Friday Fiction!

Today is #FridayFiction!

#FridayFiction is a flash fiction workshop that runs every week on Twitter from 3 - 6 p.m. PST, facilitated by Richard Hugo House. Each week, we pick a theme and create a story based off of that theme. We share it with the community of #fridayfiction writers by using the tag in our tweets. You can contribute more than one story. You can use the same character in every story, or multiple characters. The important thing is that your story, with the tag #FridayFiction, not exceed the 140 character limit that Twitter sets.

Why do we do this?

Flash fiction gives us a chance to re-examine our language in a way that we normally wouldn’t be able to do. The confines of the tweet force us to think of different ways of saying something, finding the word that communicates the biggest idea in the shortest way, and using Twitter allows us to find other writers on social media.

For more on why we write flash fiction and use Twitter to do it, read “Exercises in Brevity” on our website.

Last week’s #FridayFiction was “Paradise”, a wonderfully deep theme for any writer to work with. We received some amazing submissions last week.Click on the stories above for an expanded view of each person’s stories. 

This week’s prompt is “Pain”. Nothing prompts a plot or character development like pain:

Write a story that features some kind of pain. Is it physical? Emotional?

How does it drive your character and/or plot? Make sure it does. It’s one thing to write about pain for pain’s sake, but make it count. Write a story that uses pain for some end.

As you write, try and experiment with POV, different characters, and feel free to write more than one story! Writing within the confines of a tweet is difficult, but it gets you into an incredible mindset. Find the right words to create the mood, the plot and convey character in the tiny space that you have.

Also, interact with the community! Every week, a lot of amazing writers gather together and share their stories. These people don’t just offer up great stories, they are great people to follow throughout the rest of the week as well. Being on Twitter is all about curating the conversation you want to be apart of and this is a great way to meet people who love being creative.

If you’ve been reading for a long time, please continue to enjoy our great stories, but also, feel free to offer up your own! You wouldn’t think, as vast a social network as Twitter is, that it’d be a safe space to offer up your fiction, but it is, and it’s a wonderful way to network with other creatives online.

Hope to see you and your flash fiction this afternoon!

Today is #FridayFiction!

#FridayFiction is a flash fiction workshop that runs every week on Twitter from 3 - 6 p.m. PST, facilitated by Richard Hugo House. Each week, we pick a theme and create a story based off of that theme. We share it with the community of #fridayfiction writers by using the tag in our tweets. You can contribute more than one story. You can use the same character in every story, or multiple characters. The important thing is that your story, with the tag #FridayFiction, not exceed the 140 character limit that Twitter sets.

Why do we do this?

Flash fiction gives us a chance to re-examine our language in a way that we normally wouldn’t be able to do. The confines of the tweet force us to think of different ways of saying something, finding the word that communicates the biggest idea in the shortest way, and using Twitter allows us to find other writers on social media.

For more on why we write flash fiction and use Twitter to do it, read “Exercises in Brevity” on our website.

Last week’s #FridayFiction was “Chaos”, a wonderfully deep theme for any writer to work with. We received some amazing submissions last week.Click on the stories above for an expanded view of each person’s stories. 

This week’s prompt is “Paradise”. Dante, More, Swift, Milton,Márquez… for centuries, writers have been fascinated with the idea of paradise. Whether this is religious, secular, political, economic or physical paradise differs from writer to writer. Whether paradise is a good thing that lasts or an illusion also depends on what you’re reading.

Write a story that features Paradise. It can be a sociological utopia, a spiritual haven, El Dorado… it’s your choice. 

But how does the TYPE of paradise you set your character in affect the story you’re telling?

Is Paradise all its cracked up to be? What does it cost to get there? Is your character happy once he or she has arrived?

As you write, try and experiment with POV, different characters, and feel free to write more than one story! Writing within the confines of a tweet is difficult, but it gets you into an incredible mindset. Find the right words to create the mood, the plot and convey character in the tiny space that you have.

Also, interact with the community! Every week, a lot of amazing writers gather together and share their stories. These people don’t just offer up great stories, they are great people to follow throughout the rest of the week as well. Being on Twitter is all about curating the conversation you want to be apart of and this is a great way to meet people who love being creative.

If you’ve been reading for a long time, please continue to enjoy our great stories, but also, feel free to offer up your own! You wouldn’t think, as vast a social network as Twitter is, that it’d be a safe space to offer up your fiction, but it is, and it’s a wonderful way to network with other creatives online.

Today is #FridayFiction!

#FridayFiction is a flash fiction workshop that runs every week on Twitter from 3 - 6 p.m. PST, facilitated by Richard Hugo House. Each week, we pick a theme and create a story based off of that theme. We share it with the community of #fridayfiction writers by using the tag in our tweets. You can contribute more than one story. You can use the same character in every story, or multiple characters. The important thing is that your story, with the tag #FridayFiction, not exceed the 140 character limit that Twitter sets.

Why do we do this?

Flash fiction gives us a chance to re-examine our language in a way that we normally wouldn’t be able to do. The confines of the tweet force us to think of different ways of saying something, finding the word that communicates the biggest idea in the shortest way, and using Twitter allows us to find other writers on social media.

For more on why we write flash fiction and use Twitter to do it, read “Exercises in Brevity” on our website.

Last week’s #FridayFiction was “Isolation”, a wonderfully deep theme for any writer to work with. We received some amazing submissions last week.Click on the stories above for an expanded view of each person’s stories. 

This week’s prompt is “Chaos”. What happens when everything that can go wrong, does go wrong?

Write a story that involves chaos.

How do the characters involved in your story handle the mayhem around them?

What causes the turmoil?

As you write, try and experiment with POV, different characters, and feel free to write more than one story! Writing within the confines of a tweet is difficult, but it gets you into an incredible mindset. Find the right words to create the mood, the plot and convey character in the tiny space that you have.

Also, interact with the community! Every week, a lot of amazing writers gather together and share their stories. These people don’t just offer up great stories, they are great people to follow throughout the rest of the week as well. Being on Twitter is all about curating the conversation you want to be apart of and this is a great way to meet people who love being creative.

If you’ve been reading for a long time, please continue to enjoy our great stories, but also, feel free to offer up your own! You wouldn’t think, as vast a social network as Twitter is, that it’d be a safe space to offer up your fiction, but it is, and it’s a wonderful way to network with other creatives online.

Hope to see you and your flash fiction this afternoon!

Today is #FridayFiction!

#FridayFiction is a flash fiction workshop that runs every week on Twitter from 3 - 6 p.m. PST, facilitated by Richard Hugo House. Each week, we pick a theme and create a story based off of that theme. We share it with the community of #fridayfiction writers by using the tag in our tweets. You can contribute more than one story. You can use the same character in every story, or multiple characters. The important thing is that your story, with the tag #FridayFiction, not exceed the 140 character limit that Twitter sets.

Why do we do this?

Flash fiction gives us a chance to re-examine our language in a way that we normally wouldn’t be able to do. The confines of the tweet force us to think of different ways of saying something, finding the word that communicates the biggest idea in the shortest way, and using Twitter allows us to find other writers on social media.

For more on why we write flash fiction and use Twitter to do it, read “Exercises in Brevity” on our website.

Last week’s #FridayFiction was “Bully”. Click on the stories above for an expanded view of each person’s stories. 

This week’s prompt is “Shame”. Aside from fear and desire, there is no greater motivator for our conscious and subconscious actions. We store up shame from childhood, from relationships, from things we did that failed and from things we should’ve done but chose not to do out of fear. Shame regulates what we try for, what we allow ourselves to want and have, and feeds off our egos like a parasite.

Is your character breaking free from shame?

Or is she or he buckling under its incessant accusations?

Can shame be a motivator? Can it, like a modicum of fear, have a healthy place in the mind? Portray it how you like, as a villain, a sick symptom of a broken life, a ghost in the mind. 

As you write, try and experiment with POV, different characters, and feel free to write more than one story! Writing within the confines of a tweet is difficult, but it gets you into an incredible mindset. Find the right words to create the mood, the plot and convey character in the tiny space that you have.

Also, interact with the community! Every week, a lot of amazing writers gather together and share their stories. These people don’t just offer up great stories, they are great people to follow throughout the rest of the week as well. Being on Twitter is all about curating the conversation you want to be apart of and this is a great way to meet people who love being creative.

If you’ve been reading for a long time, please continue to enjoy our great stories, but also, feel free to offer up your own! You wouldn’t think, as vast a social network as Twitter is, that it’d be a safe space to offer up your fiction, but it is, and it’s a wonderful way to network with other creatives online.

Hope to see you and your flash fiction this afternoon!

Today is #FridayFiction!

#FridayFiction is a flash fiction workshop that runs every week on Twitter from 3 - 6 p.m. PST, facilitated by Richard Hugo House. Each week, we pick a theme and create a story based off of that theme. We share it with the community of #fridayfiction writers by using the tag in our tweets. You can contribute more than one story. You can use the same character in every story, or multiple characters. The important thing is that your story, with the tag #FridayFiction, not exceed the 140 character limit that Twitter sets.

Why do we do this?

Flash fiction gives us a chance to re-examine our language in a way that we normally wouldn’t be able to do. The confines of the tweet force us to think of different ways of saying something, finding the word that communicates the biggest idea in the shortest way, and using Twitter allows us to find other writers on social media.

For more on why we write flash fiction and use Twitter to do it, read “Exercises in Brevity” on our website.

Last week’s #FridayFiction was “Pride”. Click on the stories above for an expanded view of each person’s stories. We had some amazing stories last week ranging from the good side of pride, to the ugly side, to shame and inability to humble oneself when it counts. 

This week’s prompt is “Bully”, in honor of our Program Director, Brian McGuigan, who did a sneak peek last night of the show he’s developing. “F#t Fuck” focuses on a myriad of stuff from Brian’s life but really delves into his personal history of being bullied. 

Come up with a story about bullies.

Is your character dishing it out or taking it?

Is this battle being staged on the playground or is it acted out in the office breakroom?

As you write, try and experiment with POV, different characters, and feel free to write more than one story! Writing within the confines of a tweet is difficult, but it gets you into an incredible mindset. Find the right words to create the mood, the plot and convey character in the tiny space that you have.

Also, interact with the community! Every week, a lot of amazing writers gather together and share their stories. These people don’t just offer up great stories, they are great people to follow throughout the rest of the week as well. Being on Twitter is all about curating the conversation you want to be apart of and this is a great way to meet people who love being creative.

If you’ve been reading for a long time, please continue to enjoy our great stories, but also, feel free to offer up your own! You wouldn’t think, as vast a social network as Twitter is, that it’d be a safe space to offer up your fiction, but it is, and it’s a wonderful way to network with other creatives online.

Hope to see you and your flash fiction this afternoon!

Today is #FridayFiction!

#FridayFiction is a flash fiction workshop that runs every week on Twitter from 3 - 6 p.m. PST, facilitated by Richard Hugo House. Each week, we pick a theme and create a story based off of that theme. We share it with the community of #fridayfiction writers by using the tag in our tweets. You can contribute more than one story. You can use the same character in every story, or multiple characters. The important thing is that your story, with the tag #FridayFiction, not exceed the 140 character limit that Twitter sets.

Why do we do this?

Flash fiction gives us a chance to re-examine our language in a way that we normally wouldn’t be able to do. The confines of the tweet force us to think of different ways of saying something, finding the word that communicates the biggest idea in the shortest way, and using Twitter allows us to find other writers on social media.

For more on why we write flash fiction and use Twitter to do it, read “Exercises in Brevity” on our website.

Last week’s #FridayFiction was “Doom”. Click on the stories above for an expanded view of each person’s stories. Even though it was a holiday weekend, we still had plenty of excellent tales of facing inevitable destruction.

This week’s prompt is “Pride”:

How does pride work in favor of or against your character? Is your character brought down, like a Greek hero, by his or her own hubris? Or is he or she, like a Randian monster, propelled by pride to the heights of success and power?

As you write, try and experiment with POV, different characters, and feel free to write more than one story! Writing within the confines of a tweet is difficult, but it gets you into an incredible mindset. Find the right words to create the mood, the plot and convey character in the tiny space that you have.

Also, interact with the community! Every week, a lot of amazing writers gather together and share their stories. These people don’t just offer up great stories, they are great people to follow throughout the rest of the week as well. Being on Twitter is all about curating the conversation you want to be apart of and this is a great way to meet people who love being creative.

If you’ve been reading for a long time, please continue to enjoy our great stories, but also, feel free to offer up your own! You wouldn’t think, as vast a social network as Twitter is, that it’d be a safe space to offer up your fiction, but it is, and it’s a wonderful way to network with other creatives online.

Hope to see you and your flash fiction this afternoon!

Today is #FridayFiction!

#FridayFiction is a flash fiction workshop that runs every week on Twitter from 3 - 6 p.m. PST, facilitated by Richard Hugo House. Each week, we pick a theme and create a story based off of that theme. We share it with the community of #fridayfiction writers by using the tag in our tweets. You can contribute more than one story. You can use the same character in every story, or multiple characters. The important thing is that your story, with the tag #FridayFiction, not exceed the 140 character limit that Twitter sets.

Why do we do this?

Flash fiction gives us a chance to re-examine our language in a way that we normally wouldn’t be able to do. The confines of the tweet force us to think of different ways of saying something, finding the word that communicates the biggest idea in the shortest way, and using Twitter allows us to find other writers on social media.

For more on why we write flash fiction and use Twitter to do it, read “Exercises in Brevity” on our website.

Last week’s #FridayFiction was “Lost”. Stories focused on lost objects, lost people, lost faith and yes, brilliantly, even 4 8 15 16 23 42! Click on the stories above to see an expanded view!

This week’s prompt is “Doom”:

What is the doom of your character or world within your story? How does one react to the threat of doom? Is it always at the end of a story?

Can doom ever be the beginning of the story? Hope rising from the ashes of destruction?

Take whatever viewpoint of doom you want. Set your character in it, rising from it, causing it…

As you write, try and experiment with POV, different characters, and feel free to write more than one story! Writing within the confines of a tweet is difficult, but it gets you into an incredible mindset. Find the right words to create the mood, the plot and convey character in the tiny space that you have.

Also, interact with the community! Every week, a lot of amazing writers gather together and share their stories. These people don’t just offer up great stories, they are great people to follow throughout the rest of the week as well. Being on Twitter is all about curating the conversation you want to be apart of and this is a great way to meet people who love being creative.

If you’ve been reading for a long time, please continue to enjoy our great stories, but also, feel free to offer up your own! You wouldn’t think, as vast a social network as Twitter is, that it’d be a safe space to offer up your fiction, but it is, and it’s a wonderful way to network with other creatives online.

Hope to see you and your flash fiction this afternoon!

Today is #FridayFiction!

#FridayFiction is a flash fiction workshop that runs every week on Twitter from 3 - 6 p.m. PST, facilitated by Richard Hugo House. Each week, we pick a theme and create a story based off of that theme. We share it with the community of #fridayfiction writers by using the tag in our tweets. You can contribute more than one story. You can use the same character in every story, or multiple characters. The important thing is that your story, with the tag #FridayFiction, not exceed the 140 character limit that Twitter sets.

Why do we do this?

Flash fiction gives us a chance to re-examine our language in a way that we normally wouldn’t be able to do. The confines of the tweet force us to think of different ways of saying something, finding the word that communicates the biggest idea in the shortest way, and using Twitter allows us to find other writers on social media.

For more on why we write flash fiction and use Twitter to do it, read “Exercises in Brevity” on our website.

Last week’s #FridayFiction was “Illusion”. People wrote wonderful tales of magic, misunderstanding and more last week. Click on the pictures above to see an expanded view of the great stories that people contributed.

This week’s prompt is “Lost”:

Who or what is lost? Is it your main character? Someone important to the main character? An object? An ideal?

What is at stake if a character remains lost? If the object that’s missing can’t be found?

What is at risk if the ideal that is lost can’t be recovered? Can it? How would that happen?

As you write, try and experiment with POV, different characters, and feel free to write more than one story! Writing within the confines of a tweet is difficult, but it gets you into an incredible mindset. Find the right words to create the mood, the plot and convey character in the tiny space that you have.

Also, interact with the community! Every week, a lot of amazing writers gather together and share their stories. These people don’t just offer up great stories, they are great people to follow throughout the rest of the week as well. Being on Twitter is all about curating the conversation you want to be apart of and this is a great way to meet people who love being creative.

If you’ve been reading for a long time, please continue to enjoy our great stories, but also, feel free to offer up your own! You wouldn’t think, as vast a social network as Twitter is, that it’d be a safe space to offer up your fiction, but it is, and it’s a wonderful way to network with other creatives online.

Hope to see you and your flash fiction this afternoon!

Today is #FridayFiction!

#FridayFiction is a flash fiction workshop that runs every week on Twitter from 3 - 6 p.m. PST, facilitated by Richard Hugo House. Each week, we pick a theme and create a story based off of that theme. We share it with the community of #fridayfiction writers by using the tag in our tweets. You can contribute more than one story. You can use the same character in every story, or multiple characters. The important thing is that your story, with the tag #FridayFiction, not exceed the 140 character limit that Twitter sets.

Why do we do this?

Flash fiction gives us a chance to re-examine our language in a way that we normally wouldn’t be able to do. The confines of the tweet force us to think of different ways of saying something, finding the word that communicates the biggest idea in the shortest way, and using Twitter allows us to find other writers on social media.

For more on why we write flash fiction and use Twitter to do it, read “Exercises in Brevity” on our website.

Last week’s #FridayFiction was “Survive”. Each tale of survival was incredibly well-done. 

Click on the pictures above to see an expanded view of the great stories that people contributed.

This week’s prompt is “Illusion”:

Are illusions only magic tricks? 

A desert mirage or drug-addled hallucination?

Can they also be the false hopes we maintain? Our beliefs in stablity, safety, home and hearth?

Does your character choose to put his or her faith in these things? If so, why?

Or is your character waking up from the illusion, looking at reality for what it is without the warmth an illusion can provide?

As you write, try and experiment with POV, different characters, and feel free to write more than one story! Writing within the confines of a tweet is difficult, but it gets you into an incredible mindset. Find the right words to create the mood, the plot and convey character in the tiny space that you have.

Also, interact with the community! Every week, a lot of amazing writers gather together and share their stories. These people don’t just offer up great stories, they are great people to follow throughout the rest of the week as well. Being on Twitter is all about curating the conversation you want to be apart of and this is a great way to meet people who love being creative.

If you’ve been reading for a long time, please continue to enjoy our great stories, but also, feel free to offer up your own! You wouldn’t think, as vast a social network as Twitter is, that it’d be a safe space to offer up your fiction, but it is, and it’s a wonderful way to network with other creatives online.

Hope to see you and your flash fiction this afternoon!