Month: May 2013

Flash Fiction Challenge: Og and the Fire Leaf

Og hunts alone now. It is hard to kill animals alone. Mostly, there are berries.

Some of the berries make thunder in Og’s stomach. The thunder wants out. Og squats in the bushes.

Then Og uses the fire leaf by mistake. Now there is burning where Og sits. So much burning that Og screams. The screams bring the spear-mouth and Og must climb the big tree. The spear-mouth can not climb the big tree, but there was something else in the tree. Not a good day for Og.

In 250 words or less, tell us a story incorporating the elements in the picture. The 250 word limit will be strictly enforced.

Please keep language and subject matter to a PG-13 level.

Use the comment section below to submit your entry. Entries will be accepted until Tuesday at 5:00 PM Pacific Time.

On Wednesday morning, we will open voting to the public with an online poll for the best writing entry accompanying the photo. Voting will be open until 5:00 PM Thursday.

On Friday morning, the winner will be recognized as we post the winning entry along with the picture as a feature. Best of luck to you all in your writing!

Entries only in the comment section. Other comments will be deleted. See HERE for additional information and terms.

If You’re Going to Steal…

I admit it: when I ran across this article in Salon, I giggled a little at the title: “Most Contemporary Literary Fiction Is Terrible”. In it, J. Robert Lennon refutes a column by another writer who suggests that young literary fiction writers should be reading the stories that are getting published in their genre, and familiarizing themselves with the best anthologies of short fiction, the literary magazines, and so on.

I giggled because I am a reformed literary fiction writer, a proud graduate of a master’s program in fiction writing where literary fiction was touted as the only really, truly decent fiction to be writing. When I was in grad school, I read a bunch of these publications on a fairly regular basis – sometimes for class, sometimes on my own. And for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out how some of the stories had gotten published. Maybe the writing was pretty good, but the ending didn’t make sense – things would sort of wind down in a burst of lyricism without resolving any part of the plot. Or, more often than not, the writing wasn’t any better than the stuff we were turning out in class – yet these writers had gotten published while we were collecting rejection slips. Continue reading “If You’re Going to Steal…”

Congrats to Mandy White

Mandy White is the readers’ choice in this week’s Indies Unlimited Flash Fiction Challenge.

The winning entry is rewarded with a special feature here today and a place in our collection of winners which will be published as an e-book at year end.

Without further ado, here’s the winning entry:

Continue reading “Congrats to Mandy White”

The Essentials of Writing Great Horror

Guest post
by Caroline Gebbie

“The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” H P Lovecraft

Since we first gathered around campfires we have told stories to elicit emotion and one of the most basic emotions is fear. Writing great horror is about invoking that fear in the reader, it can be done in much the same way as you would elicit other emotions in any story. The elements you need to create that feeling of horror include characters, plot, setting, point of view conflict and theme. Continue reading “The Essentials of Writing Great Horror”