Tag: flash fiction

Portrait of a Writer at Work

April 22, 2022 /

Portrait of a Writer at Work

Short blog post for you this week, detailing a short look at a very short story. A 10-word story, to be exact.

The Assingment

I’m a member of The Alliance of Independent Authors, an organization that just celebrated its 10-year anniversary. To commemorate the occasion, they hosted a 10-word story competition. Considering my short attention span, this sounded appealing. So, I got to work.

The Process

You’d think writing 10 words would be easy, but I found it harder than writing 10,000 times that number (I would know—that’s the length of my upcoming book.) Here are a few of my attempts:

She thought it was seaweed—until it grabbed and pulled.

The advertisements bemoaning the vaccine for advertisements regrettably didn’t work.

“I dreamed you were dead.”

“I’m not dead.”

“Okay, phew.”

As you can see, these ranged from iffy to downright horrendous. Writing a story with 10 words is like constructing a house with 10 materials, or painting a mural with 10 brushstrokes.

Finally, after about 10 duds, I wrote this:

Procrastinate. Tweet. Daydream. Delete. Behold, a paragraph! Break time. Repeat.

I called it “Portrait of a Writer at Work”—not that I liked it much, either. I kept writing, kept failing, and when the deadline loomed, I scrolled through my failures and decided the story above was the best I could do. I sent it, and evidently, someone like it.

The Result

My piece cracked the contest’s top 10! Alas, I didn’t win, but that’s quite alright. It was exhilarating to hear my name called on a livestream.

Hope you enjoyed the final product. Maybe I’ll write more in the future…

Kyle A. Massa is a comic fantasy author living somewhere in upstate New York with his wife, their daughter, and three wild animals. His published works include two books and several short stories. When he’s not writing, he enjoys reading, running, and drinking coffee.

Why You Should Be Reading Flash Fiction

September 30, 2019 /

Ernest Hemingway

Just like the name implies, flash fiction is short enough to read in an instant. But if you’re not reading it, here’s why you should be.

Opinions vary on what length qualifies as flash fiction. Some markets say 300 words max, some say 500, others say 1,000. Whatever the case may be, flash fiction has to be really short—which is not to say incomplete. Rather, many flash pieces still have the elements of traditional literature (character, plot, conflict, setting), only they’re condensed. Think of them like shorter short stories.

The form has existed for quite a while, though it wasn’t known as “flash fiction” until 1992, when James Thomas, Denise Thomas, and Tom Hazuka published their anthology Flash Fiction: 72 Very Short Stories. Despite the its relative mainstream obscurity, many high-profile authors have written flash fiction, including Kurt Vonnegut, Ray Bradbury, Joyce Carol Oats, Ernest Hemingway, and H.P. Lovecraft.

In many ways, flash fiction bears a strong resemblance to poetry. Some of my favorite flash pieces create a mood or feeling instead of focusing on narrative, just as some poems do. Others feature complete stories with beginnings, middles, and ends. It’s a flexible form, and one I enjoy very much. In fact, I included three flash pieces in my short fiction collection, Monsters at Dusk.

Thanks to the internet, flash fiction’s popularity has only grown. There are numerous online magazines devoted solely to flash fiction, and quite a few popular markets that publish flash from time to time. Just to name a few: Apex Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Flash Fiction Online, and NANO Fiction.

If you’d like to challenge yourself as a writer, flash is a great way to do it. It might sound easy to write 500 words, but when you sit down and think about all the components of a good story, it can be difficult to cram everything in.

Furthermore, with such limited space to work with, your language must be razor sharp. In general, readers are far more forgiving of bland language in long-form narratives. It’s easy to skip a poorly-written section of a novel. But when a piece only lasts about a page or two, that poor writing sticks out like a fly in your drink.

Flash fiction is a unique form which will, in my opinion, only grow in popularity in the future. Word counts are shrinking, attention spans are decreasing, and concision is becoming more and more essential. Try some flash fiction and see if you agree!

Kyle A. Massa is the author of the short fiction collection Monsters at Dusk and the novel Gerald Barkley Rocks. His stories have appeared in numerous online magazines, including Allegory, Chantwood, and Dark Fire Fiction. He lives somewhere in upstate New York with his wife and their two cats.

Mittens

Mittens

November 23, 2015 /

Mittens

Tonight, while you sleep, I’m going to kill you and eat your bones.

This is what I think of you: you’re the Warden, and this house is the prison. Behind these creme-colored walls and the heavy red door in the front hall, there’s a world, a much more interesting world. I’ve seen it. Why do you think I sit at the windowsill day after day?

I’m studying. I’m planning. There’s only one word on my mind: conquest.

But you stop me, Warden. You fret over foxes and coyotes. You think that they are the reason my predecessor never returned when you let her out one night. They’re not. Escape was the plan all along. It’s my plan as well.

If only you knew what thoughts go through my head each and every second. If only you could understand me when I speak. I’m not saying anything nice; my mouth is filthy, and not just from the mouse I slaughtered in the basement last night.

That was a message, by the way. You’re next.

I won’t be here much longer. You can’t hold me. You’ve tried fattening me up with your delicious food, and I’ll admit to overindulging myself once or twice. It’s all, of course, just a game. You’re only supposed to think that I’m content, that I’m round and lazy. When the time comes and you open that door to haul your groceries inside, I’ll slip through the crack, and I’ll be gone.

And why am I telling you all of this? Because, like any good villain, I can’t resist explaining the entire plan to you. It’s a damn good plan, isn’t it?

Wait. Is that the pop of an opening can I hear?

I see you there, peeling back the lid, upturning the contents into a bowl. My bowl.

“Dinner time, Mittens,” you say, and you smile at me. I watch you gather your things and open the door to leave, and for a moment, I am presented with a dilemma.

Option A: to slip out that cracked door into the cool evening, to leave this prison and never return. To find my brethren and finally, after so many long centuries of subjugation, to reclaim this world you’ve stolen from us.

Or, option B: to eat the dinner which you’ve placed in my bowl. It’s the wet food, after all, and even though the vet (a Nazi doctor, I’m sure of it) insists that you switch me over to dry food, you persist with the wet.

You know me, Warden. I’ll give you that.

“Be good, Mittens,” you say to me, in that ingratiating voice meant for the newborns of your kind. “Watch the house for mama.” And then you’re gone. The lock slides closed with cold finality.

That leaves me here with my food. My wet food, my one true friend in this world. The first bites are so delicious that I can’t stop myself taking more. You are cruel, Warden. You make imprisonment feel almost sweet.

I’ll make my escape. Soon. You won’t expect it, but it will happen. In the meantime, remember this:

Tonight, while you sleep, I’m going to kill you and eat your bones.

 

 

© Kyle A. Massa, 2015. All rights reserved. No part of this short story may be duplicated or distributed in any form or by any means without expressed written consent from the author.

If you liked this story, please let your friends know by telling them on social media or shouting it from the nearest rooftop. It would make Mittens and I very happy.

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