Meg Sefton's Blog, page 48

Inktober Day 4: Curse

[image error]girl interrupted by Aftab Uzzaman, flickr

I never really knew my wife, Finola. Upon her passing however, I awoke night after night to a voice whispering to me terrible secrets of her family. The whisperings grew to shouting and groans. I lit sage but rain from the ceiling quenched the cleansing from her curse.

Inktober Day 3: War

[image error]Gas Masks by Père Ubu

All it took to avoid death was a cloth shield on the face. And yet, there was a state-run mind-warp loud as a bully or psyops equating the wearing of masks with weakness and disloyalty. Many of us are dying yet we war against subversion.

Inktober Day 2: Child

[image error]Caged by VirtualWolf, flickr

It was in the eyes, something dark and sparkling. The child, smeared in ash gray paint for his zombie Halloween costume, held out his bag for candy. Somehow she knew: He had eaten her baby. More and more children had been appearing to her, in hoards, all of them hungry.

Inktober Day 1: Kiss

[image error]Alone by Duarte JH, flickr

Lonely Miss Braeburn, librarian, bedroom curtains closed to the night, awakens: Teeth puncturing neck, electric, paralyzing pain, wet smacking, grunting, the smell of iron, the warm trickle of blood. The town pitmaster, confirmed bachelor, smelling of fire and smoke, sampling, her sole lover.

Micro Horror

Lonely Miss Braeburn, town librarian, closes her musty velvet curtains to the night. A dream wakes her: sharp piercing of her neck, wet smacking, sucking, the smell of iron, the warm trickle of blood, pain. The town pitmaster, confirmed bachelor, smelling of fire and smoke, yet sampling, her sole lover.

Within A Forest Dark

Inktober

Photo by Hannah Troupe, Unsplash

Day 1. Prompts for 50 word microfiction, 31 for October, one piece of candy per day.Write to maintain sanity, precious.

Hailey Kean, unsplash

Prompt: Kiss

Zampire by kaybay_h, flickr

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Micro Horror

[image error]

Inktober

Photo by Hannah Troupe, Unsplash

[image error]

Day 1. Prompts for 50 word microfiction, 31 for October, one piece of candy per day. Write to maintain sanity, precious.

Hailey Kean, unsplash

[image error]

Prompt: Kiss

Zampire by kaybay_h, flickr

Inktober part five

[image error]the girl who lived (not quite hermione granger) by Jesse Draper, flickr

Microfiction can be any exceptionally short length and is frequently used for work that is under 300 words. Journals and contests sometimes have a particular length in mind but the current working definition is fluid. For a longer discussion as well as an exploration of expert practitioners and helpful writing tips check out this article in Lit Reactor.

I started writing 50 word pieces last year because I didn’t think I could do it. I’m still not sure I have but it has been interesting. I also wanted to exercise the discipline of posting each Inktober micro on twitter. I am keeping the length at 50 words for the time being because I think it’s just about doable for 31 pieces for the 31 days of October. This is not the same thing as saying not much goes into it. In fact each word must count and thought and work must go into it, much like creating a delicious chocolate truffle or amuse-bouche.

One way to layer in dimension is to take the prompt and fold it into something you are researching or working on from another project or from your own experiences. For example, I took my reading and writing on China’s Four Gorges’ Damn Project to compress a longer epistolary dystopian story into a teeny tiny epistolary micro dystopia. A couple of years ago for a fantasy writing workshop, I researched the Little Ice Age and the possibility of global warming changing the gulf stream which would result in a worldwide freeze. I had used that research for a short story, but I took that same material and made a micro. I like researching Florida ghost stories, and particularly central Florida. Celery was once a big crop at one time for this area and yes the historic location has its ghostly visitors, ergo: Micro fodder!

Another way to approach a micro is draw from something in your own life, maybe something very difficult and challenging. I wrote and published when I was going through chemo a few years ago. However, near the end, as it got more intense and I had to hang up my spurs. Last October I wrote of my memory of the chemo ward in a micro. While this micro isn’t literally true in some ways, using a personal challenge provides a great jumping off place for fiction.

Basing micros on longer work or unfinished work can be an informal way to annotate one’s projects. It can help clarify old work and provide fresh fuel and perspective for revisions and reworking. It is a way to remember and recapture. Also it is a way to take just certain bits of a story and work on them. Lastly, it can also be a way to step back into slightly longer work, such as a flash fiction piece, a short story, or something longer.

[image error]Going down the Shiplock, noeltock, flickr

Pattern

Dear sister,

Since they sent you and mother away to Labor Camp and flooded our ancient city to create a dam, destroying our relics and history, a pattern has emerged in the dark water: The ridges of a monster’s back, a swirl of massive bubbles, a powerful, long tail.

[image error]Ice Hotel 2015, Louise Leclerc, flickr

Snow

It was said global warming caused the global freeze as warm waters interrupted currents. The world was turning to frozen earth and snow, the sea, frozen water. My parents, desperate to feed us with quickly draining resources, sold me to a talent collector. I was to help build Ice City.

[image error]SW Decatur MI Industry Farming, Don the UpNorth Memories Guy, flickr

Legend

A strict Lutheran from Slovakia wanted a pure farm life for his family. He purchased land to grow celery in what is now known as Oviedo, Florida. According to legend, both laughter and wailing of ghost children can be heard in the neighborhood where once lived the righteous migrant family.

[image error]Hospital by Toshiyuki IMAI, flickr

Frail

It started happening at her most frail moment in the chemo ward, the drip in her arm dosing her into semi-consciousness: The flickering lights, the unfurling of a dark presence in the hallway, bony finger beckoning. One day, she stood apart from herself and joined the darkness, floating, cold.

Lee Morgan

Inktober, part four

[image error]Wicked Witch by This Year’s Love, flickr

I am aware of how many excellent writers there are out there writing in flash fiction forms and shorter. And there are many places that publish the best of this work. If I have time this month that may be something I explore here.

As for my own work, whether I am writing very short or a bit longer, I tend to write plot driven pieces when under time pressures and word constraints. A professor in grad school even called me a “plot driven writer.” In that setting, it wasn’t necessarily considered a compliment. lols. But that same professor was quick to point out a strength of my collection of stories that first year: A flash fiction piece of a thousand words.

Microfiction is pushing the boundaries of “narrative.” Some wouldn’t call these pieces stories. And yet, the best of shorter fiction pieces have dimension, evoke a wider context and an ongoing narrative. Microfiction pieces aren’t simply one or two sentences of words. And a one thousand flash fiction piece isn’t simply a few paragraphs.

Microfiction is obviously not longer fiction in terms of what it does, how it reads. For me personally having run three prompt based months this past year, I think it is mainly useful to the writer. Readers may want “more” though a collection of microfiction pieces on a theme could prove interesting. Or a collection of microfiction pieces may become an interesting story or imagistic experiment.

But so far my opinion of microfiction is that it is a way to generate material, sharpen ideas, build characters and settings and situations, work on tone and point of view. I don’t treat these pieces as “just exercises,” however. I fully commit to trying to tell a story in only fifty words. Like I said, there are those who do more of it and do it better. Nonetheless, I find it immensely enjoyable.

When I fully commit to story no matter the length and no matter the style – plot oriented or more imagistic – I begin to build a personal wealth from which to draw in later projects, sometimes without consciously realizing it. I think of it as similar to an artist doing sketches or studies.

Here are two Inktober pieces from last year that are more suggestive and imagistic as opposed to plot driven. One is pretty dark and I feel bad about that given what we are going through now. The other is a bit more imaginative and lighter in tone.

[image error]Nature is a Haunted House by Nicholas Erwin, flickr

Coat

Lady death’s dark coat is long and ragged, dragging in its train the stillborn, accident deaths, junkies, the weak and infirm, victims of famine, disease, and war, dead bones clinking and clanking, the reek of flesh. Souls are not her purview, only death’s physicality, its inevitability, our commonality with animals.

[image error]the witch by PokemonaDeChroma, flickr

Swing

On All Hallows’, witches swing on electric currents like ballooning spiders, shifting from place to place, their belongings on their backs – potions, books of spells, cats – riding their besom brooms. At gatherings, the thinning veil and a ritual incantation, a single candle in the night, allows their company with spirits.

Inktober part three

[image error]Mr. Buckley’s last rites and ceremony fence by noseforpics, flickr

So here are a few more prompts and examples of the fifty word prompt based fiction I conceptualized and wrote last year. (And please see the previous two posts regarding this topic.)

In writing to prompts I try to come at the most sideways angle possible. It is not unlike writing any fiction piece. In your mind at least layer in setting, the ground situation, and all the senses.

Think of who the narrator is: whether it is a first person narrator, a third limited narrator, or a more omniscient narrator who knows more than any one character could know. Sometimes I prefer just to try to be open to a feel. If I am lucky, a voice and tone suggests itself. If not, this is when I mine for details.

I like using unreliable narrators for the first person, either they are in extreme emotional distress or are just vulnerable in some way. I like gossipy omniscient narrators or ones who are dark and snarky like the kind you would hear on Disney’s Haunted Mansion ride. At least I use that darkness in Inktober. I think dark yet hilarious tombstones though the options are literally limitless.

I know this is a dark time in our nation’s history, but we need escapes. If you want to enjoy or try writing spooky, you could do worse. I’ll post more soon.

[image error]eyes down by Petras Gagilas, flickr

Ghost

My ghost is unhappy. She says we haven’t spent much time together.

She complains while I’m in the bath, sipping wine.

I feel myself nodding off, my chin dipping into the water while the tub fills.

Now this is what we needed, she says. Girl time n’ special k.

[image error]fangs_by_dominiquefx_d2d7lcj DeviantArt

Tasty

Bitsy got drunk at the Halloween party. She pretended to bite men’s necks but secretly slipped off her fangs and nuzzled them and kissed them, both married and single. “Mmm, tasty,” she said.  Later we found her fallen off the curb, neck broken. Rumor had it she had been shoved.

[image error]The Leaky Cauldron by Richard August, flickr

Mindless

The kind of flesh the ogress prefers are the wayward, the runaways, the unwanted. They cook up nice in their own fat while mothers, mindless of their absence, decorate for the holiday. Oregano and olive oil go nicely with neglect.

[image error]You’re in my Heart by Katie Kend, flickr

Ring

Imagine Alicia, novice mortician, fevered klepto, having extracted the ring from Mrs. Nováková’s corpse, waking in the dead of night to bony fingers round her throat, crushing her windpipe. The corpse exits the smashed window, abandoning sheets of skin on the glass.