You know what I really like about 100-word flash fiction? The challenge of packing an entire scenario into such a small amount of space. If you can make 100 words feel like a whole story (or at least the intro to one), that’s a beautiful, artful economy.
It’s also really good practice.
Mark Twain said, “Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.” And that’s true except for one small detail.
The wrong words are everywhere, constantly trying to sneak into the story. But when you only have 100 words, a crazy small number, you don’t have space for the wrong words. Or even words that are okay, but not great. Every word has to count. It teaches you to write in a unique and powerful way.
Oh, and it’s fun.
This week’s prompt is brought to you by The Prediction, and it goes a little something like this:
100 words maximum, excluding the title, of flash fiction or poetry using all of the three words above (‘Shakespeare’, ‘six’, and ‘pattern’) in the genres of horror, fantasy or science fiction.
Enjoy, and have a wonderful weekend.
bodies
It was fucked up. Is that okay to say? I dunno. I ain’t no Shakespeare, but you get the point.
Murray thought there was a pattern to the deaths, so we followed the trail.
Me? I wasn’t too worked up about six dead dogs, but I didn’t want no kids finding a severed head in the alley like this was The Godfather, you know? So we followed Murray’s pattern to this warehouse. That’s where we found the bodies.
Not dogs. People this time. A shit ton of ’em.
Jesus. Is that okay to say?
Fuck it. There was a lot.