The Empuhuh
RoryStoryCubes helped me write this piece of flash fiction about a dog, a dragonfly and a dragon in a spare half-hour. … Continue readingThe Empuhuh
Category: Flash fiction
Square
Round robin anyone?
Some time ago I took part in writing a ’round robin’ … … Continue readingRound robin anyone?
Gardenias again
Based on the prompt ‘Gardenias again’, I wrote this piece of flash fiction about a man who, living alone, comes home from another hard day at the office. But all is not well. … Continue readingGardenias again
Interruptions
Steve got a writing toolkit for Christmas, and last night we each took one of its’ emery boards, each with a prompt on it, and started writing. Then he interrupted us every 5 minutes with another line we used to change the direction of our stories. My starting prompt was I loved the way she said “balloon”. She said it as if she were blowing bubbles., and the interruptions, are in italics below. Here’s what I came up with… … Continue readingInterruptions
The wheels on the bus …
Writers & Artists Yearbook asked on Facebook “Writing exercise time: write a short paragraph to accompany this image.” I posted this … … Continue readingThe wheels on the bus …
About 35°C in the shade
‘Opening the wardrobe door’ was a recent writing prompt I was given. Quick as a flash fiction writer, I came up with this… … Continue readingAbout 35°C in the shade
Murder. No mystery.
The runes were cast and these are what the gods came back with – a black cat, a lightning bolt, a light bulb, an eye, a question, a footprint, an abacus, a compass and a magic wand – see the picture! I did my best with this meagre material… so here is my offering! … Continue readingMurder. No mystery.
Photo prompt kills!
The little man had sharp blue eyes similar to those of a mynah bird we once had caged in the kitchen at home. Gordon continued, “He’s my most trusted forensic man. He’ll take you through to the morgue… … Continue readingPhoto prompt kills!
The City
I threw some Rory Story Cubes and the images revealed let me imagine a City … … Continue readingThe City
Is there life?
More photographic prompts this week er… “prompted” me to combine 2 snaps into a quick sci-fi 70’s pastiche. Simples! … Continue readingIs there life?
bots
“I know what you mean” St John squeaked. “I mean, where are the women? We came here for a night of sybaritic pleasure and no totty about. Not a sausage. I was so looking forward to putting the pedal to the metal, if you know what I mean.” … Continue readingbots
Oscar, Ella and Ringo
Our cat lost us, so I wrote about the trauma. i guess it helped me. … Continue readingOscar, Ella and Ringo
Calvin and Hobbes
Recently, after making a donation, my wife brought home a book of comic strips from a charity table at work. It was “The Calvin And Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book” by Bill Watterson, commemorating his own comic strip, which was pretty big in US newspapers in the 80’s and 90’s. … Continue readingCalvin and Hobbes
Streets of fire
A picture of a boy and a miner freshly out of the mine inspired me to write this piece of flash fiction… … Continue readingStreets of fire
The Elephant of Doom
This is a piece of hokum, inspired by Rudyard Kipling’s characters in “The Jungle Book”… … Continue readingThe Elephant of Doom
The Morning After the Night Before
You know the one where someone shows you a work of art or even just an everyday household object, and it inspires you to write something? I’ll show you mine, you show me yours… … Continue readingThe Morning After the Night Before
Dialogue
I was asked to write something entirely in dialogue. I’m not the greatest talker in the world but when it comes to imagining a dialogue that’s easier for me… see what you think. … Continue readingDialogue
Horror flash
I wrote this piece when my friend Lauren brought in another yet another great idea – write some flash fiction. She gave us the idea that a little boy was in bed, meant to go to sleep, but he couldn’t, for the very good reason that he thought there was something hiding under the bed! … Continue readingHorror flash
Just like Conan Doyle?
Don’t deny you always wanted to write like Conan Doyle? Me too. So I gave it a go. … Continue readingJust like Conan Doyle?
In The Machine
…as he pressed the On button, there was a loud report, the TV screen shattered and an acrid cloud exuded from the gaping hole where it had been. … Continue readingIn The Machine
Perfect Day
As part of an exercise in characterisation, the men in my class were asked to write a piece about a woman, and the ladies were to write about a man. Examples given to us were from Alan Bennett’s “A Chip In the Sugar”. I haven’t read the book, but to my knowledge, this lady never lived ‘oop North’… … Continue readingPerfect Day
Hand in hand with the great Stephen King?
Recently in my creative writing class we carried out an exercise, adding to the beginning or end of a fragment of text we’d been given by our tutor. I was excited by the start of the story and piggybacked my text on to it.
Below is an extract from Stephen King’s “Night Shift”… … Continue readingHand in hand with the great Stephen King?
The Rock
I think this was one of the first pieces of ‘flash fiction’, for want of a better term, I ever wrote in the first Creative Writing class I attended, in 2009. It came out of a lesson to which my tutor brought a smooth khaki coloured rock, and told us the 15 ideas it had given him for a story. He asked us to use our imagination and to come up with something ourselves … … Continue readingThe Rock