“Stories are the creatures that forage in the wilderness of our minds. Their claws pierce our curiosity, digging in deep to prevent our escape, as they force us into their maw, past razor sharp teeth of conflict.” —- Rhyan Scorpio-Rhys
“Tell me a story.” the woman said, book opened to a blank page on her lap, graphite stick firmly in hand and at the ready. The reading chair in which she sat was, what appeared to my eyes, nothing more than a series of interwoven vines that had grown from the lush green carpet in the center of the room. This indoor library of hers smelled of petrichor, the scent of rain on dry earth, which would explain the moisture that dotted the spines of the books stacked in chaotic fashion on the recessed shelves lining the walls.
“I — I don’t have any stories.” I shifted uncomfortably in a small puddle on the carpet—that was most assuredly grass—as the woman took in the sum of me.
“Nonsense, everyone has stories, some more interesting than others, but they are stories nonetheless.” she said, gesturing with a nod for me to sit. “Everything is present for a story to exist: a teller, that would be you, and an audience, which would be me.”
My seat—a normal metal folding chair with padding—was as much out of place with the room’s décor as I. A reminder, no doubt, that although invited, I was still considered an interloper. The fact that the chair was bone dry despite the moist surroundings was of small consolation. I squirmed until I found the position that afforded the least amount of discomfort and said, “All right, then… I don’t know how to tell a story.”
“Ah, a different matter altogether.” she said, placing the book and graphite aside. “The act of storytelling is as old as the creative spark that burns within us all. And though truly great storytellers are born, those lacking the unique gift may still acquire the skill.”
1. Keep it simple.
“The first thing to bear in mind is if you have the choice between a complicated or simple telling, choose the simple approach. As marvelous as the brain may be, it can become overwhelmed if it attempts to process too much information at one time.”
2. Open big.
“Next, you mustn’t be afraid to grab your audience by the balls!” the woman smiled, amused by my unease. “And never apologize for doing so. You’re familiar with the saying, ‘you only get one chance to make a first impression,’ aren’t you? The same applies to your story.You need to carefully craft your opening line to grab your audience’s attention immediately, and represent the promise of your story by displaying a unique voice and perspective.
“There is no going soft here. Your opening line should possess the elements that make up the story as a whole, told in a distinctive voice, a point of view, a rudimentary plot and some hint of characterization. By the end of the first paragraph, your audience should know the setting and conflict… unless there is a particular reason to withhold this information.”
3. Be mindful of your story’s spine.
“Stories are the creatures that forage in the wilderness of our minds. Their claws pierce our curiosity, digging in deep to prevent our escape, as they force us into their maw, past razor sharp teeth of conflict. But despite outward appearances, these beasts are only as strong as their spine.
“Your duty is to support that spine by arranging your content in a logical order and supporting it with anecdotes that raise questions to keep up interest and moments of reflection to show your story’s appeal. We, as the audience, need a reason to care.
“And lop off the vestigial appendages of tangents where you find them. Going too far astray will only lose your audience’s attention.”
4. Don’t alienate your audience.
“Some subjects require a delicate touch. You’ll know them by their appearance and the uneasy feeling they leave in your gut. By no means avoid them if they’re integral to your story, but instead find the best way to craft the tale so that you draw your audience in before revealing sensitive details. Invest them in the story before you shock them and then give them time to digest it.”
5. End strong.
“Whether you end your story on an upbeat note, allow your audience to fill in the blanks, come full circle with your lead, close with a relevant quote, provide a brief summary, or wrap things up with either a surprise or anecdotal ending… you need to come strong. Elevate your story’s effectiveness with a great ending and leave them with a lasting impression. The yang to your ‘first impression’ yin.
“You should also give your audience the proper space to appreciate your ending. A mere sentence or two in which you take a step back and let the story meaning steep in their mind.
And finally, allow your audience to hear the door click shut behind them, signifying that the story is well and truly over. Everything’s done and dusted. Thank you for visiting my world, now it’s time to return to your own.”
“Got all that?” she asked. I nodded that I understood.
“Good,” the woman rested the tip of the graphite stick on the book leaf, “now tell me a story.”
I burned my soul to ash but the pain paled in comparison to the terror that struck my heart like a match, anticipating her arrival and the tirade she would carry in tow. An unwarranted fear, as she was calm when she saw what I had done. Calm and nurturing. Soothing my pain with herbs and aromas, and each early morning during the hour of the wolf, she laid an ear on my back and listened as my soul mended itself.
She never spoke the words of disappointment aloud but it registered in her eyes. Although residing within my body, this wounded thing, this unwanted soul, did not belong to me. She had laid claim to it many years past, and in my despondency, I had taken liberties with her property and attempted to destroy it. Again.
ii.
The first time, I threw my soul into a sinkhole and allowed the ground to swallow it whole. I made her acquaintance when she plucked it from the soil like a tattered tuber. “I saw what you did,” she said. “And since you would so recklessly toss this precious thing away, it is no longer yours, but mine, agreed?” I nodded and she handed my soul back to me for safekeeping.
I honored our pact for a few years, caring for it within my limited capacity, but during a particularly nasty bout of depression, I tied heavy stones to my soul and pushed it off the sea wall. For a second time she appeared, fishing my soul from the waves, and scolded me, “You are charged with protecting this thing that it mine, do you understand?” Again, I nodded. Again, I lied.
iii.
“Why do you want this worthless soul when it has been crushed by the earth? Why do you want it when it has been drowned in the sea? Why do you want it when it has been set alight like so much tinder?” I searched long and hard yet found no answer in her silence.
iv.
During the day, when she thought me preoccupied, she secreted herself in the shadows and slept. One day I followed her into the darkness and watched her body twitch from dreaming and listened as she muttered,
One more soul, once buried deep.
One more soul, in ocean steeped.
One more soul, by fire burned.
One more soul, of air returned.
v.
Under her care, my soul grew healthier and it frightened me. I was pitilessly plagued and badgered by the phrase, One more soul, of air returned, that repeated in my mind’s ear until it turned dogged and cacophonous. But she was unaware of my inner torment, in fact, she was in an exceptionally good mood today, her voice almost a song, “I know you don’t see it, but you are a gift, you are. You have no idea just how special.”
vi.
Today was the day. I felt it in my marrow. Something was destined to happen, something I most likely would not survive. I should have embraced this eerie premonition, for it was no secret that I did not want to continue in this manner, broken, detached, and alone. But the choice of how and when I departed this wretched life was mine to make and mine alone. So, I stalled by distracting her with trivialities. “May I have more broth? Have you seen my shoes? No, not that pair, the other ones? Can we go for a walk?” If she knew my plan, her expression never showed sign. No request was too large or small on this day. She granted them all.
vii.
We strolled along the pathway in the park that led to the duck pond, a place we visited often during my convalescence. Picked, naturally, as not to arouse suspicion as I searched for the proper diversion in order to make my escape. But I was so wrapped in my own thoughts, I failed to notice that she was walking slower than usual today. “Can we rest a moment?” she asked as we neared the benches. “I am a little short of breath.”
Her breathing became a labored and raspy thing before it hitched and became lodged in her throat. When her face went dusky blue and she slid off the park bench, I panicked. The opportunity had presented itself and there I stood like an idiot, frozen. Entangled in the decision of whose life to save, or more accurately, whose death I could live with.
There was no real choice.
viii.
Her breathing was a trembling, liquid sound as I pressed my mouth to hers and exhaled, but instead of me breathing air into her body, I felt her sucking air from my lungs, and not just air…
I tried desperately to pull away but her thin, vise-like hands clamped down on the nape of my neck and held me firm in a kiss that was collapsing me. My hold on life became dim and futile, but before I slipped away into emptiness, I noticed the oddest thing: her belly began to swell.
Every fiber of my actuality was drawn into her, and my soul, the object I had forever been so reckless with, was systematically being stripped of concern, of negativity, of identity. I fell further and further into a darkness that pressed on me from all sides. So tight, so constricted. I was still unable to breathe but the sensation was somehow different now.
At the very moment when it seemed the darkness was about to claim me for eternity, there came a burst of light so bright as to cut my eyes. Thankfully something soon blotted out the light – a face, slowly coming into focus but I knew her before I saw her. From the moment I heard her soft cooing, “You are a gift, you are. You have no idea just how special.”
There was a knock at Tim’s front door. Impossibly, there was a knock on a day there shouldn’t have been one. Not that it was a big disturbance, it had only interrupted his woolgathering. He began reading a book hours ago and somewhere along the way his mind drifted off to the point where he wouldn’t have been able, even with a gun pressed to his temple, to tell which page he was on or what part of the story he last read.
The knock again. Tim placed the book open face down on the side table. Next to it was the handheld trigger for the silent alarm which he picked up and let his thumb hover over the panic button. Should he press it or simply answer the door? Smart money was on activating the alarm but he had always been a slave to curiosity so he pocketed the remote, rose from his comfy chair, exited the living room and padded across the hardwood foyer floor on the balls of his feet.
The closer he got to the door he heard some sort of commotion going on outside and as his hand landed on the doorknob he drew in a deep breath and held it for a long moment to quell the anxious feeling hatching in the pit of his belly. Tim hadn’t realized just how unaccustomed he was to answering his own door, it had been so long.
As he turned the knob a thought crossed his mind, perhaps the person on the other side of the door, the lawbreaker, was a deranged lunatic or religious fanatic who saw it as their duty, their purpose, their God-given right to put an end to what they viewed as an abomination. He knew that wasn’t the case, though. The knock was far too polite. They were all so damned polite, the knockers. Lightly rapping on his door all day, all night, in any weather, even on holidays. Especially on holidays. The only time they didn’t knock was on Sunday, his sanctioned day of rest.
He opened the door to shouts and protests. A crowd of people clustered on his front porch began forming a semi-circle behind the woman who stood in the doorway directly in his face. They accused her of jumping the queue, shouted that what she was doing was illegal, and warned/threatened her with the prosecutable penalties of her actions. And the discontent was spreading along people of all ages, ethnicities, male and female alike who gathered in a line that ran the length of his front walk to the pavement, down the block, and most likely around the corner, who were waiting their turn for an audience. But all the chatter came to an abrupt halt the moment they caught sight of Tim.
The woman in front of him, the illegal knocker, had a familiar face but her features were too average, too face-in-the-crowd, to recall outright, Tim had to flip through his mental rolodex and play the association game. He twigged her face was connected to some sort of event that would have revealed a location that eventually would have produced a name. Taking a deep breath, he relaxed his mind and softened his focus and let his gears spin a bit until he came up with:
Fundraiser ~~> community center ~~> Dick Cole
This woman was a friend of Dick Cole. Linda something-or-other. Rhymed with seed. Greed? Mead? Plead?
“Linda Reid,” Tim smiled, more at the swiftness of the connection than the pleasure of seeing the woman. “It’s been a while. A couple of years, I think.”
“Settle down, everyone,” Tim addressed the throng beyond the woman. “You know I’m not allowed to accept appointments today so she’s not cutting in line ahead of any of you. She happens to be a friend.”
Tim gestured for Linda to step inside which prompted the grousing to recommence but he merely closed the door to let them vent amongst themselves.
“Sorry for causing a commotion,” Linda said, smiling a bit too much. “And for not keeping in touch. Things have been so hectic down at the center with budget cuts and understaffing…and other things, that I don’t socialize much anymore. And you’ve got a lot on your hands at the moment—”
Tim waved off the rest of the sentence. “No worries,” he said, leading her past the empty administrative desks and into the sitting room.
“Awful lot of furniture crowding your foyer,” Linda said.
“That’s for the staff, doormen, greeters, admin assistants, all government appointed. They see to visitors. There are also bodyguards posted at each of the house’s ingress and egress points but they all have the day off because it’s my day off.”
“I suppose that’s another thing I’m sorry for.”
“I don’t get many non-work related visitors so this is a welcomed change,” Tim said, gesturing for Linda to take a seat. “Can I get you anything? Water? Juice? Or I could put the kettle on?”
“Do you have anything stronger?” Linda asked sheepishly as she sat down.
“I don’t imbibe, I’m afraid. Rules of my employment and all.”
“Yes, of course, how foolish of me. Water’s fine, then.”
Tim popped into the kitchen and returned with two glasses and ice water in a silver pitcher dotted with dew-like condensation.
“Not to fret,” he said, sitting opposite Linda and filling her glass. “Most people never consider it when they drop by.”
She took the water glass and swallowed two gulps. “I–um–I think I have a slight confession to make.”
“This isn’t a social visit, is it?”
“I can explain.”
“Explain what exactly? That you’re a lawbreaker and you seek to make me complicit in your crime? Is this a trap? Did the organization send you? Are you here to test me? Well, I’m not having it so you can go back and tell your bosses that I don’t cut side deals to pocket a little extra cash. We made an arrangement and I’m honoring it to the best of my ability!”
“So, how does this go? Do I have to fill out an application? Sign a legal document? Do you need proof? I didn’t think to bring any with me but I can get whatever it is you need.”
“If your request is granted, you’ll need to sign a few documents, including one that absolves me of any blame should the outcome fail to have the desired effect,” he said automatically.
“Naturally, without a doubt,” Linda answered, a bit too eagerly.
They’re always so eager at this stage, before the harshness of reality sets in, Tim thought. “But for right now, all you have to do is tell me what brings you here.”
“Um, okay,” she adjusted herself in the seat and wondered how her breath could so suddenly get caught in her throat. “It isn’t for me, you understand, I’d never come to ask for myself.
It’s my fiancé, Dick, you’ve met him, in fact, he introduced us at a fundraiser two years ago.”
“Yes, I know Dick. What’s wrong with him?”
“He has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis,” Linda said in a quiet voice.
“Lou Gehrig’s disease.” Tim’s stomach turned over. He didn’t need her to elucidate further.
She nodded, her eyes fading down to the throw rug, absently tracing patterns. “It’s in the late stages now. I would have come sooner, but it’s taken me some time to talk Dick into this. He doesn’t think it seems right. Not what you do, that’s fine and he thinks you’re a saint for doing it. He doesn’t think it’s right asking you for help, especially this kind of help. Dick doesn’t want you or anyone else taking pity on him. He’s never taken a handout in his life and he can’t help but see this as charity.”
“Yes,” Tim said, not bothering to hear the rest of the pitch. That’s what they were, pitches. Not simple requests or implorations, these were stories designed to pull at his heartstrings. But who ever bothered to listen to his story? Not one of them. Not a single person among the many that crossed his threshold ever bothered asking him a personal question. As if he wasn’t human, as if he wasn’t allowed his own tragedy.
“What? I don’t understand.” She set the glass down on the nearby table, missing the coaster by half an inch. Tim either hadn’t noticed or decided not to comment.
“I’m saying, yes.”
“Yes, you’ll help?” Linda blinked and met the man’s gaze as a hopeful smile began to split her face.
“Yes.”
“I — I don’t know what to say,” she was on her feet before she knew what was happening, moving in for a hug. “I — thank you, Tim!”
Tim put his hand up, stopping the woman in her tracks. “Don’t thank me yet. There are still a few things you need to realize before you accept my offer.”
“It doesn’t matter. Anything! And I mean anything!” Interest colored her face.
“Please calm down for a moment and listen to me. This thing you’re asking of me, this gift of blood, it may not solve your problems and could possibly worsen matters for you.” Tim traced his finger around the rim of his glass.
“I’ll take that chance… we’ll take that chance!”
“Listen to me!” Tim brought the glass down on the table, just hard enough to startle and capture her full attention. At the cost of a wet sleeve and the water stains that would surely mark the cherry wood. “Ever since scientists discovered the curative properties of my blood, tests have been run. Mostly successful, I’m a match for all blood types, and my white blood cells haven’t encountered a disease it can’t cure—”
“Which is why I came to you. I did my research and you cured other ALS patients before—”
“The problem isn’t my blood,” he interrupted. “It’s Dick’s immune system reaction that’s the danger. If his body rejects my blood and tries to attack parts of it, there won’t be a second chance. He instantly becomes a non-match. On the other hand, if his body takes the transfusion, in a few month’s time, his white blood cells will resemble mine and he’ll automatically be enlisted in the same line of work as I am.”
The weight of Tim’s words slowly settled on Linda. “You mean, he’ll—?”
“He’ll never know another moment’s peace for the rest of his life. People will hound him, pleading for themselves or family or friends, day and night, night and day. Nonstop. Some gentle, others less so.”
“But why is that necessary?” Linda asked.
“My white blood cells can’t be synthesized. Top minds have tried and failed time and again. And although my blood can be stored, the white blood cells lose their miraculous properties over a period of thirty-six hours outside my body.
“I would have been strapped to a table in a laboratory for the rest of my natural life if I wasn’t for my brother. Hell of a lawyer. Fought his ass off to petition the quality of life rights that allow me the tiny bit of freedom I have. The stipulation is I must share my gift, triage the world, help the sickest among you. There are restrictions, legal hours when people have the right to approach me, but no one listens. How can they be expected to follow the rules when they or their loved ones are dying?
“I used to fight it. Turn people away when the established workday was through. Dealt with the angry mobs and the death threats. Then I asked myself, “Why?” Why fight my fate? If I’m meant to help people, why shouldn’t I do it when it needs to be done and not only when I want to do it? And there’s a selfish reason if I’m honest. You see, if I help enough people, if enough of the populace possesses my blood, I won’t be special anymore or alone in all this. Maybe then, when there’s enough blood to go around and my bit for the world is done, the price of my gift paid, maybe then I can be left alone to die in peace.”
Linda hesitated. She shook her head and turned to leave. “This… this is… “ She stumbled over the words, not knowing how to express her thoughts.
Tim realized too late that he said too much, chose the wrong person to unburden himself on. He regretted his action instantly. “It’s a lot to process, I know. Why don’t you go home and discuss it with Dick? You can contact me if you decide to go through with it.”
From his shirt pocket, he fished out a solid white business card, imprinted only with a faint phone number that had to be viewed at the proper angle in order to be seen. “A direct line, please don’t share it with anyone.”
“I won’t,” Linda muttered as she shambled to the doorway. “I — look, I know you can’t talk about the other people you’ve seen, but can you just tell me if anyone has ever turned down your help after you’ve explained everything to them?”
For a moment, Tim didn’t respond, he just watched as the hope drained from her face. “More people than you might imagine.” He noted she found no reassurance in his answer. He turned away, unable to look upon her sorrow any longer. He had his own to contend with.
Over his shoulder, he said, “Be sure you tell Dick everything I’ve told you, and if he refuses, try to understand. Sometimes there are worse things than death.”
1. “You can be a little ungrammatical if you come from the right part of the country.” — Robert Frost
2. “Word has somehow got around that the split infinitive is always wrong. That is a piece with the outworn notion that it is always wrong to strike a lady.” — James Thurber
3. “It is indeed acceptable practice to sometimes split an infinitive. If infinitive-splitting makes available just the shade of meaning you desire or if avoiding the separation creates a confusing ambiguity or patent artificiality, you are entitled to happily go ahead and split!” — Richard Lederer
4. “When you catch an adjective, kill it.” — Mark Twain
5. “The adjective is the banana peel of the parts of speech.” — Clifton Fadiman
6. “The adjective is the enemy of the noun.” — Voltaire
7. “If the noun is good and the verb is strong, you almost never need an adjective.” — J. Anthony Lukas
8. “Don’t say it was ‘delightful’; make us say ‘delightful’ when we’ve read the description. You see, all those words (horrifying, wonderful, hideous, exquisite) are only like saying to your readers ‘Please will you do my job for me?’” — C.S. Lewis
9. “Forward motion in any piece of writing is carried by verbs. Verbs are the action words of the language and the most important. Turn to any passage on any page of a successful novel and notice the high percentage of verbs. Beginning writers always use too many adjectives and adverbs and generally use too many dependent clauses. Count your words and words of verbal force (like that word “force” I just used).” — William Sloane
10. “The editorial ‘we’ has often been fatal to rising genius; though all the world knows that it is only a form of speech, very often employed by a single needy blockhead.” — Thomas Baington Macaulay
11. “Only presidents, editors and people with tapeworm have the right to use the editorial ‘we.’” — Mark Twain
Q: What do you say when you are comforting a grammar nazi?
A: There, Their, They’re
English Professor
“In English,” he said, “A double negative forms a positive. In some languages, though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative.”
A voice from the back of the room piped up, “Yeah, right.”
Library
A Texan was visiting Harvard University, and was lost. He stopped a student and asked, “Do you know where the library is at?”
“I sure do,” replied the student, “But, you know, you’re not supposed to end sentences with prepositions.”
“What?”
“Prepositions. You ended your sentence with an ‘at’, which you aren’t supposed to do.”
“Oh, ok,” said the Texan, “Do you know where the library is at, asshole?”
Grammar walks into a Bar
Three intransitive verbs walk into a bar. They sit. They Drink. They Leave
A comma splice walks into a bar, it has a drink and then leaves.
A dangling modifier walks into a bar. After finishing a drink, the bartender asks it to leave.
A Question mark walks into a bar?
Two Quotation marks “walk into” a bar.
A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking a drink.
The bar was walked into by the passive voice.
The past, the present, and the future walked into a bar. It was tense.
A synonym ambles into a pub.
A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking to drink.
A hyperbole totally ripped into this bar and destroyed everything.
A run on sentence walks into a bar it is thirsty.
Falling slowly, softly falling, the chiasmus collapsed to the bar floor.
A group of homophones wok inn two a bar.
Panda
A panda walks into a cafe. He orders a sandwich, eats it, then draws a gun and fires two shots in the air.
“Why?” asks the confused waiter, as the panda makes towards the exit. The panda produces a badly punctuated wildlife manual and tosses it over his shoulder.
“I’m a panda,” he says at the door. “Look it up.”
The waiter turns to the relevant entry and, sure enough, finds an explanation.
“Panda. Large black-and-white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves.”
A favorite writer of mine, Neil Gaiman. Enjoy as he reads from The Graveyard Book, winner of the 2010 Cilip Carnegie Medal, the Newbery Medal and the Booktrust Teenage Book Prize 2009, and shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Award.
1. “The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.” — Mark Twain
2. “People on the outside think there’s something magical about writing, that you go up in the attic at midnight and cast the bones and come down in the morning with a story, but it isn’t like that. You sit in back of the typewriter and you work, and that’s all there is to it.” — Harlan Ellison
3. “The secret is to start a story near the ending.” — Chris Offut
4. “The secret of successful fiction is a continual slight novelty.” — Edmund Gosse
5. “The big secret is the ability to stay in the room.” — Ron Carlson
6. “The secret to being a writer is that you have to write. It’s not enough to think about writing or to study literature or plan a future life as an author. You really have to lock yourself away, alone, and get to work.” — Augusten Burroughs
7. “It’s hard to explain how much one can love writing. If people knew how happy it can make you, we would all be writing all the time. It’s the greatest secret of the world.” — Andrea Barrett
8. “Composition is a discipline; it forces us to think. If you want to “get in touch with your feelings,” fine—talk to yourself; we all do. But, if you want to communicate with another thinking human being, get in touch with your thoughts. Put them in order; give them a purpose; use them to persuade, to instruct, to discover, to seduce. The secret way to do this is to write it down and then cut out the confusing parts.” — William Safire
9. “The secret of it all, is to write in the gush, the throb, the flood, of the moment – to put things down without deliberation – without worrying about their style – without waiting for a fit time or place. I always worked that way. I took the first scrap of paper, the first doorstep, the first desk, and wrote – wrote, wrote…By writing at the instant the very heartbeat of life is caught.” — Walt Whitman
10. “If there is a secret to writing, I haven’t found it yet. All I know is you need to sit down, clear your mind, and hang in there.” — Mary McGrory
Stop making that face. Did you really think you were going to uncover some magical shortcut to get you through the sometimes torturous process of writing? Ain’t I done learnt y’all better’n that? You go on now, here? And enjoy your weekend.
Flash fiction is defined as a style of fictional literature or fiction of extreme brevity. And while there’s no widely accepted rule as to the proper length of a flash fiction piece, I’ve seen word counts cap between three hundred and a thousand words. Although usually containing standard story elements such as a protagonist, conflict, obstacles, complications, and resolution, the limited word length can result in some of these elements to be merely hinted at or implied in the storyline.
1. Start in the middle. You don’t have time in this very short form to set scenes and build character.
2. Don’t use too many characters. You won’t have time to describe your characters when you’re writing ultra-short. Even a name may not be useful in a micro-story unless it conveys a lot of additional story information or saves you words elsewhere.
3. Make sure the ending isn’t at the end. In micro-fiction there’s a danger that much of the engagement with the story takes place when the reader has stopped reading. To avoid this, place the denouement in the middle of the story, allowing us time, as the rest of the text spins out, to consider the situation along with the narrator, and ruminate on the decisions his characters have taken. If you’re not careful, micro-stories can lean towards punchline-based or “pull back to reveal” endings which have a one-note, gag-a-minute feel – the drum roll and cymbal crash. Avoid this by giving us almost all the information we need in the first few lines, using the next few paragraphs to take us on a journey below the surface.
4. Sweat your title. Make it work for a living.
5. Make your last line ring like a bell. The last line is not the ending – we had that in the middle, remember – but it should leave the reader with something which will continue to sound after the story has finished. It should not complete the story but rather take us into a new place; a place where we can continue to think about the ideas in the story and wonder what it all meant. A story that gives itself up in the last line is no story at all, and after reading a piece of good micro-fiction we should be struggling to understand it, and, in this way, will grow to love it as a beautiful enigma. And this is also another of the dangers of micro-fiction; micro-stories can be too rich and offer too much emotion in a powerful one-off injection, overwhelming the reader, flooding the mind. A few micro-shorts now and again will amaze and delight – one after another and you feel like you’ve been run over by a lorry full of fridges.
6. Write long, then go short. Create a lump of stone from which you chip out your story sculpture. Stories can live much more cheaply than you realise, with little deterioration in lifestyle. But do beware: writing micro-fiction is for some like holidaying in a caravan – the grill may well fold out to become an extra bed, but you wouldn’t sleep in a fold-out grill for the rest of your life.
And if I might add a few tips to Mr. Gaffney’s list:
Do your homework and read a ton of flash fiction stories. Stop groaning, they’re ultra-short.
Pay close attention to story settings and character development
Tell a proper story. Having a character deliver a monolog or go off on a diatribe, or spending the word count describing a setting, doesn’t help you hone your brevity writing skills.
Do not toss away your story if it happens to be too big and you just can’t whittle it down to size. Instead, pat yourself on the back for creating a short story. Every cloud, right?
If you’re using a word processing program, make use of the built-in word count feature.
For the record, extremely short fiction isn’t a brand spanking new concept. In fact, Ernest Hemingway once wrote the following six-word story:
“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”
According to sources, the author considered it to be the finest prose he had ever written. Even more remarkable, it comes in under the stringent 140 character count of Twitter’s tweet fiction (see: To Make A Long Story Shortest). Way to go, Hemmy!
I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we’re apart. I can be forever happy – will you let me be yours?
Gloria
Dear John,
I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men, I yearn. For you, I have no feelings whatsoever. When we’re apart, I can be forever happy. Will you let me be?
Parsing prose. Syntactical structure. Conceptual framework. Your writing style is the voice you use to speak to your audience and is more than just diction and the words you choose, as it offers a glimpse at your true personality. It takes the literal and transforms it into a subjective expression that evokes an emotional response from the reader.
As to how you develop a writing style… you write. Write what comes natural to you. Write without worrying about acceptance or being published. Write without concentrating on influences. But you’ve heard me bang on about this already, so I invited a few friends to help get you into the proper frame of mind:
1. “A good style must, first of all, be clear. It must not be mean or above the dignity of the subject. It must be appropriate.” — Aristotle
2. “Don’t say you were a bit confused and sort of tired and a little depressed and somewhat annoyed. Be tired. Be confused. Be depressed. Be annoyed. Don’t hedge your prose with little timidities. Good writing is lean and confident.” — William Zinsser
3. “Carefully examined, a good–an interesting–style will be found to consist in a constant succession of tiny, unobservable surprises.” — Ford Maddox Ford
4. “A good style should show no sign of effort. What is written should seem a happy accident.” — W. Somerset Maugham
5. “A strict and succinct style is that, where you can take away nothing without loss, and that loss to be manifest.” — Ben Jonson
6. “The hardest thing about writing, in a sense, is not writing. I mean, the sentence is not intended to show you off, you know. It is not supposed to be “look at me!” “Look, no hands!” It’s supposed to be a pipeline between the reader and you. Once condition of the sentence is to write so well that no one notices that you’re writing.” — James Baldwin
7. “The greatest possible mint of style is to make the words absolutely disappear into the thought.” — Nathaniel Hawthorne
8. “When you say something, make sure you have said it. The chances of your having said it are only fair.” — E.B. White
9. “I am well aware that an addiction to silk underwear does not necessarily imply that one’s feet are dirty. Nonetheless, style, like sheer silk, too often hides eczema.” — Albert Camus
10. “It was from Handel that I learned that style consists in force of assertion. If you can say a thing with one stroke, unanswerably you have style; if not, you are at best a marchande de plaisir, a decorative litterateur, or a musical confectioner, or a painter of fans with cupids and coquettes. Handel had power.” — George Bernard Shaw
11. “Who cares what a man’s style is, so it is intelligible, as intelligible as his thought. Literally and really, the style is no more than the stylus, the pen he writes with; and it is not worth scraping and polishing, and gilding, unless it will write his thoughts the better for it. It is something for use, and not to look at.” — Henry David Thoreau
12. “People think that I can teach them style. What stuff it all is! Have something to say, and say it as clearly as you can. That is the only secret of style.” — Matthew Arnold
13. “Style is the dress of thoughts; and let them be ever so just, if your style is homely, coarse, and vulgar, they will appear to as much disadvantage.” — Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield
14. “A man’s style should be like his dress. It should be as unobtrusive and should attract as little attention as possible.” — C. E. M. Joad
15. “The style is the man himself.” — George-Louis Leclerc de Buffon
16. “The old saying of Buffon’s that style is the man himself is as near the truth as we can get–but then most men mistake grammar for style, as they mistake correct spelling for words or schooling for education.” — Samuel Butler
17. “When we see a natural style, we are astonished and delighted; for we expected to see an author, and we find a man.” — Blaise Pascal
18. “Style is the hallmark of a temperament stamped upon the material at hand.” — Andre Maurois
19. “The essence of a sound style is that it cannot be reduced to rules–that it is a living and breathing thing with something of the devilish in it–that it fits its proprietor tightly yet ever so loosely, as his skin fits him. It is, in fact, quite as seriously an integral part of him as that skin is. . . . In brief, a style is always the outward and visible symbol of a man, and cannot be anything else.” — H.L. Mencken
20. “You do not create a style. You work, and develop yourself; your style is an emanation from your own being.” — Katherine Anne Porter
21. “Style is the perfection of a point of view.” — Richard Eberhart
22. “Where there is no style, there is in effect no point of view. There is, essentially, no anger, no conviction, no self. Style is opinion, hung washing, the caliber of a bullet, teething beads.” — Alexander Theroux
23. “Style is that which indicates how the writer takes himself and what he is saying. It is the mind skating circles around itself as it moves forward.” — Robert Frost
24. “What’s important is the way we say it. Art is all about craftsmanship. Others can interpret craftsmanship as style if they wish. Style is what unites memory or recollection, ideology, sentiment, nostalgia, presentiment, to the way we express all that. It’s not what we say but how we say it that matters.” — Federico Fellini
25. “Proper words in proper places, make the true definition of style.” — Jonathan Swift
26. “The web, then, or the pattern, a web at once sensuous and logical, an elegant and pregnant texture: that is style.” — Robert Louis Stevenson
27. “The most durable thing in writing is style, and style is the most valuable investment a writer can make with his time. It pays off slowly, your agent will sneer at it, your publisher will misunderstand it, and it will take people you have never heard of to convince them by slow degrees that the writer who puts his individual mark on the way he writes will always pay off.” — Raymond Chandler
28. “The style of an author should be the image of his mind, but the choice and command of language is the fruit of exercise.” — Edward Gibbon
29. “One arrives at style only with atrocious effort, with fanatical and devoted stubbornness.” — Gustave Flaubert
30. “To me style is just the outside of content, and content the inside of style, like the outside and the inside of the human body. Both go together, they can’t be separated.” — Jean-Luc Godard
31. “Thought and speech are inseparable from each other. Matter and expression are parts of one; style is a thinking out into language.” — Cardinal John Henry Newman
32. “In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity, is the vital thing.” — Oscar Wilde
33. “Style, in its finest sense, is the last acquirement of the educated mind; it is also the most useful. It pervades the whole being.” — Alfred North Whitehead
34. “Style is not something applied. It is something that permeates. It is of the nature of that in which it is found, whether the poem, the manner of a god, the bearing of a man. It is not a dress.” — Wallace Stevens
35. “All my stories are webs of style and none seems at first blush to contain much kinetic matter. . . . For me ‘style’ is matter.” — Vladimir Nabokov
And if I may tack on a few extras pieces of advice: don’t forget to take risks, give voice to that quirkiness of thought that you possess, avoid clichés, if at all possible, be concise and precise, and develop a keen sense of word choice.
Oh, and be patient. Style is a thing that can’t be rushed and it might take a while for yours to become evident, but you’ll know when it finally arrives. Words will flow easier, you’ll feel more comfortable with the act of writing, and you’ll be able to recognize that identifiable cadence that belongs to only one person in the world… you.
