Tag: flash fiction

Flash Fiction–“The Children’s Floor”

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

It’s Leap Day and since February is extended by one day, let’s do another little bit of a flash fiction.

And by little bit of flash fiction, I mean a 100 word story. Until I was inspired by yet another contest, I’d never considered writing a story so short. It proved to be a wonderful challenge.

Of course, I didn’t win the contest, but I did gain a new story skill.

The Children’s Floor

It was the way the library was designed. That was the problem. The way sound ricocheted around the building, showed up in unexpected places. That’s why Alice hated working the second floor, the children’s floor. She only had to cover an occasional hour here and there, but those always seemed to be the dead hours when there were no children or parents or anyone else. Only her.

Alice and the voices.

The ghostly conversations, disembodied voices asking questions, stifled giggles mocking her unease.

That’s what she hated about the children’s floor.

Alice would never know if it was really haunted.

Flash Fiction– “Haunted House”

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Since February is the shortest month -even during a leap year- it seems fitting to take advantage of that and post some flash fiction.

This is a 500 word story that I initially wrote during a NaNoWriMo while doing several pieces to make my 50,000 word count. The first draft was twice as long and not working. A 500 word story contest inspired me to cut it in half and I was much happier with it.

I lost the contest, but I gained a story.

Haunted House

She’s hiding behind a desk in a room. Not under it. She doesn’t want to get trapped. Under it, she would be trapped. Behind it, she can jump and run. And she can keep an eye on the door, peering over the ruined wood as she kneels on cracked and crackling tile.

He’s hunkered down in the room across the hall. She can’t see him even though the door is ajar. There’s only a little bit of light in the hallway. Everything is in black and white. The only color is the writing on the wall, the drippy numbers that mean nothing to her. The big blue three looms over her.

She doesn’t know him. She snuck in on a dare. He was already inside. But now they’re both in this together, a sacred pact of bad decisions.

It’s quiet. All she hears is her own breathing.

And footsteps. Echoing. Closer.

She wants to cry. Instead, she ducks down and holds her breath, afraid he’ll hear her breathe.

Can he hear her heart pound?

She nearly bolts when she hears a door squeak open. Nearly. It’s not her door. It’s his. The door to the room across the hall where her friend in poor life choices is hiding.

She risks a peek and sees the monster they’re hiding from disappear inside, tall and grimy, with filthy hair stringing down his back, his soiled wifebeater somehow stark in the scant light.

He’s in there now. He’s in there with him.

She risks a breath, afraid it’ll turn into a scream. She hopes to whatever God might be around that the monster doesn’t find him.

She should run before the monster finds her.

Vague sounds of movement. A muffled scramble.

The reverberation of a crack!thud gags her. The body of the friend she never knew falls through the door, his balding head now a bloody mash on one side. The unblemished side smacks the tile, causing another ripple of nausea. He lies there, his head and shoulders in the hallway, the rest of him swallowed into the darkness of the room he’d been hiding in.

She stares in horror because what else can she do? The worst has already happened, right?

Another muffled noise from across the hall and then the fresh corpse is jerked into the darkness of the room.

Adrenaline floods her body.

Now she’s running.

She’s out from behind the desk and into the hallway before she allows herself to process that she’s moving, her footfalls giving her away as she pounds down the busted tile in search of freedom in the dim maze.

The echoes become a stampede.

He’s right behind her, he’s gaining, and she can’t remember how to get out.

She can’t get out.

Her last thought in life isn’t a fear-driven plea for escape. It isn’t even panicked.

It’s the calm answer to the question that caused her to sneak inside in the first place.

“So, that’s why the haunted house corpses look so real.”

March Writing Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

As you may have seen, my flash fiction collection, Take a Bite, did indeed get finished and published last month. And once it did, I started work on Book ’em, Danno. I actually recorded and edited the first episode and it’s not horrible. It’s something I’m going to continue to work on, so stay tuned for updates.

This month I’m going to revise The Coop Run. I wanted to work on something geared toward publication, be it traditional or self-publishing. I really need to do more work designed to generate income, which sounds crass, but hey, you like to get paid for the work you do. Well, same. Finishing The Coop Run would be an excellent gain on my 2019 project goals.

Speaking of projects.

I have GOT to re-organize my writing project To Do List of Doom. In the words of my grandmother, it is a fright. Directions have changed, projects have been abandoned, others have been started without notice. The current coagulation of projects is no longer helpful and I need to find another way to keep everything straight. So, that’s going to be something I work on this month.

I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised that it got so out of hand. After all, it is an extension of my brain and that place ain’t so neat either.

However, Murderville: Rounds of Luck is very neat and the next episode goes live on March 12th. Become a patron for $1 or $2 an episode and you can be neat, too.

New Release! Take a Bite: 25 Tasty and Twisted Flash Fiction Stories

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

Ghost…witches…murderers…werewolves…superstitions…revenge…the unexplained…monsters of all kinds…

25 flash fictions stories, dark, creepy, unsettling, and at 1,000 words a piece, the perfect bite-sized morsel to satisfy a horror craving.

Take a Bite: 25 Tasty and Twisted Flash Fiction Stories is out now! You can find this eBook at Amazon, Smashwords, Barnes and Noble, Apple, and Kobo. And at the going price of $1.99, it’s a steal!

February Writing Projects

~ Kiki Writes ~ Leave a comment

The good news is that I finally got the rewrite of The Coop Run done last month.

The less than good news is that I didn’t finish the flash fiction project.

I know! I said I would. Well, I said maybe. The Coop Run took priority. When I started working on the flash fiction project, I realized that I wanted to add a few more stories to it. And a few more became a few more and then…

It didn’t get done.

But it will get done this month.

I’m looking at twenty-five stories for this collection, each story right at 1,000 words. That’ll make it a solid 25,000 words, which I think is both satisfying, but easy to read in small doses. I already had eleven stories written and revised when I started. I’ve since written and revised seven more. I just need another lucky seven. Then it’ll only be a matter of formatting, designing a cover, and publishing.

And that’s the only writing project I’m going to work on this month because I’m also going to be working on some Book ’em, Danno stuff. Despite my Twitter tantrums, the show will (eventually) go on.

You know what else is going on? Murderville: Rounds of Luck! Episode 2 goes live on February 12th. $1 an episode let’s you read. $2 an episode let’s you read and gets you a sweet bonus every other month, like the one $2 patrons will be getting February 26th. So become a patron and don’t miss out!

Writing–Taking Out

~ Kiki Writes ~ 1 Comment

Last week I wrote about adding in to make a word count; this week I’m going to talk about taking out.

This is something I don’t have to do very often. Like I said before, I’m very bare bones. I usually fall below word count maximums.

Unless it’s flash fiction.

I typically don’t set out to write flash fiction, but my shorter short stories sometimes put me in that ballpark. And if I can find a place that suits the story, I’ll look to start cutting to make the word count.

Since flash fiction doesn’t offer much in the way of extra words and since my story is pretty short to begin with, I’m not usually cutting huge chunks of story; it’s typically just a couple of hundred words. Which doesn’t sound too difficult, but when what you’ve got is what you NEED to tell a story and you can’t lose much of anything or risk losing the integrity of the story, it’s pretty hard.

That’s when creativity and word choice become critical.

Granted, word choice is always important, but it’s a true test when cutting a story that really can’t afford much cutting. I have to say even more with one word because that’s all I’ve got.

This cutting also forces me to get creative with my sentence structure. No time for detours, I have to get right to the point. I have to state the idea as quickly and succinctly as possible without compromising grammar (too much), flow, style, readability, or enjoyment.

I’ve done this to a few stories, however so far the success is only measure by my actually getting it done to my own satisfaction. I’ve yet to get any flash fiction accepted for publication. Not for lack of trying, though.

And it’s nice to know that I have the cutting tools I need to make my stories better.

Stories By The Numbers

 -Submitted: 2
-Ready: 8
-Rejected: 1 (“Such a Pretty Face” once again finds no love)