Flash Fiction Friday Challenge: Week 1

Hey, everyone! Welcome back to my blog! Today is Saturday, the first Saturday following my first Flash Fiction Friday Challenge! I’m going to talk to you about the flash fiction prompt from this week, how I went about filling it, and at the end, I’ll link you to where you can find my fill for the prompt if you’d like to read it yourself. First, however, I'd like to mention that I have been writing every day for myself since August 1st, and I can tell that it’s been good for me. The words are flowing more easily, and I spend less time thinking about what I want to say and more time saying it. I’ve been using a list of prompts that I found at eadeverell.com, a website with resources for writers and readers. The list contains 30 prompts, each labeled Day 1, Day 2, etc. I have not been going in order; instead, I’m using a number generator to pick the order that I go in so that, when I’m ready to write, I am sitting down to work on a prompt to which I’ve given no forethought. I’m sure this isn’t everyone’s habit, but I know that if I dwell on a prompt for too long, I’m likely to write poorly on it because I’ve obsessed over it.

All that being said, the prompts that I’m using for Flash Fiction Fridays are actually prompts that I came up with. This was fairly challenging, but I wanted the Flash Fiction Friday Challenge, if others want to participate, to be more authentic. So, I came up with four prompts, and those are the prompts I’m posting each Thursday, inviting other creators on my social media to write with me if they’d like. What this means for me, however, is that on Thursdays, I have two flash fiction stories to write. So, on any given Thursday in the month of August, I’m tasked with writing 10 to 3,000 words. That should be interesting to attempt while I’m on vacation.

So, the prompt for this week was, “You might want to see this. It’s got wings.”

When I first sat down to write this prompt, I was imagining an alien lifeform that had landed in someone’s backyard or an archaeologist digging up some new and interesting fossil. Instead, what came out of my fingers is something akin to a fairytale, or at least, a follow up to a fairytale.

We all know the story of Sleeping Beauty: An evil witch curses the baby to prick her finger on a spinning wheel, causing the kingdom to fall into a deep sleep until the Princess is awakened by true love’s kiss. Cute and romantic, right? They kiss, fall in love, live happily ever after.

Well, the story that I wrote takes place a few generations after Sleeping Beauty. While I don’t want to give anything about the story away, I’ll just say that “happily ever after” might be a matter of perspective, especially to the characters in my story.

This story clocks in at almost 1,500 words, the top limit for a story to be considered Flash Fiction based on what I was reading during my research for this challenge. Honestly, the story could be, with a little more shaping and refining, one of the first chapters in a novel. I think most short stories could. However, that’s not my plan. My plan, at the end of August, is to take some time to reevaluate the stories I’ve written for the month, edit some of them, and compile them into an anthology to publish. If all goes to plan, I could have 25 to 30 short stories, including a few that I’ve written in the past that, while short, cannot pass for flash fiction.

Before I provide you with a link to my story, I want to tell you that this story is rough. It’s not really been edited; I did a quick once-over with Grammarly to catch any glaring mistakes. There may be pieces of the plot that don’t quite fit into the rest of the story. I didn’t intend to write the story that I ended up with, not even as I was writing it. To boil it down to one sentence, this story is not ready to publish. However, sharing my work with people that are interested in what I do is important to me, and it keeps me accountable to myself, pushing me to complete the goals I’ve set. So, just know that what you’re reading is words from my brain onto the page with no refinement or second thoughts. Bring on the critiques! 😊

If you’d like to read my story, you can find it here.

There was one fellow writer, @soultouchingpoetry on Instagram, that completed this week's challenge with me! You can find their poem fill below! If you like it, definitely check them out on Instagram and follow them to see more poetry! Thank you, @soultouchingpoetry!

Additionally, for the month of August, with each blog update, I’ll update you on the number of words I’ve written this month.

Total August word count: 9,416

Thanks for reading, everyone! I’ll see you back here next Saturday! Have a great week!