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 prompt. 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, tops. No more.
- It can be any genre.
- Give it a title. Please keep it to 10 words.
- 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 September 29th will be considered. We'll run the winner on September 30th.
This Month's Prize
This month, we are giving away a copy of Patrick O'Neil's Gun, Needle, Spoon, which is our Book Club selection for October. Get it just in time!
This memoir follows a punk rock pioneer on his slide into drug abuse and life as as an armed robber, all the way through life in recovery and what it's like to look back on those times, knowing all the while that the third strike might hit at any time, triggering a life behind bars.
Your Inspiration:
Opus T. Penguin is back. When I was a kid, my dad LOVED the comic strip Bloom County by Berkeley Breathed and especially the character of Opus T. Penguin. We even gave him a stuffed Opus for Christmas one year. Breathed stopped writing Bloom County in 1989, and stopped drawing comics for newspapers in 2008. Just last month, Breathed revived the whitey-tighty-wearing water fowl in a new running of the Bloom County strip by waking Opus up after a 25 year nap.
This month, write a story that picks up 25 years later. Not necessarily about Opus, just imagine a story about anything, and then write as if you are checking back in on that storyline 25 years later. What things are different? What things are the same? You get 25 words. Go.
And the Winner Is...RosieToesAmarose
A fine crop of entries, again, you all! Quite a few past winners, too! This month, though, the blue ribbon goes to LitReactor Rookie RosieToesAmarose! She's only been on the site a month! Congrats!!
Coffee Shop
Sip. Don't look up. Don't look desperate.
Today's his birthday. 25 years since that indifferent nurse carried him out.
Shoes.
"Beth Anders?"
Look.
Look up.
About the author
Taylor Houston is a genuine Word Nerd living in Portland, OR where she works as a technical writer for an engineering firm and volunteers on the planning committee for Wordstock, a local organization dedicated to writing education.
She holds a degree in Creative Writing and Spanish from Hamilton College in Clinton, NY. In the English graduate program at Penn State, she taught college composition courses and hosted a poetry club for a group of high school writers.
While living in Seattle, Taylor started and taught a free writing class called Writer’s Cramp (see the website). She has also taught middle school Language Arts & Spanish, tutored college students, and mentored at several Seattle writing establishments such as Richard Hugo House. She’s presented on panels at Associated Writing Programs Conference and the Pennsylvania College English Conference and led writing groups in New York, Pennsylvania, and Colorado for writers of all ages & abilities. She loves to read, write, teach & debate the Oxford Comma with anyone who will stand still long enough.
