Working around a Structure

I think that one of the most dangerous pitfalls a new writer can fall into is an easy one: feeling that one must obey a certain structure when writing a story.

It is true that most stories have some sort of start, conflict or drama, a climax and an ending. That is because as readers we like what we are used to and we like our stories to have nice and tidy endings. I still remember the time when I saw a film where the villain survived in the end. I was shocked because I had never seen anything like it before.

Truth be told a story never really starts at the starting line, everything is told in media res as otherwise we would have to start the story by describing the Bing Bang. There are many neat concepts like starting from the end, or even cut the chapters and spreading them around the story. I’m not going to tell you that this works in romance, but why couldn’t it be applied to a thriller? or a mystery?

Look at tv shows these days, they always make sure that the characters end with each other, why couldn’t a character end up alone? Why couldn’t the major twist be in the very last page?

The rest is up to your creativity. Say your major twist is in the very first chapter. How are you going to squeeze the juice out after an early bomb? You can make sure that the twist is the present and have the story be about the past, or you could instead center the story around the repercussions. Like I said before, it’s up to creativity.

Experimenting and finding out what works and doesn’t work is a priceless step that you need to take in your writing adventure. It’s good to make mistakes and to change your works, as it’s the only way you can truly improve.

The bottom line of this post: don’t feel trapped or that you need to write this way or that way. A story’s structure is a key piece but not a rigid one.

Expect a short story tomorrow!

Have a nice day!

Enter the New Year – Writing Smarter

After a bit of a break I log in to get a message that today marks one year since I’ve began to use WordPress, my first post was on January 5th, and my oh my it has been close to a year since I wrote my very first post.

As I’ve been having some computer problems I just came to inform you that the short stories are going to take probably a day or two, at least that is what I hope. I’ve also been planning a novel, and I wanted to discuss this bit with you as I’ve hardly been talking about actual writing these past couple of months.

I came up with what I thought was a pretty good idea, but that idea lasts only about three chapters. The thing is, most people get put off by writing because of things like these. I didn’t let those three chapters worry me, instead I focused on having those three chapters introduce the overall story. Next thing I did was also simple: you create character arcs. If you create character arcs and intertwine them with the overall story you end up having plenty of chapters and material to work with.

All of this is due to brainstorm my friends, you work with multiple things at once and can get some interesting results.

I’m afraid this post is going to have to be cut short, puppy has been giving me the signs.

I’ll talk more about this tomorrow and maybe throw in a haiku and a story.

Have a nice day!

A Year in Review

Hello again everybody!

Holiday season is still underway but I figure this is probably the best time for me to reflect upon my first year blogging.

First of all I want to thank everybody that has been following, liking and commenting on my posts, it has been a big boost for my ego and manages to keep me going strong. I won’t name any names, I think that would be unfair, but some people were indeed an inspiration and I loved reading some of the things they wrote.

This experience has been both fun and challenging as I got completely overwhelmed sometimes and in other occasions I just had some health setbacks. It was my first time blogging and although the first birthday is only January 6th (that day is going to be special) I think I can consider this a success. It changed a couple of my views on books and people, I read some amazing poetry and loved to share the very little I know.

As of late I have been releasing some short stories and I think I’ll make it last a while longer, my creative juices have been flowing nicely and short stories are going to be a nice break from the novel I’m starting to work on.

I want to keep pushing forward, I want to give you more information and I want all of us to have fun!

My initial goal way back in January was to write a post per day, I don’t know if that is going to happen next year, but I’ll try to keep things fresh and interesting.

Again, thank you all for the experience, it’s been a blast!

Flash Fiction – 4

First of all many apologies for not showing up these past couple of days, but we’re nearing Christmas and so the usual confusion is bound to happen. I will delay you no more and give you another of my flash fiction stories. Hope you enjoy this one. It’s not one of my best, but I liked the idea behind it, tried to go for the noir style, didn’t quite get it the way I wanted. It also feels a little rushed towards the end, and lacks certain details, but that’s what I have for you today.

 

The Bad City

Westerspring city is a bad place, everybody knows that, it has over fifty thousand souls in it and maybe only a handful of them are innocent. I’m not one of them.

The streets are filthy, there is violence and deceit at every corner and most of the cops are dirty. I don’t understand why anybody would want to come to Westerspring, the cold city, the city that will make you suffer until you can have no more punishment, only to let you live in the end and enjoy the agony of being alive; or the city that will cut your legs before you can even learn how to walk. Yeah, life is difficult in Westerspring; but I wasn’t complaining until a couple of days ago. You see, me and my friend owned a bar, one of the most successful ones in the city, called The Empty Barrel. I don’t mean to brag but that place was probably the best in the whole country, we invested a lot of money and hard work into it. What made it the best? It wasn’t the jazzy music that played every night, people often get tired of hearing the same things, and no matter how good Miles Davis, Bill Evans, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald or Stan Getz can be, after hearing them for hours and hours, days and days, you stop paying attention to them. It wasn’t the rustic look we tried to give the place either, the tiles fell to the floor soon afterwards, the wood was half rotten and the lighting was just a complete mess. People wouldn’t come for the conversation, I’m not much of a talker and neither is my friend. Truth be told, staying quiet in Westerspring is probably better for your health, you might end up dead in a dark alley or floating in the nearby river. No, what made our place special were the drinks. That made us also prime targets and the object of lies, violence and death.

When I said drinks I actually meant just one drink: the Green Wave. That’s what Elliot called it and the name just fit. Soon after he came up with it, customers started pouring endlessly and our business was booming. We made a lot of money, Elliot and I. But maybe I should start from the beginning and tell you the whole story.

I was a bartender. I worked in the bar even before it was called The Empty Barrel, when the owner was a mean drunk who didn’t know what he was doing and tried to cheat every customer out of his money. The mob ran an underground casino and used the bar as a front. When I first saw Elliot I didn’t think much of him: he was a skinny, frail looking man. His unsheveled hair made him look like a bum and I wanted no trouble from him, but with his first line he drew me in and soon we had become the best of friends. We had a very common interest.

“I want you to serve me the perfect drink.”

I didn’t know what to make of it. You see, as a bartender I often size people up and judge their moods. People usually ask for the wrong drinks. Whisky. That’s what almost everybody asked for, but I knew a thousand different drinks for them, drinks that were probably better for them in those situations. Try as I might, none of my suggestions had made Elliot’s eyes sparkle with joy. He knew about every single one.

“I knew you couldn’t do it.”

That line had pissed me off, especially after the long time I had spent with him, but he smirked and told me he already knew where to find the perfect drink. Elliot was a Herbologist, he knew all sorts of things about plants, and of course that reverted to brewing and to liquor. Elliot knew what he was doing, and more importantly than that, he knew what he was talking about. I never thought of him as a bum ever again, especially after he told me things about certain drinks that not even I knew, and I consider myself pretty knowledgeable about my profession. We would spend entire nights discussing bitterness, sweetness, alcohol content, the addiction and the vices that certain chemical elements can produce, in the end we reached several interesting conclusions.

That’s when I knew that I had to own the place. I told you before about the previous owner and the casino and the dirty cops. It turns out not every single cop was dirty. One lone detective had orchestrated the best raid in history and managed to destroy the underground casino and several mobsters in just one go. That had severe repercussions on the previous owner and he suddenly came down with a case of death. Nobody missed him anyway, and the lowering price of the establishment meant that it was affordable. I hardly ever saw Elliot during those days, but spoke with him once and told him to keep working, the place would be ours sooner rather than later.

It cost me a penny to buy it and a fortune to rebuild it, but it was worth the effort. Meanwhile Elliot was hard at work, testing and brewing and making sure the right ingredients were being produced. He never really told me much about what the ingredients were or what they did specifically and sometimes I wish I hadn’t known, like when he was discussing the properties of the African Dream Root and the effects of lucid dreams. It appears that one tea spoon of that root, when brewed as tea, can have hallucinogenic effects and one needs to be extremely careful when taking it. Vivid dreams can be dangerous. He always knew much more than me, and I wasn’t worried about that, we were together fighting for a common goal: the perfect drink.

It was during one summer night that he came to me with an ecstatic look on his face, wanting to confirm every single detail to make sure the drink was set and done, on paper at least. The bar wasn’t bringing me a lot of money and I barely survived during those months. Owning a bar costs a lot of money and very soon the mob came to the place again, they wanted to make some money and recover some of their losses. I couldn’t afford to refuse; I didn’t want to end up like the previous owner, not without at least enjoying the fruits of my labor. So I let them set up the casino again, some genius thought they wouldn’t go for the same place twice, that the detective wouldn’t dare to make more waves. He had been named a hero in the newspapers, no greater glory can a man ask for. But I digress; let me go on with my story.

Elliot and I reviewed the points about the perfect drink, it had to be both sweet and bitter, it had to reflect whatever the drinker desired to feel and make them not only leave satisfied at purchasing that drink but have them drink more, so the drink couldn’t have much alcohol in it. We didn’t want our customers to fall to the floor after just one drink, and we certainly didn’t want them to have massive hangovers. A man has to work to make money to spend it. The perfect drink would have been useless if we couldn’t make enough money from it.

Elliot concluded that the perfect drink had to be both subjective and objective. What that means I don’t know for sure, but he told me that it had to make the drinker feel something different in different occasions and it obviously needed to be the exact same thing at the same time. That’s when my brain started working furiously towards our goal. I hadn’t done anything up until that point, Elliot had done all of the work, as he proved while discussing every single chemical element required for that magic drink. I knew I had to do something to prove to him that I wasn’t dead weight. I didn’t know if he would take his recipe and go over to another bar and ask them for something. Friendship and business are completely different things; you have to bring something to the table in order to make the business work. That’s when I thought about the casino.

I told him not to worry after he spoke of financial difficulties. It turned out Elliot needed to make several trips around the world in order to get his supplies; that cost money he didn’t have. More than that I needed to make sure he brought enough supplies with him to last us for quite a while. Those trips were expensive and the drinks had to make the money for the next ones. He departed that night with smiles and laughs and the certainty that we were going to be famous, that our drink would be the finest the world had ever seen.

I started cleaning up after he left; we had been talking until almost dawn and nobody was around, no customers, no mobsters. So I went downstairs to where the casino was and started searching for the safe. One thing I knew about the casino was that the money was kept there for over a month before someone went to collect all the money. There were two safes, one that had the accumulated money and the one that had that months’ worth. All I had to do was get to the big safe before they collected the money from that trimester, nobody would check it for at least one month and that would give us enough time to make the trips and get the money back from the first batch of liquor we would produce. It was a dumb idea but I had no other way of getting that amount of money ready for my friend, and we were so close I could almost taste the drink.

The night after was when I worked on the safe and got the money out. It was the perfect time and those guys would only check it in another months’ time. It was easier than I thought too. Both safes were in the office downstairs and my previous occupation came to good use as I figured the combination almost instantly. That is not to say I wasn’t sweating all over the place, I knew I was a dead man if someone saw me working over the safe. I gave Elliot the money and told him to get us enough for at least a couple of months. We needed that much if I was to pay back the amount I took from them. My friend was surprised but asked no questions, in order for me not to tell him any lies, but he knew I was in a hurry and he knew I could get in trouble if I couldn’t get that money back.

It took a week before I saw Elliot again in a truck with all the materials he gathered. The clock was ticking for me and I was surprised when he said we had to begin testing right away. I had completely forgotten about that. In my mind it had completely escaped me the most basic principle of bartending: certain drinks had to be mixed using just the right amounts, or else that drink would turn into a disaster. I didn’t let him see my despair as I encouraged him to start right away and call me as soon as he had some sort of results.

Another week flew by before I got that call. The first drink had been made with successful results. I didn’t care about any of that to be honest with you, I just wanted to see the money flow, I wanted to put that money back in the safe and we would need to sell at least two thousand drinks to make up for the money I had taken.

But when I met with Elliot he suddenly had different plans. He said the drink would have been best kept a secret, something only us could get to enjoy. I don’t think I need to tell you how angry I was at that point, but I never let it show. Instead I told him calmly that I had to borrow quite a bit of money and that the only way to pay it back would be by selling the drink to the customers. Reluctantly he agreed after over an hour of discussion and persuasion. I’m a bartender after all, I can persuade like the best of them. A deal had been made, he would produce and I would advertise and sell as much as possible. The clock was ticking after all.

The results were better than expected and that led him to quit his job. Producing what we ended up calling The Green Wave took some time, especially considering the quantities we needed, and the customers loved it as expected. Did I make enough money? I would be lying if I said I did. But when I expected to suffer, it turned out I didn’t have to. One of the most basic rules for success is to always have a backup plan. All I had to do was plant some seeds and start a bit of discord; to raise the suspicions on certain elements before I would even to brought in to explain the situation. I did say in the beginning that Westerspring is a bad place, a city of lies and deceit. Nobody is safe from it, not even the mob. It didn’t take long for my carefully built web of deceit to take effect. A couple of guys died, bad people, people you wouldn’t want out there in the streets, so in the end everybody won and our little base of operations remained intact.

But why am I not innocent? Was it because of my lies?

Elliot had been planting some seeds too. It turned out we needed a little bit more of supplies than what he had at the moment. I knew the reason, it was clear as day. Just the other day I made the mistake of telling Elliot my debt had been cleared. That led to production growing slower and slower and more waste of materials. Now I knew Elliot wasn’t the sloppy type, I knew that from the start he never really wanted to sell the product. But when you have a business and clients are expecting it, we had at least a couple of hundred people every night, you need to do things properly, otherwise business will suffer.

Green Wave had almost outrun us, our own drink.

So when I met with Elliot a couple of nights ago I had to talk with him and persuade him to do what was right, for both of us and for the bar. But this time Elliot wouldn’t have it. He had found out why the drink was so successful: it had a powerful addictive substance that was also partially poisoning people. Something about one chemical being mixed up with another caused such effects. Authorities had to know, further testing needed to be done, and serious talking had to be had.

Why bother with all that when we had built everything with such success? I’ll never know it, but I was under the impression he had been drinking the stuff, that’s probably how he knew the experiment was a success in the first place. Like I said before, first I tried to reason with him, he was my friend after all, one half of the reason why our place was such a tremendous success. Then, and I regret this course of action to this day, I punched him in the face and threatened him. Which words I used escape me now, what I know is that it wasn’t pretty, and our conversation lasted a long, long time.

I threw Elliot in the garbage that night, hoping that his death would be connected to a hit or some random act of violence. People often saw us together and the police were pretty insistent with their questions. I didn’t flinch; they had nothing on me after all, just the connection. How it went with the bar, that’s another problem altogether. I didn’t have the formula, in the midst of that fit of rage I forgot to demand it out of him; I didn’t know where he lived either, so the Green Wave came to a halt. Customers were angry and stopped coming, the mob wasn’t happy either because that meant that the casino would no longer generate the income they had grown accustomed to. Eventually I had to sell the place, I was rather forced to do it, as expenses were piling up and I had no way to make the money to pay for them.

I am alone now, walking with no purpose along the dark streets, wondering and also praying that when this city consumes me, it does the job quickly and painlessly. I know that it won’t happen, not in Westerspring city, the city that will eat you up and spit you out, no matter who you are.

Let me know your thoughts on this one.

Have a great day!

Flash Fiction – 3

So here comes the third part of this installment, and I hope you’ve been enjoying it. This story is played out in a rather simple fashion, and despite not being anything spectacular, it was the most fun when I was reading it to the mic, very enjoyable. I had a title for it, but I don’t think too much of it so this title is going to be completely random.

 

The Smooth Chaser

He got people to call him Nick, but that wasn’t his name. He went by many names and played several characters of various reputations. That day his reputation grew more than he had bargained for. The old lord of the Chesterfield Manor had passed away a couple of days before he read the paper, big news in many regional newspapers, and nobody would come to collect his inheritance. The news served not only to inform about the death, but also to try and find any distant inheritor, so far without any luck.

Nobody knew him in that village so he took on the name and not a soul suspected anything. Who would even consider claiming he was not the lord’s long lost son of a maid who had been dead over twenty years? Nick’s story would grow larger and more elaborate as the villagers, with their questions, fed more and more information that he could have possibly wished for. Those were two of Nick’s best talents: getting information and telling stories.

After a couple of hours, Nick was indeed the lost son and he had indeed every right to claim the inheritance he deserved. Not even concrete documents were asked, much to Nick’s delight. Maybe he would make a small fortune with the estate, maybe he would just take what he thought to be valuable and run away before the truth came forth. This infinite amount of possibilities excited Nick, who liked to gamble and take big risks. When he had read in the newspaper that the old lord had died without any successor he didn’t even bother to read anything else. That prize was his for the taking and he had to be fast enough to claim it.

None of that came across his mind as the dogs started to chase him down.

Four ferocious beasts, the biggest dogs he had ever seen in his entire life, had been chasing him for over an hour after he took the first steps outside the large manor; he didn’t even have the chance to look inside properly. You see, a call had been made to request the presence of the new lord, something about rents and payments; something that had to do with money, Nick thought. Dodging a bite just barely he would sprint towards one of the main streets but found all the stores closed. He only had the time to make a split-second decision of turning left towards another main street, or go right and try to escape the dogs through a series of smaller streets. He chose the right path and continued to run as fast as his legs allowed; looking everywhere around him in order to catch the glimpse of a peasant who could help.

It didn’t take long for the hounds to trap him in a narrow alley and to stand firm and menacing, awaiting their master. At this point Nick was surprised as he expected one individual and an apology. Over forty people stood in front of him demanding explanations, and money to be returned to them. They had welcomed him dearly as they expected money, but looked poorly at him when he said he had no such thing. He had failed to read their expressions earlier. Nick tried to tell them the truth, but all that fanfare had set him clear as the old lord’s son, the evil and conniving old lord who had been exploiting the rest of the village and ruining people’s lives. It had taken them quite some time to kill him, and they had been waiting for the manor to become part of the village’s communal property, to see some of their money back.

Nick’s screams did not stop the villagers from killing him and burying him in the graveyard, along with the couple of other fools that dared saying they were also bastard offspring of the lord. Maybe Nick should have paid closer attention to the rest of the newspaper, the part that mentioned the mysterious circumstances surrounding the old lord’s death. Now all that they had to do was wait; wait to claim what was theirs all along.

Let me know what you think of it, see you all again tomorrow!

Flash Fiction Analysis – 2

Today I’m afraid I have to be quite brief. But let me tell you what came to mind while thinking about this story.

The first thing was Frankenstein. If you’ve read the book you know that the monster had no name, Frankenstein was the name of the creator. If you’ve read the book then you also know that he was escaping the monster and that the main series of events were caused by the creator, who abandoned his creation and vilified it without real reason. It’s clear that the same thing happens here. But I also believe that something like I described happens around the world, not only with human beings, but also animals.

The second part of the tale was based around the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice. I’m a sucker for greek myths. Orpheus goes to the underworld to meet his wife, and in the story the boy returns home to meet his mother. In the myth Orpheus would lose his wife if he turned around, and the boy would lose his life if he did not turn around. This time the odds were bigger, has they involved death, but I think also gave the story much more strenght. Misunderstandings happen all the time, and people tend to be somewhat paranoid. What happens when you bring it to an extreme?

So this was a tale of revenge, but not really revenge. Nobody got what they wanted out of the whole ordeal and everybody suffered without a reason. Overall I enjoyed writing this, and I think it’s a bit of a lesson as the more you read the more you can play around with your writing.

I plan to have a Haiku for you in a couple of hours.

Until then.

Flash Fiction – 2

Ok so here comes another one, this story is centered around a certain greek myth, I guess it’s not that difficult to guess it after you read it. As usual I’d greatly appreciate it if you could give me a couple of words.

Her

In the spring that woman was dying.

She knew it clearly as she had been ill for a very long time, and her strengths escaped her with each passing day. She no longer could sweep the floors, or even carry the smallest of weights without help. But to her that did not matter, what mattered the most were the brain capacity and her ability to press the trigger. Every day she waited in front of her house sitting in her rocking chair and, with her jaws clenched, waited for him, for the moment when she would have to kill him.

In April she would have her chance. She knew he would come back for her, he had promised it years and years before, when she was still beautiful, somewhat kind and thought the world was a wonderful place. As the time came and she gave birth to him, everything changed. First was the shock when the doctors said she would not be able to give birth again. Then, another horrific surprise: the child was, in the eyes of the medical experts, a monster. Despite that, an abomination was raised and reared carefully, away from the contact of strangers, for they would have, without a doubt, killed him in a fit of both rage and fright. In their first years that did not matter and his appreciation for her was unmatched.

The child wasn’t evil, far from it. She cared for him more than any mother had cared for their offspring and she loved him dearly. What mattered if the child was deformed and had an inhuman skin? To her he seemed like an ordinary child. Plus he was smart and intelligent, liked to read and to help her in any way he could.

She was pondering how things had gotten to that point. Rocking her chair back and forth, the memories came to her.
The boy could not accompany his mother into town, he could not interact with other children, he had only the animals in the farm and the forest to play with; they would not judge him. Perhaps that is why many people are fond of their pets, as they do not care for skin color or religious beliefs, all forms of prejudice elude them. And so he played, explored, grew to like plants and nature and would spend a great deal of time in the forest, often staring at the sky and musing over the weird forms of clouds. Children have their way of making things fun and entertaining, even in the oddest of environments. So he was pretty much a very normal child.

Due, however, to her inability to talk about her child, she grew isolated. Rumors had spread all over town that her child had monster-like qualities and her ability to socialize with others grew smaller. No longer would her beauty be praised by the men in the town, she would no longer be welcomed at most houses, and she would no longer be able to haggle prices in the market. She had to settle for what she would be given, and that was her fate.

Resentment had grown. The woman knew she would also be deprived of grandchildren and would no longer have a viable heir to her farm. Nobody would even dare touch her child. That presented a problem; she would have to do everything outside the house by herself and had no other option than to hope that somehow her child would survive in a cold and unforgiving world, a world that would tear him limb from limb.

It was during his teen years that it happened. One girl had seen him in the farm chopping some wood and screamed her lungs out until she got home. Naturally her parents grew worried, asked about her erratic behavior and soon everybody spoke of how the boy was violent and started many other bloodcurdling tales. Talks about the mother being a monster were present too and, in an instant, she was shunned by the rest of the townsfolk, people she had known since she was a child, people who had laughed and cried with her, people who expressed the utmost joy when she was pregnant.

For more than a year tensions flared all over town, and not even her manners around the child were spared. Hostile words, small acts of aggression; something she’d never thought was in her. When he killed one pig she had been growing to sell, she had finally had it. In the most violent fashion she threw him out of the house. He pleaded and cried and begged his mother to reconsider, but she would have none of that. It turned out the boy thought he was doing his mother a favor and that the pig would feed them for quite some time. To think such an innocent act would instill his mother with that much anger drove him sad and he escaped towards the forest vowing to see her again, for one last time.

Those words inspired great fear in her. What did they mean? What could he have meant with ‘one last time’?
One day she went to another town and bought a pistol, for protection against wolves she said. The man did not know her, did not care about her suffering and aggravating condition and let her leave the store with it. The following years were spent with her waiting for him. Hired help had come from a nearby town, it was efficient help, which allowed her to make a living without having to barely lift one finger, she could focus everything she had on him. Years passed by slower and slower and she kept waiting for him. That one purpose guided all of her actions, justified all of her thoughts. The town and its people did not matter anymore; their words and rumors kept spreading, but no longer affected her. She would have been a witch, a sorceress, Satan’s concubine, the mother of all evil.

With time everything moves on, even the stories. Now in her senior years she was only considered the rich, half-crazy woman from the farm. Her employees knew what they were doing, and she paid them well for the job. To be rich did not matter, as her son, was it really her son?, said that they would meet. Throughout the years she had passed through different stages, first anger, then regret, then fear and now an uncontrollable paranoia that led her to many sleepless nights. Not even in her bed would she let go of her pistol, her only source of protection, her only guarantee of survival.

That spring was the one he came back; first as a small dot in the horizon, then as a black figure and finally one hundred feet away from her. His head and arms were covered in bandages, but that wasn’t the first thing she noticed. He had grown tall and strong and his clothes were not of a being who had spent his entire life in the forest, he no longer used rags, but a suit finely made and shiny shoes. Silence had surrounded them as neither knew what to say.
Deep emotion overcame her behind those tightly pressed lips and clenched jaw. She pointed her pistol to him as soon as he took a step forward.

“You now saw me one last time, take one more step and I’ll shoot you were you stand.”

He didn’t know what to do, didn’t know what his mother had gone through or what her thought process was. But he knew that she would kill him.

“Turn back and never come again.” Her words were powerful behind that frail voice and the pistol stood firmly in her hand, pointed towards his head.

Reluctantly he took a step back and began to turn around, but she did not rest and remained alert. She didn’t know what he could do, not after that threat made so long ago, and the fact he had waited for more than thirty years to exact his revenge made him all the more dangerous.

“If you turn around to see me one last time you will die, like the monster you are.”

He remained with his back turned, but stood still for a very long time. He began to walk away and after a while he knew he could no longer be targeted by his mother. He sat down in a log and began to unwrap the bandages that surrounded his head and arms. Throughout the years medicine had evolved, his skin now appeared normal and no longer would he be considered a beast. His mother would have been proud had she seen him.

One shot was heard in the distance and, sitting down in the log in the middle of the forest, he started to cry.

Another tragic tale, but let me know what you thought about it.

Have a great one!

Flash Fiction Analysis

So now comes the time to discuss a little bit this flash fiction.

For a long time I wanted to write a story that was centered on a meal. How to develop one? How to make it interesting?

First of all the meal itself had to be important, and to do this we have the character have what will probably be his last meal. The reader doesn’t know this at first, but hints are given that something is not quite right in the scenario. How do you write about a meal? You can name all the ingredients, but that means nothing if you can’t create an impression on the reader, that’s when you have to appeal to all scences, not just sight, but smell and taste. If you show how the character is feeling throughout the meal you can evoke some of this. But it doesn’t end here, we have to have the meal hold some significance to the character, relate it to his past and contrast it to his present. When you’re doing that you’re fleshing out the character a little bit as the meal goes on and make the reader relate to him just a little bit.

Next came the twist I wanted to give to the story. You have this character enjoying his meal and you show him as a normal guy, not evil, not entirely good either, but you only know why certain things were mentioned in the end. The fact that he was a tyrant contrasts with some of the previous good deeds he did, with some of the hardships he faced. I wanted to create a bit of simpathy and take it all away in the end, wrecking some conceptions that had been created. The character was living in luxury, he worked for it, but you never know how, just assume how things played out.

I also wanted to give something and showcase where the character was, how he lived, so the living room was created to fit the scenario, every little thing mentioned served to display where the character lived, how he enjoyed or not certain things.

Why the coin? Again for contrast. Notice how the character smiles as he remembers his past, probably a desire to return to earlier days, or even as some sort of resignation to his fate.

This was all about misconceptions and resignation, as his fate had already been decided.

Hope you enjoyed my explanation, if you want me to be more detailed or wish for a different format let me know. Tomorrow I bring you yet another flash fiction or short story. Stay tuned!

Have a nice day!

Flash Fiction – 1

So here comes one of the stories I wrote, hope you all enjoy it, let me know what you thought of it in the comments. Like I said before, tomorrow I’ll dissect this story and let you know how everything came to be.

The Meal

Miguel Sanchez sat down at the table and stood still for a few seconds with his eyes closed. It had been a long time since he had a meal in complete silence. Opening them slowly showed him a nice grilled carp filled with herbs, which brought a flavorful aroma to the entire living room. That scent made him feel as if he himself had fished it, like in the old days, when he had to fetch his own meals for him and the rest of his family. It had been a true shame that it had been that chef’s last meal for him, but all things come to an end eventually.

That silence seemed to affect the lighting too, as the room shone brighter thanks to that candelabrum that he rarely used, a gift from another president a few years back. The way every crystal sparkled in the ceiling had him smile with satisfaction; that and other things. No longer would his wife bore him or anger him and no longer would his children embarrass him. They had been gone for over a week, soon after it began. It was nothing surprising and he knew they would act in such a way.

He enjoyed the quiet because with the fork he not only felt the crispness of the skin of that blackened fish, he managed to hear it too. After pouring the finest of the white wines, a rich and powerful flavor to accompany the fish, he took the first bite and closed his eyes again. He could feel textures he had long forgotten, flavors he thought didn’t exist, and the power that fish transmitted, that power he had not felt in so many years. Next came a bit of wine to accompany the fish and he could feel the freshness going down his throat.

He took a long look across the room. The large table no longer had the silver trinkets, or the rest of the silverware for that matter, but the room still felt rich, with the many portraits and paintings of those who had preceded him. The looks on the faces seemed to differ with every dinner he had. In one of the corners, next to a window, stood the orchid the wife loved for years, but abandoned in seconds. The old furniture remained, the kind that is not made in these days and is heavily worked, and portrayed flowers and fishes. He had had the good fortune of living in a place where people had good taste.

Then he remembered how in one of his first days he had lost his deformed coin in that very room, he could not find it no matter where he looked. After cleaning his mouth he got up and remembered that he had been standing close to the antique chair next to the window, looking at that line of horizon, where the sun shone bright red rising to answer his duty. How long had that been? Maybe more than fifteen years.

Crouching he realized the wooden floor had a crack in it, curious thing to notice after all that time. Grabbing a knife from the table, he could not understand how the last servant had set the table for more than one, he reached to touch a metallic object. After a bit of effort he had collected the old coin he thought gave him luck. With a chuckle he went back to the table, trying to remember when he had first gotten it. He took another chunk from the fish and chewed it down carefully. Maybe it had been with him after he went to buy milk that day, forty years ago, when his mother was sick and he had to do all the shores.

Looking up, towards the decorated ceiling he smiled. Outside the presidential palace the size of the crowd grew larger and larger, very soon they would break in and finally depose the tyrant.

Again, hope you enjoyed it.

Have a great day!

Giving most of it away

I’ve had a change of heart these past couple of days and decided that while not releasing everything I have, I’m still going to post here several stories I’ve written. Forget about publishing things, it’s here and free for all to read!

After releasing a story I’ll spend the following day discussing and dissecting it, to show you how I do things and for you guys to see my thought process. I hope that will give you guys some ideas and insight and helps you in any way.

For now expect the first flash fiction in about one hour tops.

Hope you all enjoy it.