knight in shining armour could never live happily ever after with the wicked witch.​
𝓦𝓲𝓷𝓽𝓮𝓻​
He found her starving in the woods, his eyes glittering with the wealth her father had hoarded before the peasants had taken torch in hand and driven the whole family into the snow. She was already more animal than he.​
𝓢𝓹𝓻𝓲𝓷𝓰​
They'd sewn the annals of their history into her skin, and used her bones to carve the ambitions of their future.​
 
Top