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The Art of Writing Flash Fiction

by Sarina Dorie

 

If a short story falls under a thousand words (1500 words in some markets), it is considered “flash fiction” or “micro fiction.” With a number of new markets out there publishing flash fiction: Penumbra, Daily Science Fiction and Flash Fiction Online being a few among many, it is a plentiful market to send to. Because writing short, succinct stories is a skill I wanted to develop, there is a high demand for flash fiction, and it takes less time to write flash fiction than a long story (in theory), I decided I wanted to take a stab at it. When Daily Science Fiction opened about three years ago, Wordos, my speculative fiction writing critique group in Eugene, Oregon, decided we wanted to dissect flash fiction in order to hone our skills and see what makes a short-short story work. It isn’t surprising that because of our critiques and dissections, quite a few writers from our critique group went on to sell flash to Daily Science Fiction.

What we noticed about these stories is that they were tightly written, limited details, often had an interesting idea, a twist or punch line at the end, and were emotionally powerful or shocking or funny. The format these stories had been written ranged from someone was telling a story to a friend, in the form of a letter or letters in an epistolary fashion, were written like a fable, joke or essay, or used some other unusual writing device to tell a story. Many of these stories weren’t even traditional stories in the sense that there was a character arc, plot or conflict. Still, there was something that happened in each “story” that made it a catchy, edgy or worthwhile. These are just my observations, as well as some that I remember from members of Wordos. My advice to someone genuinely interested in breaking into the flash fiction market is to read and analyze lots of flash fiction and decide what it is about each piece that made the editor choose it.

As a result of studying the market and trying to think in the “short” mindset, I wrote about twenty flash fiction stories in a few months. Some of them I submitted to my critique group and got feedback on, some of them I later turned into slightly longer short stories, and some of them I left unfinished because there wasn’t enough there to create a story—but I didn’t feel guilty about not finishing because they were so short and I considered them experiments. Though I had been submitting stories to magazines for several years, it was my flash fiction stories that first sold. The four pieces I first sold in 2011 were “Zombie Psychology” to Untied Shoelaces of the Mind, “A Ghost’s Guide to Haunting Humans” (which won the Whidbey student choice award), “Losing One’s Appetite” to Daily Science Fiction and “Worse than a Devil” to Crossed Genres. From there, I went on to sell slightly longer short stories as well as more flash. After building up my resume with short stories, I sold my novel, Silent Moon, and then my novella, Dawn of the Morning Star.

Whether it was the short format that enabled me to practice my writing skills more often, or the feedback I got that helped me improve before going on to longer pieces, this process worked well for me. Is your process working for you? Would writing something shorter help you become more succinct in your skills?

 

 

Sarina Dorie brings to her writing background experience working as an English teacher in South Korea and Japan, working as a copyeditor and copywriter, and reading countless badly written stories. Sarina’s published novel, Silent Moon, won second place in the Duel on the Delta Contest, second place in the Golden Rose, third place in the Winter Rose Contest and third in the Ignite the Flame Contest. Her unpublished novel Wrath of the Tooth Fairy won first place in the Golden Claddagh and in the Golden Rose contests. She has sold short stories to over thirty magazines and anthologies including Daily Science Fiction, Cosmos, Penumbra, Sword and Laser, Perihelion, Bards and Sages, Neo-Opsis, Flagship, Allasso, New Myths, Untied Shoelaces of the Mind, and Crossed Genres, to name a few.

Her science fiction novella Dawn of the Morningstar is due to be published with Wolfsinger Press next year. Silent Moon is currently available through Soul Mate Publishing and Amazon.

For more story problem remedies, editing tips and short story writing advice, go to Sarina Dorie’s website at: www.sarinadorie.com/writing

 

What will the car of the future be like? Tesla and Elio are two contenders for the title; one pursues electric power while the other modifies design and promises a hyper-mileage vehicle. But they are not alone. Recent startups have shaken up the cab industry, and there are some promising enterprises in other areas as well, such as public transit.

Be sure to give this a listen!

Metadata and Credits WagzTail Season 3 Episode 46

Runtime: 30m

Cast: Crimson X, Levi, Wolfin

Editor: Levi

Format: 128kbps ABR split-stereo MP3 Copyright: © 2014 WagzTail.com. Some Rights Reserved. This podcast is released by WagzTail.com as CC BY-ND 3.0. If distributed with a facility that has an existing agreement in place with a Professional Rights Organisation (PRO), file a cue sheet for 30:00 to Fabien Renoult (BMI) 1.67%, Josquin des Pres (BMI) 1.67%, WagzTail.com 96.67%. Rights have been acquired to all content for national and international broadcast and web release with no royalties due.

Podcast image by Jay Simmons. Used with permission. Cars of the Future - What will the car of the future be like? Tesla and Elio are two contenders for the title; one pursues electric power while the other modifies design and promises a hyper-mileage vehicle. But they are not alone.

I want to commission someone for my second fursona which is a shark any info on any possible artists that are experienced in drawing Shark antros is appreciated

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Hi guys, I've never sold commissions before, but I figured I'd give it a try! If you'd like to get some quality paintings I've got you covered!. I can paint just about anything( ?° ?? ?°), so feel free to ask!

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Any help would be appreciated, if it helps, here's my ref sheet. http://www.furaffinity.net/view/14090610/

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A gryfon’s journey to his home and into prophecy…

A Shard of Sun

Kickstarter ending 12/16/14

It’s been a long time since I’ve had the chance to cover a really solid book. Thinking about it, I’m not sure I have yet, so this is a welcome project.

A Shard of Sun, now on Kickstarter, latest novel by Jess Owen (also on DeviantArt as ElementalJess,) is a story of Shard, a young gryphon—ah, gryfon—who, exiled from his home, finds strange allies (and strange enemies) in the far-away homeland of his tribe. It’s in part a coming-of-age story, the bildungsroman—oh my dog, the spellchecker corrected my spelling on that word—of a feathered hunter and just possibly a future king. It’s the unfolding of a prophecy, and a war between cultures. Cover art is by the talented dragonist Nambroth, though Jess herself is pretty good with a stylus.

Now, this is the third book in a series, so it’s worth taking a moment to look at the story so far. Here there be minor spoilers, but these are mostly back-of-the-book type blurbs from Amazon, so they aren’t the most spoilery of spoilers, and forgive me for being reductionist–if you’re interested, I’m linking the illustrations to the Amazon book pages, so you can blurb to your heart’s content there.  Anyway skip ahead a bit if you wish…

Book 1: Preview Chapter available!

Song of the Summer King is a coming-of-age novel, first in the “Summer King Chronicles.” Shard the Gryfon is old enough to participate in the hunting and fighting of the older…pride? Flock? Someone throw me a collective plural, please. He befriends a she-wolf,  a race usually hostile to the gryfons. Threatened by the younger male’s growing strength, the red king of the gryfons declares war on Shard’s allies. As lines are drawn, Shard must choose—fight beside his king, or against his own kind?

The general tone of the reviews of this book are positive–it’s an immersive world, a great romp from the hunter’s perspective. One reviewer said that the experience reminded her of Avatar, the sort of rich world you can get lost in. I leave that as an exercise to the reader, sufficed to say world-building is a strong point in this series. Amazingly, Song of the Summer King walked away from Amazon without any reviews under three stars, after over 100 reviews–I didn’t know that was even possible!

Book 2:

Skyfire, the second book, begins with Shard as a gryfon in exile, tryingto make sense of his past, of a packflocktribe lead by an unjust king. He learns of the legend of the Summer King, who is destined to bring peace and balance—

Okay, editorial insertion here, I’ve read my Golden Bough, I know a bit about the pagan tradition of the Summer King—what I know about the Summer King is it’s a great gig, but you do not want to be him in the winter. I’m curious to see how that plays out, and the ultimate cost of Shard’s quest for peace and balance.

Anyway, his quest takes him across the sea to the gryfon’s homeland, and to two generations of unresolved family hostility. Which takes us to Book the third.

Book 3:

A Shard of Sun picks up with Shard as the proud caretaker of a young dragon, putting him in a conflict between his own potential destiny in the quest for the mantle of the Summer King. He begins a journey to return the dragon to its family, a journey that wins him only the mistrust of the dragons. Meanwhile, in Shard’s homeland, his wingbrother looks to find Shard and reconcile some old differences, and the Red King is hunted by the warrior, Caj…Basically, just never leave home, it only leads to grief. Word to the wise.

Book 4: To be announced, but I’m pretty sure it’ll be about gryfons.

There’s a lot that’s remarkable about this series, really, zarking amazing. Bearing in mind that Song of the Summer King was a first novel, the comments on Amazon for book 1 and 2 have been quite positive, no reviews under three stars. I’m stunned, I didn’t believe that was possible in this cynical world. The first two books in the series were both successfully crowdfunded, and with almost a month left on the clock it looks like A Shard of Sun will be three for three–three projects launched, three successes. Again, remarkable.

I almost feel tacky for criticizing a successful Kickstarter dynasty, but what the heck, it’s what I’m paid for (I’m not paid for it, I just get itchy if I’m too positive.) The business plan is very concise and well-stated, the rewards are exactly what I would hope for–an ebook or the ebook three-book collection at a shopping cart price, the standard hardbound price level, and some nice swag at even the low levels–an attractive gryfon pin, and adorable plush which, sadly, seems to have been one of the first things to go (it’s still available, but at a price point that’s really for the die-hard fans now–unfortunate, but that’s rather the nature of these one-of-a-kind items.)

The stretch goals are pretty logical, too–mostly focusing on audio book adaptations, a very reasonable thing to aim for, particularly if her project’s response grows to the same degree that book 2 did, compared to book 1. The higher stretch goals don’t actually meaningfully add to book 3, they reach back into the series to add voice to books 1 and 2. Good idea, one of the dangers of the cult of the stretch goal is increasing the cost of your primary product.

But I must raise a small voice of protest, and this is just me, really. Backstory, I have kickstarter diabetes. The doctor first brought it to my attention when tests showed that I was pre-kickstarter-diabetic after I reviewed the kid’s programming primer, Foxy For(). It got MUCH worse when I covered the peffacrumlush and zataculous world of–hang on, I need to take my shot–Matlock the Hare. The writing style on this kickstarter story is chirpy and friendly and conversational and almost sent me for my insulin, but…not quite. Jess’s style isn’t exactly business school, but it’s to the point and expressive, and fits the “young adult/fun-loving adult” tone of the campaign. Still, I’d worry that the chatty tone of the Kickstarter might be reflected in the book itself–I’ve read the demo chapter, so it’s not really a big concern, and clearly the campaign is on a positive upward trend! But if I’m a fan of high fantasy, the chirpy tone of the kickstarter might strike a weird note for me on a cold read.

Not, like I said, a huge criticism, mostly a stylistic opinion from a grumpy old dog. It’s a little late to get in on the ground floor of Shard and his world, but check the kickstarter for Shard of the Sun and catch a wing to where his journey next goes!

The illustrations used in this post are intended to promote the creators’ work. Please do not reuse.

Im a female kitten looking to make friends with other female furries! kik me - SexxxyKitteh

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I'm still a new fur, so all of this FA drama has got me spinning around in circles like I'm chasing my tail. I just started watching some friends I've made here on the steam group and some artists on FA, and everyone is acting like this is the end of the world. I'm scared as to what I should think, and what I should do, especially now that "starrykitty" has stepped down. Any unbiased advice?

Edit: I was also relying on the CTfurs FA page to find meetups for December, my first ever, and I'm not sure if that page will be updated depending on the outcome of all if this...

Edit 2: Once again, the furry fandom comes through with a whole lot of support. I still feel kind of embarrassed posting this but, thank you everyone!

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if so, my psn is grimmsoad, we should play together~

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*EDIT : Change of Staff: StarryKitten has stepped down from the staff and left the development team. His access been removed from our systems. *

Now Dragoneer still needs to talk about how this could have happened, a database backup still exists so it's uncertain what Zido could even have still.

EDIT 2 Good thing I still had it up! Got some screengrabs http://i.imgur.com/rhvQ4OI.png (Overview) http://i.imgur.com/WVD4myy.png (Proof of the DB Backup) http://i.imgur.com/S3ZoVn0.png (Post regarding the non operational Jake server)

Hello again everyone, before I start I want to apologize for making a second thread regarding the current FA drama situation, the original thread had gotten very large with comments and I want the second post to start fresh.

Moving along, I am here again to share more information regarding Zidonuke and Furaffinity. If you're unsure what all is going on I insist you read my first thread here. http://www.reddit.com/r/furry/comments/2mmfq6/to_anyone_that_uses_furaffinity_this_is_important/

After that post was first made and started to spread around, there were a good number of reactions by the community stating they will be leaving FA, or posts discussing alternate places / emails in which you could contact that particular artist. However there has yet to be an official statement from Dragoneer.

The following are a few conversations that had taken place.

http://i.imgur.com/4yMdNka.png https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/534731322145931265

http://i.imgur.com/4KdOkrc.png https://twitter.com/Dragoneer/status/534831681778507776

Dragoneer basically claims that things are okay and that we can trust Zido, while also saying he can't trust anyone.

http://i.imgur.com/VICkkTq.png https://twitter.com/Rowedahelicon/status/535199847897640961

This tweet refers to this comment left on the journal by Zidonuke himself.

http://i.imgur.com/So0MTTk.png http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6265766#cid:43155642

What we're left so far is a case of he said she said, but one thing is for certain and that is that one person is lying. If Neer is telling the truth, then Zido is lying about having had admin before which is putting his "transparency" at risk. If Zido is telling the truth and Neer is lying, then it adds more to Dragoneer not knowing how to handle the community.

We already know that Zido has access to the FA database as he has already produced a backup according to https://trello.com/c/Kv8lwHfy/2-need-to-partition-messagecenter-notifications-to-enable-faster-operations-on-the-table-our-query-structure-for-these-tables-supp

StarryKitten

Whole database backup completed, going to prepare a single table backup the day of the maintenance. Set for Friday Morning at 2 AM, 11/21

Nov 16 at 11:42 pm

http://i.imgur.com/WVD4myy.png (Proof of the DB Backup)

== Along with the above, there is still the case of the comments that had gone missing attached to a Trello notice that had been deleted after the comments were returned. The reason I continue to bring this up is while every other completed task stays in their completed tab, card #72 regarding the comments was deleted, removing it from record entirely.

All this is leading up to so far is more questions that have yet to be answered. Why did the comments on the fender journals vanish after people started to learn Starry was Zido? Why did they come back with no explanation as to why they were ever hidden other than a deleted "performance issues comment". Why did he watch everyone that questioned his intentions that night? Why is this person even in charge? And if Dragoneer really believes he is okay for the job, why hasn't he publicly acknowledged it aside from random twitter arguments yet?

The fact that nothing has been officially said to the community so far is very worrying, and anything Neer has said so far has been confusing / contradictory. The fact the comments were hidden and the message about the database backup is proof that Zido already has access to the database and the trouble with the hidden comments show he's able to make hastily made decisions and so far hasn't gotten in trouble for it.

Another thing that needs to be acknowledged is the matter of Jake the server. The server that was paid for with donations during the 2013 Donation drive (http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/4389184)

"but we'll keep you update to date on their progress and keep things completely transparent."

Hey it's that word again! But what happened to this server paid for with money that the community so thoughtfully donated?

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/5058966/ Well according to this, it was used temporarily as a server in order to keep the primary database up. http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6265766#cid:43149631 But here, Starry mentions that "Jake has been sitting idle for almost a year, and it was constantly talked about internally." http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/6265766#cid:43149631

So what exactly happened to it? How did it go from their primary DB server to suddenly a to do list item?

https://trello.com/c/a9KTMfJd/38-enable-master-slave-replication-from-finn-jake

That's it for now, I will have more for you all soon should anything new pop up. I also want to thank Scilince for helping me gather additional information about the situation.

As I mentioned in the previous journal, I am not trying to force anyone away from Furaffinity but the fact that this is being ignored by higher ups is doing a good enough job of that anyway.

Again, if you don't know what all these is relevant to, please read the other thread here : http://www.reddit.com/r/furry/comments/2mmfq6/to_anyone_that_uses_furaffinity_this_is_important/

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Here is a link to download Morenatsu

http://www.mediafire.com/download/lmgmjgk7t5d4s78/Morenatsu.rar

Here is a link to download HIMITSURI NO LAGOON

Make sure to have your region set to Japan before Launching the game.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/3v3fe44cygz43k8/HIMITSURI+NO+LAGOON.rar

I only recommend downloading the game this way if you're tight on money if not you can purchase here.

http://www.dlsite.com/ecchi-eng/work/=/product_id/RE133654

If you're trying to purchase from the site with Paypal you have to go over to the G rated page, then hover over points and click on add points. here is a link to the G rated site.

http://www.dlsite.com/eng/

If you're having trouble with Morenatsu there are other ways of installing the game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkOB8t7RvDg&src_vid=3-Irq2fn1uE&feature=iv&annotation_id=annotation_468924 or http://s15.zetaboards.com/MTL_Project/topic/7293568/1/

If you're itching for updates for the games here are the Blogs

http://morenatsu.seesaa.net/article/215731892.html

http://kemono.cc/hidamaru/

Also you can thank the translators for giving us the opportunity to enjoy such things.

Translators for Morenatsu Rou and is w

Translator for HIMITSURI NO LAGOON

and is w

I'm not sure where to contact them directly, but they do seem to linger here.

http://s15.zetaboards.com/MTL_Project/index/

I hope this is helpful in someway.

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