The Story Behind the Story: Meditation

In Challenge #2 of this year's NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge, I was assigned historical fiction as genre. I quite literally did a dance of joy. I LOVE historical fiction. Most of what I read is historical fiction. For the first time, a NYC Midnight contest assigned me a genre that I am intimately familiar with. Hallelujah! (As an aside, this was a one-off, rather than a trend. In Challenge #3, I was once again assigned an unfamiliar genre: comedy.)

The rest of my prompt--the location and object--were a labyrinth and a magnifying glass. I thought immediately of the labyrinths that exist in many English churches: mazes made of hedges or floor tiles that people walk as a form of meditation. I needed a reason for my character to walk such a labyrinth.

One of my favorite historical eras to read about is World War I. I know enough about the era and England's experience in the war that I could write a flash story without having to do too much research.

I went to bed that night with the premise set in my mind: a young woman awaiting word of her husband's fate on the battlefield. I didn't get much sleep. Every time I'd get close to sleep, my brain would jolt awake with another idea, another detail, for the story. Thank goodness I keep pad and pen next to my bed. By the time I gave up and got out of bed the next morning, I had three pages of notes.

It wasn't hard to take so many notes and craft them into a story. The hard part was finding the right details and then whittling the story down to the 1,000 word limit. A few darlings were sacrificed, the ending completely rewritten, and by draft 3, I had a story I liked and felt proud of.  Off it went!

I've since gotten feedback on the story, and I do have revisions planned for the future (I.e., after I finally get a draft of my current novel-in-progress done). In the meantime, though, here's the story as it was submitted to the contest.

Click here to read "Meditation."

The Story Behind the Story: Running on Empty

It's October, so how could I not publish a ghost story for Halloween?

This one, too, is courtesy of a NYC Midnight: the 2014 Flash Fiction Challenge. My prompt was to write ghost story (obviously), at a gas station, with a dunce cap.

I knew right away I didn't want to do the traditional go-sit-in-the-corner-wearing-a-pointy-hat dunce cap. It took me a while to come up with the twist I used in the story. It was a risk, not using the traditional dunce cap, but the judges liked my take on it. Whew!

The premise, though, came relatively quickly. If you've read "A Seat at the Bar," you might have guessed that I prefer "Twilight Zone" type ghost stories to the hair-raising scary kind of ghost story. This will only solidify that inference.

The hardest part for me was describing the gas station, finding just the right details to show that this place was unusual but still possible in today's day and age. It took a few drafts to make that work, and I have a screenwriter from my former writers' group to thank for the more perfect details that ended up in the final story. Thanks, Gary!

If I say anymore, I'll give away the story . . .

Click here to read "Running on Empty."

The Story Behind the Story: The Legend of Donnie Doheny

It's NYC MIdnight time again! The 2015 NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge began last month, and as usual, it pushed me outside my comfort zone.

The last two years, I was assigned Romance as the genre for my first story. I was all prepared for Romance 3.0, but no, the Powers That Be threw me a curveball. I was assigned to write a fantasy this time around. Now, I've read Lord of the Rings and Chronicles of Narnia, but fantasy is not a genre I read widely or relate to very well.

Obstacle #1: find a subgenre of fantasy that I could write comfortably within the assigned 48-hour window.

Part 2 of the prompt was a location. In my case, a skateboarding park. My entire knowledge of skateboarding can be summed up thusly:

Photo by miflippo/iStock / Getty Images

Obstacle #2: learn enough about skateboarding to write about it convincingly.

Part 3 of the prompt was an object: a projector. Easy peasy.

I got my assignment around 11 pm Friday night. I slept on it, because when I do that, I often wake up with an idea. This time, not so much. I did my usual Saturday-morning volunteer work at the local animal shelter and then went for a swim after. Somewhere in the middle of my laps, a premise came to me: Cursed object! The one ring! My preciousssss!

By the time I finished my swim, I had the whole story outlined. I even had the name Donnie Doheny, named for the California beach near where I used to live. The trick? Remembering my awesome plot until I got home. Thank goodness for smartphones! I sat in the locker room and typed my outline on my phone.

I wrote Draft 1 that night, Word open on one half of my screen, the Wikipedia entry about skateboarding on the other.

The next day I revised and edited: 12 words over the 1,000-word limit, 7 words under, 4 words over, back and forth, back and forth. I finally found a version I was happy with at 995 words. Story submitted!

I brought the story to my writer's group for their feedback. THEY LOVED IT! They gave me suggestions for fleshing it out a bit, and I'm still working on those changes. What I've posted here is my original story with one change: I had to rename a character because I realized that I'd inadvertently borrowed it from a series I love. Oops.

Click here to read "The Legend of Donnie Doheny."

The Story Behind the Story: In the Deep

Two years ago, I found out about NYC Midnight and its contests from a member of my then-writing-group. At the time, I was struggling to sit down and write, struggling to generate new story ideas. The idea of contest with a deadline and provided prompts sounded like the perfect solution. I'd always done well with externally-imposed deadlines. Far better than I ever did with self-imposed ones. So, I signed up for the next Short Story Challenge.

For the first challenge, contestants had a week to write a 2,500 word story based on their given prompt. Mine was to write a fantasy about an astronaut on a fishing trip. As usual, the main character came to me first: a former astronaut now working as a deep sea explorer.

I sat down and the words poured out. I was almost a thousand words in when I realized I was writing science fiction, not fantasy. Oops. I liked my story, though, and didn't want to through out everything I'd written. I needed a way to turn what I had from sci-fi to fantasy.

The glitch? I wasn't sure what makes a story a "fantasy." It's not a genre I read. Sure, I've read my share of the classic epic fantasies: Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia, etc. But most of my reading is history or historical fiction. I needed to find out what defined a non-epic fantasy.

God bless, Google. I found lists of comment fantasy tropes and characters. I found one that fit my sci-fi story, and voila! my sci-fi became fantasy.

I felt good about the story when I submitted it, but I wasn't sure it was "fantasy" enough for the judges. Turned out, it was. I didn't make it past the first round of that competition, but I was encouraged by the judges' feedback. And thanks to the help of my writing groups, I was able to fix some of the issues identified by the judges.

Click here to read part 1 of "In the Deep."