UPDATED WITH WINNER - LitReactor's Flash Fiction Smackdown: July Edition
Flash fiction: A style of fictional literature marked by extreme brevity.
Welcome to LitReactor's Flash Fiction Smackdown, a monthly bout of writing prowess.
How It Works
We give you inspiration in the form of a picture, poem, video, or similar. You write a flash fiction piece using the inspiration we gave you. Put your entry in the comments section. One winner will be picked and awarded a prize.
The Rules
- 25 words (not including the words in the prompt) You can write less, but not more.
- It can be any genre.
- Give it a title. Please keep it to 10 words or less.
- We're not exactly shy, but let's stay away from senseless racism or violence.
- One entry per person.
- Editing your entry after you submit it is permitted.
- LitReactor staffers can't win, but are encouraged to participate.
- All stories submitted on or before July 30 will be considered. We'll run the winner on July 31.
This Month's Prize
An ARC of Moon over Tangier, the latest Frances Bacon Mystery from Janice Law. Amazon's description is below:
In colonial Morocco, a painter navigates a conspiracy of forgery, corruption, and murder
For Francis, life with David grows more dangerous by the day. When sober, he is charming, but when he drinks, he is violent, slashing Francis’s paintings and threatening to gut the painter, too. When David leaves London for Morocco, Francis cannot help but follow this man whom he loves but can no longer trust. In Tangier, they find a thriving community of expats who guzzle champagne while revolutionaries gather in the desert. But in Morocco’s International Zone, death does not wait for rebellion.
After Francis identifies a friend’s Picasso as a fake, the police call him in to investigate the forger’s demise. If he refuses, they will throw David in jail, where inmates and the DTs will kill him within the week. Between the bustle of the city and the emptiness of the desert, Francis finds that in Morocco, even the fakes can be worth killing for.
Your Inspiration
Let's play a game of Finish This Story! I am going to give you a sentence which you have to use somewhere in your story. You can use it as the first or last sentence, or use it somewhere in the middle. You have 25 words, NOT including the ones given in the prompt sentence.
Ok, here's your sentence:
While it was too dark yet to tell, Jamie was pretty sure the worst thing to ever happen was just on the other side of that shadow.
And the Winner Is....Alaninportland
I really like the way that Alaninportland mixed up the words of the prompt into different sentences to create a whole different type of story. Well done!
While it was too dark yet to tell, Jamie was pretty. I was sure. An eight at the worst. For such a disappointing thing to ever happen next was heartbreaking. I flipped on my flashlight. Her makeup was just on the wrong side of Haute Streetwalker. All that eye shadow!
Column by Taylor Houston
Taylor Houston is a genuine Word Nerd living in Portland, OR where she works as a technical writer and volunteers on the marketing committee for Wordstock, a local organization dedicated to writing education. She has a BA in Creative Writing and Spanish from Hamilton College and attended Penn State's MFA program in Creative Nonfiction. She has taught writing at all levels from middle school to college to adult, and she is the creator of Writer’s Cramp, a class for adults who just want to write!
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Comments
Candlelight
While it was too dark yet to tell, Jamie was pretty sure the worst thing to ever happen was just on the other side of that shadow. She dreaded lifting it, she didn't want to watch as the rest of her life was taken from her. Who gets married at night, anyway?
...still waiting for an image, a poem, a video, a scientific article about Dean's Blue Hole, a song produced from dropping a 5 lb bucket of paper clips on a steel beam, the radio waves that make up the voice of a star. But a weak prompt from highschool lit? You guys can do better.
Leap headfirst into a subsurface sinkhole:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQITWbAaDx0&feature=youtu.be&t=50s
The voice of a star:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-MBrW0QcfM
An image of Japanese urban decay
http://a.abcnews.go.com/images/International/06_japan_hashima_island_ll_...
An article about the Poetry of Parenthood:
http://www.npr.org/2012/07/23/157071197/its-a-genre-the-overdue-poetry-o...
Can't we do better...?
Dinner
"While it was to dark yet to tell, Jamie was prettie sure the worst thing to ever happen was just on the other side of that shadow," Eric crossed out the line with his red pen. Before adding the revision he had in mind, he smelled something burning from the stove.
Common Sense
While it was too dark yet to tell, Jamie was pretty sure the worst thing to ever happen was just on the other side of that shadow.
"Not today," she said as she left the scene and headed to the bar. She was well aware of how horror stories worked.
REDEEMER
While it was too dark yet to tell, Jamie was pretty sure the worst thing to ever happen was just on the other side of that shadow.
She wiped her tears, extended her delicate fingers into the void. Because fear had done nothing but lead her down the long road to nowhere.
Dad's Other House
While it was too dark yet to tell, Jamie was pretty sure the worst thing to ever happen was just on the other side of that shadow. His phonelight dispersed the darkness. He gasped. Nailed to the basement wall was a single tit, dried and cracked with age, but unmistably his mother's.
Worthy suggestions, Sanbai, but I have found that prompts that are open-ended provide more insteresting results. And frankly, the entrants always provide great material, no matter how lame the prompt. The first few on here are already great. Perhaps you'd like like to take a stab at it, too?
Metametafiction
When she leaned over his shoulder to see what Bret had written, Jaime blocked the fluorescent's scant light. While it was too dark yet to tell, Jamie was pretty sure the worst thing to ever happen was just on the other side of that shadow.
Awoken from another nightmare. Something sticky gripped in his hand. Moonlight shows the image of a naked man holding a dripping triangle on the wall. Jamie was pretty sure the worst thing to ever happen was just on the other side of that shadow.
The Foreboding Shadow of Death
The shadow slowly crawled up the wall, imulating the living dead that leave their grave. Jamie had a cold sweat form like early winter rain. While it was too dark yet to tell, Jamie was pretty sure the worst thing to ever happen was just on the other side of that shadow.
Crossing the Shadow
While it was too dark yet to tell, Jamie was pretty sure the worst thing to ever happen was just on the other side of that shadow.
Of course, a black hole is all shadow, an anomaly of physics that devours everything, even light. And, Jamie too, in a few short seconds.
And Shedding a Nameless Horror Round
As the generators struggled, the lights continued flickering. Humidity and desperate cries filled the room. While it was too dark yet to tell, Jamie was pretty sure the worst thing ever to happen was just on the other side of that shadow. The doctor stood, grinning. It’s a boy, he said.
Home
The taste of iron filled her mouth. The candle flickered, its wax seeping across the floor in front of her fingers. While it was too dark yet to tell, Jamie was pretty sure the worst thing to ever happen was just on the other side of that shadow. Then the pressure came...
While it was too dark yet to tell, Jamie was pretty sure the worst thing to ever happen was just on the other side of that shadow.
Then a light-switch clicked and instinctively, Jamie fired. “Surprise, happy…” his daughter managed to say, split-seconds before the bullet ripped through her and the cake.
Imbibition of the Spirits
While it was too dark yet to tell, Jamie was pretty sure the worst thing to ever happen was just on the other side of that shadow. Yet she was drawn, or more pushed by a pain that only subsided the closer she drew to the black edge.
"Cleanse," the void whispered.
While it was too dark yet to tell, Jamie was pretty. I was sure. An eight at the worst. For such a disappointing thing to ever happen next was heartbreaking. I flipped on my flashlight. Her makeup was just on the wrong side of Haute Streetwalker. All that eye shadow!
http://williamgrit.com/2014/07/26/litreactors-flash-july-vile/
Faust's Sister
While it was too dark yet to tell, Jamie was pretty sure the worst thing to ever happen was just on the other side of that shadow. "So soon?" she thought. She would go, of course. "Give me your hand Brother," she called, then stepped into the slithering darkness and was gone.