Flash Fiction Chronicles

Many of you reading this probably have no idea who Ed Sullivan was.

Sullivan was a New York City newspaper columnist and host of a long-running television variety show. It was a Sunday night must-see in most American homes all through the sixties and seventies.

A staple on the program was the plate juggler. Maybe it was a string of jugglers from show to show; maybe it was the same fellow. I don’t recall. But the setup was always the same.

There would be twelve or fifteen head-high flexible poles arranged in a line and the juggler would begin at one end, setting a plate to spinning atop the pole. He then moved from pole to pole, starting new plates, scurrying back to the wobbling one to keep them moving, until all were twirling.

It was nerve-wracking, watching the plates wobble and the juggler run from pole to pole, and by the end you couldn’t help but applaud the fellow’s nimbleness and his quick fingers.

I’ve always thought that writing was like that.

There are so many things to remember, to keep spinning, as you put a story together. As the author, you’ve got to keep all of the elements in balance. Got to scamper from pole to pole making sure that plot unwinds smoothly, that the setting is made real with just the right amount of sensory input, that characters are as fleshed out and rounded as you can make them. All while striking the proper balance between clear language and distinctive voice.

It’s a juggling act and even a talented writer can drop a plate. More than one sometimes. But when you do get the right spin on it all, when everything is up and rotating, what a marvelous thing to behold.

K. C. Ball grew up in Ohio, with her nose in a book, and now lives in Seattle, a stone’s throw from Puget Sound.

Her flash fiction has appeared on-line at Flash Fiction Online, Every Day Fiction, Boston Literary Magazine, Fear & Trembling, Every Day Weirdness, Flashshot and Moon Drenched Fables, as well as in print in Murky Depths #8 and the 2008 Best of Every Day Fiction anthology.

 One of her longer pieces, Coward’s Steel, won 3rd place in the Hubbard Foundation’s 1st Quarter, 2009, Writers of the Future competition.

K. C. is a staff reader for Every Day Fiction and blogs about writing at A Moving Line . She is also editor of the genre flash fiction online magazine, 10Flash.

There’s a human being behind every story and poem you read — it’s called an author.

Oh, you knew that? Good.

You thought everyone knew that? Hmm. If everyone knows that, then why do we see words like “silly” in the reader comments under stories published online? Would you tell someone to his face that his story you just read was silly and the ending sucked? Would you tell someone to her face that her story was pointless and a waste of time?

Oh? You’d say that the story was a bit light for your taste and you were disappointed by the ending, that you prefer stories with more of a theme or purpose than you got from what you just read? Even saying that would take a fair bit of courage, eyeball-to-eyeball. I’d be willing to bet that most people would glance away and mutter, “Oh, er, yeah, great story… I, uh, I liked the dialogue…” Even in a writing critique group among trusted friends where you’re supposed to be brutally honest and all that, it isn’t easy to tell anyone that their precious work isn’t working — watching someone pretend not to be hurt isn’t fun.

So why do people behind the safety of a keyboard and screen feel free to drop their party manners and fling about all sorts of rudeness about other people’s published work? Honestly, I think it’s because they forget there’s a real person, a human being, waiting behind another computer screen to read those comments.

Those comments can hurt.

And that’s why I’m asking everyone who reads this to do just one thing: when you set out to post a comment on a story or poem you’ve read online, pretend you’re sitting at a table with the author. Tell it like it is, yes — I’m not asking anyone to sugarcoat anything — but tell it the way you would face-to-face. Because the author is out there behind his or her computer screen, putting on a brave face, pretending not to be hurt.

To read a new story every day, 365 days a year, check out Every Day Fiction.

This post by Camille Gooderham Campbell is reprinted here from her blog, Copy. Edit. Proof. Camille is an editor of Every Day Fiction.

At first I was happy to just get the story down on paper! After a career writing for other people—brochures, radio spots, press releases—early retirement offered the time to indulge in personal writing. Non-fiction was fun, seeing my byline in a magazine or newspaper article was an ego boost, but after that first fiction class, I was hooked.

 Writing a novel is hard enough, but without an MFA or long list of big name publishing credits, finding an agent to take on a literary novel from a first-time author, in this wobbly publishing market, is even harder. As I polished the manuscript, I focused on getting more short stories published, and started blogging. The goal was to create an online presence, and generate website traffic to read posted stories and excerpts from published work.

 When I accepted the offer to guest post on If You Give A Girl A Pen, I hoped to share a writer’s block process that had worked for me, and in return, increase visibility for my blog and website. Read the post here.

 There was a noticeable response . . . a marked increase of hits on the website, new Twitter followers, (quality contacts worth following back) and a handful of invitations to connect on LinkedIn.

 But, there’s more . . .

 Karina Fabian, a LinkedIn contact and fellow writer, shared ideas on ways to maximize the guest blog exposure. Other LinkedIn writers steered me toward sites they frequent, connecting me to a new batch of writing communities like PerpetualProse &  SheWrites.

 The second post on If You Give A Girl A Pen confirmed the momentum was building, and when an agent requested a synopsis and full copy of my novel, WHAT YOU DON’T KNOW, I was convinced. It’s time to revamp the website home page!

Ginger B. Collins writes short fiction and creative non-fiction. Her work appears online and has been published in Freckles to Wrinkles, Silver Boomers, and the newly released Scratch Anthology of Short Fiction. She recently completed her first novel. Read excerpts at www.gingerbcollins.com.  All writers are invited to follow the blog and share experiences. http://coppertopcollins.blogspot.com.

Once upon a time, a book changed my life. I took it out of the library so much my name was on the card more than any other kid. It was the first book that appealed as much to the writer in me as it did to the reader. I was eight.

The Last of the Really Great Whangdoodles by Julie Edwards – pen name of Julie Andrews – is a tale of three siblings who harness the power of their imaginations with the help of a local scientist in order to reach a mythical, magical place called Whangdoodleland. I was immediately enchanted with the notion that sheer imagination could transport me to other, better places. (In retrospect, however, isn’t that what reading IS?) I began to diligently practice the major technique mentioned in the book – I paid attention.

I noted the differences in shades of the same color, I looked for the berries behind the leaves of bushes, I sat still and watched the bees and the ants and the spiders. I taught myself to listen harder, picking out specific sounds in noisy environments. I looked up a lot. I touched things to understand how they felt, I tasted new things, and tried to identify smells. I looked down a lot. I figured out how to soft-focus my eyes and see things more clearly when I refocused.

I never made it to Whangdoodleland as it was detailed in the book – or did I? Didn’t I return there every time I re-read the words? While I was reading it seemed that the Whangdoodle, the Splintercat, and Oily Prock were as real to me as the silver maple in the side yard where I sat all summer reading piles of books. And in paying attention to what was all around me, I learned how to better experience and imagine the worlds laid out before me at the library.

It was right about then that I began to understand the true power of words. I had visited countless imaginary places created by others, and now I began to think that maybe I could create and share my own worlds with other people. Heady stuff for an eight year old. Enter Mr. Simon, my fourth grade teacher who made us write a story every week using the vocabulary words on the board, and voila! The birth of a lifelong writer.

The key, I think, is the paying attention. I can never thank Ms. Andrews enough for that simple, powerful lesson. Not only did she teach her characters how to notice the small details around them, but she also included them in the world she created. Hers were not so small, since she was writing for children, but they were there. The particulars of any imaginary scene make it more real, something the reader can relate to even if it is far beyond the scope of reality.

I never stopped paying attention, I realize. My children are often impressed with how many details I can pick out of a given scene, be it in life or a movie or even a book. And because I am aware of those details in my everyday life, I am also aware of them in my writing — aware enough to include them. Not description, mind you, but details. Description is a billboard advertising the author’s presence, saying “hey, see it this way.” Details make it real, make it powerful – they are a springboard for the reader’s imagination.

I’m quite certain that my Whangdoodleland would be different from yours, but we would each imagine that land based on the details that stood out to us. Which, as I see it, is the miracle of the connection between writers and readers.

TL. Schofield is a xenophobic social butterfly, a lifetime writer finally sending her words into the world. She lives in central Georgia and dreams of the ocean. She placed two stories, Arrival and Escape, on Flash Fiction Chronicles String-of-10 Flash Fiction Contest and blogs at Blogging in the Dark.

This post was written on August 27, 2009; the day’s story at EDF was “Nipped in the Bud” by Beth Cato.

My comment to Beth when we accepted the piece was “Wow, that last line is absolutely chilling. Very well written.”

However… some of the reader comments today suggest that not everyone understood what actually happened in the story. One reader saw “several totally unrelated themes mixed together”, and a few wondered why it was tagged as horror. Another saw the plant-killing as a prelude to “young life being continued and nurtured”, which is pretty much the opposite of what happened as I read it, and yet another reader said “I’m glad she’s pregnant. But was there something horrific about it?”

Only one reader said: “I am a fan of stories that trust their reader to put one and one together and come up with two.”

Now, if you have a character with an apparent gift for blighting plants and all young and growing things, and you have a character who is or might be pregnant with a very precious and wanted baby, and the plant-killer inadvertently touches the potential mommy-to-be, what does that imply? Can you put one and one together and get “miscarriage”? Exactly how spelled-out does a plot need to be?

The trouble is, reader comments complaining that they didn’t get it — or that they had to work too hard to get it — are by no means isolated to one or two individuals or to one or two stories… it’s a theme we see pretty regularly. And so I’m starting to wonder… do readers in general really prefer stories where they don’t have to do the metaphorical math?

I’m not suggesting in any way that flash fiction should be obscure or tough to read — it’s all about the gripping hook and clean sparse prose and the presence of a story arc and tension — but are the readers telling us that it should be simple? I have trouble believing that, but I don’t know quite what to believe after hearing commenters complain over and over that they had to work too hard, that they didn’t get the point of a given piece, that they couldn’t see a subtle story arc or tie a pair of plot threads together.

I keep wondering if we’re dealing with the vocal few, who don’t actually represent the masses… or if the said masses seriously do prefer a no-work, no-brain story, and the problem rests with me.

This post by Camille Gooderham Campbell is reprinted here from her blog, Copy. Edit. Proof. Camille is an editor of Every Day Fiction.

If it seems I’ve been blowing my own trumpet a bit loudly of late, please let me explain. This has nothing to do with ego and everything to do with attempting to boost my confidence, a writer’s most fragile asset. Mine took a serious drubbing recently and if I’ve resorted to roll-calling every small success it’s only because I need to feel I’m making progress, no matter how minor it might seem to the rest of the world.

The real success story has been my new routine of rising at 6am to write for two hours every morning. This has meant the new novel climbed to 22,000 words in two weeks with the result that it now feels like a novel and not a series of randomly related words under a title I keep changing. I’m not saying this first draft is great or even good. I’m under no illusions about the hard graft which lies ahead. But I’ve turned a corner, got stuck into something new, started over.

Alongside this, the small successes themselves count for much in terms of my confidence; they validate my decision to pursue this craft. Perhaps they shouldn’t. Perhaps the craft ought to be enough in itself. But I can only rely on my own judgement up to a point. After that point, I need other people’s judgement. I am selective in how I respond to this. I don’t ask friends or family to pat me on the back. Nor do I hold all editors in the same high esteem, but I am getting better at telling when a judgement is sound. This too is all about confidence.

I can recall more or less precisely the moment when I put aside the textbooks on how to write and learned to trust my instinct. I had listened to enough of the right people saying enough of the right things (and sometimes enough of the wrong things) for me to know when I was on the right track. I realised that I could trust my instinct rather than the opposite.

But it doesn’t take much to knock that confidence for six, even now. I try not to molly-coddle it too much. I make sure I expose it to knocks which will test it for soundness, the way an expert in fine china will ring a bell with a flick of her fingers to be sure it isn’t hiding a hairline crack or three. I’d prefer it didn’t get whacked by a hammer, but I don’t hide it in bubble-wrap on the top shelf.

I have started to sub to big places, punching above my weight when I can, always raising the bar. But I also sub to venues I’ve come to trust and like. I hoard the small successes because they give me the confidence to keep punching higher up. Let me give you an example.

A week ago I was despondent about my writing. In a mood that was nine parts masochistic, I subbed a story in anticipation of a rejection. It hit. And another, which also hit. I took my courage in both hands and pitched an idea to the editor of a magazine. It was a cold pitch. I sent him a sample of my writing, the non-fiction piece about my mother’s childhood in a prison camp. The editor loved it, asked permission to publish it. And now I’m going to have a headline feature in a respected print magazine with a wide readership in my new city where I’m trying to make my name as a writer. I won’t say any more than that until it’s published, and I do realise I’ve come full circle back to my own trumpet, but the point I’m trying to make is that confidence begets confidence. Hoard ye small successes while you may, if I can say that without sounding all hey nonny and a bit insane.

Reprinted from Crawl Space by Sarah Hilary, Confidence and the Writer, published September 2, 2009

Sarah Hilary is a frequent contributor to Every Day Fiction  (Lolita’s Lynch Mob is an all-time favorite) and on other flash sites around the web including Burial of the Bells at Every Day Fiction and A Shanty for Dawdust and Cotton at LITnIMAGE, Check out her blog, Crawl Space, where she lists all her online writing and then check out her other brilliant FLASHES of fiction.

William Faulkner’s famous advice to writers—“Kill your darlings”—was cribbed from Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch, who advises, “Whenever you feel an impulse to perpetrate a piece of exceptionally fine writing, obey it—whole-heartedly—and delete it before sending your manuscript to press. Murder your darlings.”

It has been a mantra for decades, but it was never more true than in writing flash. Flash simply does not allow the luxury of ornamentation. There’s little room for florid, flowery prose.

The narrative framework of a longer short story or a novel may be like a towering Christmas tree with heavy, layered branches inviting decoration. With flash, though, you have a framework to hang your story on that is nearer the tree in A Charlie Brown Christmas. Hang too much on it and it will topple—right over the 1,000-word limit.

When I’m hit with an idea that turns into a flash, I usually think right away “This could probably be expressed in a very short form.” So I’m aware that what I’m writing is potentially a flash piece; however, I still write the story out as I see it unfolding—all the details, all the dialogue. That first draft almost always comes in over the 1,000-word mark. (You have to write down your darlings before you can do anything to them.) And sometimes I discover that to tell the story right, it does need more space, in which case I expand on it and it becomes a short story.

But if I’m only off the mark  by 200 words or so, then I go through and start paring. Just as with poetry, I look for extraneous words—descriptions or bits of dialogue that don’t really add much to the essential story—and I take the scalpel to them. What can be left unsaid? What can the reader infer? Most adverbs and adjectives die at this stage, too.

Elie Wiesel profoundly observes, “Writing is not like painting where you add. It is not what you put on the canvas that the reader sees. Writing is more like a sculpture where you remove, you eliminate in order to make the work visible. Even those pages you remove somehow remain.” I have always found this to be true. Much of what I spell out in a first draft I later find the reader does not need explained, and just gets in the way. Most readers can fill in those blank spots just fine–perhaps better than I could–and in so doing, a reader personalizes it for him/herself.

When I’m down to, say, 1,002 words and I don’t see how the piece could sacrifice another word, I get really nitpicky: Is there an article or a conjunction that won’t be missed? Slice out a “the” here and an “and” there, and it’s there. That’s why some of my flash fiction comes in at 1,000 words exactly.

There are times, though, when I set out to trim 200 words and, in the trimming, find that more can go—here is a whole paragraph that isn’t really necessary—and then the piece (about which I was originally thinking “How could I possibly cut 1/6 of this and still retain its impact?”) ends up being 970 words. I like getting that wiggle room at the end—because then I can go back in and restore an adjective or two that it really pained me to lose.

So sometimes I sneak a few of those darlings back in…

This post was expanded from an answer to a question in an interview by Frederic S. Durbin on his weblog Life as a Writer of Fantasy Fiction.

I am reminded once again of how important it is for writers to keep clear and precise records of their submissions, including pertinent details such as the date submitted and the title of the piece. It’s part of being a professional, of being serious about your work. A nice spreadsheet does the job quite well.

Writers, you do not want to be querying editors with phrases such as “I think I know which ones I might have submitted to you” and “this would go back 3-4 weeks ago”.

Accurate record-keeping also prevents inadvertent resubmissions of pieces that have already been rejected, simultaneous submissions where they’re not welcome, and querying before a publication’s specified timeframe has elapsed.

You may also want to back your records up. You’d be surprised at the number of queries we get where a dead computer is blamed for the author’s lack of specific information about his or her own submissions.

This post by Camille Gooderham Campbell is reprinted here from her blog, Copy. Edit. Proof. Camille is an editor of Every Day Fiction.

VOLUNTEER SLUSH READERS WANTED—GREAT EXPERIENCE!

Every Day Fiction is a web magazine that specializes in bringing you fine fiction in bite-sized doses. Every day, we publish a new short story of 1000 words or fewer that can be read during your lunch hour, on transit, or even over breakfast. We are currently looking for slush readers.

The job?

Log into our database daily and read stories from the slush folder, determine whether or not each story is potentially publishable and write a brief comment for the author. The time commitment per day is fairly brief—depending on the number of slush readers and how quickly you read, maybe twenty minutes to half an hour—but it will pile up if you don’t get in there most days. It’s unpaid, but it’s great experience and we’re a fun team to work with. Put Every Day Fiction on your résumé, and count on us for a reference when you need one.

The perfect candidate?

We’re looking for readers with an interest in short fiction and an eye for good prose. Eclectic tastes are an advantage because we publish stories of all genres; it helps if you can enjoy a pulpy science fiction piece one minute and a serious literary story the next. Knowing something about flash fiction is also a plus, but we’re happy to educate on that score if you’re a good fit for us.

The fine print?

We ask for a commitment of three months, which is of course extendable if we like you and you want to stay on. You’ll need internet access, competent computer skills, and the ability/willingness to read and comment on at least ten stories a week (though we can be somewhat flexible around exams and vacations). If you are a writer, you should be aware that we cannot ethically consider submissions for publication from anyone currently reading for us, so you’ll have to save your own stories until you’re no longer on our team.

How to apply?

Email Camille at camille@everydayfiction.com. In the body of the email (no attachments, please), send a short paragraph covering the usual suspects (background, education, experience, and why you’d like to read slush for EDF), and a second paragraph about what you like to read (genres, styles, favourite authors, etc.). Also, please choose one of EDF’s recently published stories and include a brief editorial comment intended for the author of that story.

www.everydayfiction.com

From Gay Degani, former staff reader:

Reading slush is a fabulous way to grow your own writing, to see what everyone else is writing so you can write something DIFFERENT, to see what really works out there in the real world and what doesn’t, to enjoy that moment when a great first sentence pops off the page and bowls you over, to see a story you found deep in the slush appear on line at EDF with all the positive comments from appreciative readers!!  So think about applying.  The commitment need only be three months, but it will give you a year’s worth of writing education.

For nine and a half months of the year, I attempt to teach teenagers something about literature, reading, and writing.  Sometimes, my own writing experiences collide favorably with my official profession.

See, my students are lazy about revision and rewriting. I even had one student tell me, rather matter-of-factly, that professional writers don’t revise. So, after I’d replaced my dangling jaw and secured it with a roll of duct tape, I started thinking. Dangerous thing, thinking.

The best teaching methods, especially for high school, are those I call guerrilla tactics. If the students don’t know they’re learning, you can really make progress.

Enter the 100 word essay, a new assignment that I’ve modified from various fiction markets that publish stories of exactly 100 words (one of my favorites being Necrotic Tissue). You can’t write a 100 word anything without revision. No one lands at exactly 100 words on the first try. No one uses just the right words on draft one. When words are limited, each one is more important…each one carries more weight.  Verbs must be vivid, nouns meaningful, and adjectives used with restraint.

Revision? You bet…serious writers, professional or amateur, fiction or non-fiction–they all revise.  Writers must understand the weight of each word.

Aaron Polson currently resides in Lawrence, Kansas with his wife, two sons and a tattooed rabbit, enjoying every mood swing in the Midwest weather. His flash fiction has appeared in Every Day Fiction, 10Flash, Northern Haunts, Everyday Weirdness, and on various bathroom walls.  Stop by his blog and read the free Friday flash.