When Flash Goes Rogue
I’ve made a rod for my own back. Several weeks ago, I wrote a flash speculative fiction piece that centred around the theme word revenge. In a nutshell, the main character goes all Lorena Bobbitt on her boyfriend, in revenge for a presumed affair. Fortunately, the boyfriend had had some gene splicing done and could regrow any chopped off appendages. It’s not my usual genre, and it stretched me to create a believable world and scenario. The group I posted to was enthusiastic and encouraged me to extend the story to future prompt words. Well, we all know there’s nothing more affirming than an appreciative audience.
So, I went with the group’s suggestions, and four weeks into this unfolding tale, I’m struggling. The narrative has started to feel forced, the main character took a back seat in favour of her boyfriend for a few weeks, and keeping a tight flash fiction format while still being true to the larger narrative arc is starting to pose problems. I know I should abandon the pursuit of these characters through one prompt after the next, I should start fresh, build new worlds, but I’m stubborn, y’all. What do you do when your characters, setting, or plot go stale? Do you leave them on the side of the road, find some fresh new angle, or try to resuscitate them like Frankenstein’s monster and hope for the best? Let us know in comments.
June Poetry Slam: Filk
On summer (or winter) vacation and looking for a new song to sing around the fire? How about a new song to an old tune? We’re combining poetry and music in this month’s slam as we teach you to write a filk song. Sure, it’s just a sneaky way to make you write a poem that rhymes and scans, but it’s also a fun way to apply everything you know about poetry and show off a little in the process! Learn more from Rowan here.
Prompt Up!
Prompt Up is our optional weekly writing prompt for the fiction|poetry challenge! Here’s how it works: we choose a sentence prompt from last week’s winning nonfiction post and announce it in the kickoff. It’s your job to use that prompt in your poem or story and then run with it. The prompt is just a springboard, though: feel free to use it as your first sentence, move it, change it, or float it down to other territories.
Unfoldingfromthefog found a parallel between getting rid of old clothes and her writing in Downsizing. The prompt up taken from her essay is: “Are those from the 80’s?”
How to submit and fully participate in the challenge:
Basic YeahWrite guidelines: 750 word limit; your entry can be dated no earlier than this past Sunday; fiction or poetry only.
1. In the sidebar of this week’s post, please grab the code beneath the fiction|poetry badge and paste it into the HTML view of your entry;
2. Follow the Inlinkz instructions after clicking “add your link” to upload your entry to this week’s challenge grid;
3. Your entry should appear immediately on the grid if you don’t receive an error message;
4. Please make the rounds to read all the entries in this week’s challenge; and
5. Consider turning off moderated comments and CAPTCHA on your own blog.
Submissions for this week’s challenges will close on Wednesday at 10pm ET. Voting will then open immediately thereafter and close on Thursday at 10pm ET. The winners, as always, will be celebrated on Friday.
Thank you for sharing with us your hard work! Good luck in the challenge…
Loading InLinkz ...About the author:
Asha keeps moving from one side of the world to the other. Her most recent move has taken her back to Perth, Western Australia where she grew up. She lives near the beach but hates sand between her toes. It’s a real conundrum. Asha began blogging at YeahWrite in October 2014 with this post, and YeahWrite was lucky to pull her on board as a Contributing Editor in December 2016. She is currently working on a novelette that grew from a series of flash fiction pieces. Asha is published in a variety of places including Modern Loss, PANK, Dead Housekeeping, and SheKnows. You can find her inconsistent blogging at Parenting In The Wilderness, or at her fiction blog, FlAsha Tales.
