#FridayFlash Favorites (2010/06/22)
This is an archived post, originally published on Be the Story (bethestory.com).
Each Friday, writers post on twitter a link to a short-short story they’ve written, marked with the tag #FridayFlash. Mine this week I threw together at the last minute… and then I had partied on the weekend and got sick on Monday, so I couldn’t post Monday about the process I used. (Hold on— That didn’t come out quite right. I partied on the weekend, because Father’s Day and my birthday, both on the same day. And I think it was food poisoning that got me sick.) But I have the “How to Write a Character-Driven Flash Story Really Fast” post slated for next Monday (knock on wood).
Of the stories that were posted last Friday, however, here are my…
#FridayFlash Favorites for June 18
Out of 100 stories (of which 78 made it onto the official #FridayFlash Report for June 18), here are my 11 favorites, listed in no particular order.
"I Will Remember You" by Leah Petersen — Megan makes a heart-wrenching choice. Imagine the forces at work in her life.
"Idle Life" by Laurita Miller — The isolation of a stay-at-home Mom (or Dad).
"Office Politics" by Neil Shurley — A humorous scene from the lovelorn. (Boy, she looks hot in that skirt, doesn't she?)
"Happily Ever After" by Trisha Castillo — Alone doesn't necessarily mean lonely.
"Bedtime Story" by Tim VanSant — What are dragons? And that's why they tear out people's hearts.
"Mirror Mirror" by T. S. Bazelli — A story about choices and realities.
"Work Ethic" by Lydia Ondrusek — When you let work take over your life, you don't get to the top by flinching.
"The Excitable Whipping Boy" by Alan W. Davidson — It could'a been Tom Sawyer (one of my all-time favorite characters). This amusing adventure, however, is one of Simon Cunningham's.
"Opportunity" by Katherine Nabity — Grab him by the lock. Quick! Before he escapes!
"Twelve Items or Less" by Matt Merritt — A delightfully funny display of solidarity against bad manners.
"Mixed Messages" by Jodi Cleghorn — A girl seeks the meaning of life high in a tree.
Note: To be selected as one of my #FridayFlash Favorites, the post must be a genuine flash story, not a chapter in a longer piece, a series of one-paragraph vignettes, or anything else. It should have a beginning (conflict), a middle (thickening), and an end (resolution). Not necessarily a happy ending (though I do enjoy happy endings), but whatever conflict the story introduces at the beginning, it must resolve at the end. No fair building up suspense and then stopping in the middle of the story, just so you don’t have to figure out how to save the hero in 1,000 words or less; that’s cheating. The story should also be a single scene, because multi-scene flash usually does too much “telling” and doesn’t “show” enough to engage me in the story. (And scene divisions stop the flow, which is usually a bad idea in flash.) While I do browse Twitter for #FridayFlash posts, the best way to get me to read yours is to put it on the #FridayFlash Collector. I judge posted stories according to my own preferences; your mileage may vary.
Till next week, and…
Keep writing! -TimK