The Confabulators are always looking for different types of prompts to fuel our creative endeavors. Thus far, we’ve used both themes and specific words for our stories. We thought we’d try something different this month. For May, we are using a photo prompt.
The Confabulators have played with the idea that a picture is worth a thousand words before. This time, we all wrote a story in response to the same picture. The internet fairies chose this photo for us to write about.
Enjoy this month’s stories, and think about where you might have taken a story based on this photo.
It’s April Fool’s Day, but this is no joke: this month, the Confabulators are writing about the three steps to world peace. Please join us on Mondays and Fridays this month starting next week to read what direction each author took this prompt. You can find April’s schedule below:
Hello everyone! We hope you enjoyed our February stories. Our return to the Cafe was a success, and we’re ready to share another month of free fiction with you.
For the March stories, the Confabulators were given two words and told that we had to use both words in our story. The words didn’t have to appear together so long as both appeared somewhere. Those two words were: unlikeable midnight.
As always, a diverse range of stories emerged from the prompt. We hope you’ll come visit us every week during March to enjoy our tales of unlikeable midnights. Here is the schedule for the upcoming month:
After a short hibernation, the Cafe is about to come alive again. Our authors have recharged after National Novel Writing Month and the holidays, and we’ll be sharing all-new stories with you every week.
Going forward, each month we will all write to one specific prompt, so all of our stories will have the same underlying theme or be related somehow.
During the month of February, our stories will all address the theme of Valentine’s Day in some capacity or other.
Please visit us starting one week from today on the following days as we share our tales of love and woe.
Friday, February 6 – “I’m Not Romeo” by Jack Campbell, Jr.
Tuesday, February 10 – “Reservations” by Amanda Jaquays
Saturday, February 14 – “Time to Love” by Dianne Williams
Wednesday, February 18 – “Everything Changes” by Ashley M. Hill
Sunday, February 22 – “My SAD Valentine” by Sara Lundberg
Thursday, February 26 – “No Regrets” by Neil Siemers
It’s a little dark in here right now. The cups and saucers and plates and silverware are all cleaned
You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to —The Outer Limits.
and put away. The tables are arranged in their proper order, chairs are set upside down on top. The coffee pots and espresso machine are unplugged. The door’s locked and the lights are off.
We’re closed for a bit. Not too long, though; only a couple of weeks while we all take a little breather.
We’ll be back on April 1st with more great posts about a wide range of topics and MORE FREE FICTION than ever before.
Every week our writers will tackle the topics we’ve asked ourselves about. Every day will be a single post allowing our faithful readers the chance to absorb and ponder the writing. You’ll have more chances to comment and keep up with what we’re doing. And every day will be different. Monday may be a Writer’s Life post while Tuesday is a Flash Fiction and Wednesday would be something about the writer’s process. If Tuesday is a Flash Fiction and Thursday is, too, it may be that the stories will be from different prompts, including our work in progress: Straeon Manor.
We’re jazzed to bring you these changes. We hope you’ll find them as exciting as we do. Thank you so much for your patronage so far. Bear with us while we make things better.
In the meantime, we asked the writers to share with you their favorite post of the last year or so. Feel free – in fact, PLEASE – check ‘em out and comment. Share your thoughts with the authors and stay tuned.
Amanda is off doing what writers do best… Getting drunk. However she is around people, so check back in a few weeks when she manages to recover from a panic attack inspired by social anxiety.
Kevin Wohler: “Trophies” — Although this story was written as part of our Straeon Manor stories, it was actually an excuse to work on a character I had wanted to write for some time. Setting the story in the late 1920s gave me an excuse to do some research on that decade.
Sara Lundberg: My very favorite part of the Cafe is our monthly flash fiction assignments. I’m always so proud of what my fellow Confabulators come up with, and I’ve been pleased with the way the prompts have twisted my brain to produce some interesting stories. My favorite by far is the story I wrote called “Munitions Run.” Each word I put down begged even more backstory, so one of these days I’d like to flesh out the world. For now, here’s a teaser of what will hopefully someday be a full fledged novel.
Ashley: I think one of my favorite posts was still the first flash fiction I did — “The Dock Worker“, that one where aliens eat babies. (ZOMG SPOILERS) It’s not that it was my best writing or even terribly good (not even my favorite story to come out of the flash fiction, really). There’s just something about the character Abra and the situation that I’ve always loved. I’ve always meant to write more about Abra.
Jason Arnett: Picking just one favorite is difficult but there’s no need to go on about, I suppose. All of us have our darlings, our babies. The Straeon Manor stories were fun, especially the second one (“A Delicate Man“), and I enjoyed seeing how Ted Boone and Christie Holland both used bits of my first story. My favorite post, though, has to be my Revenge story, “What Is Best In Life“. That topic was my suggestion and everyone did great work on that one. I think all cylinders were firing for all of us then.
Christie Holland: My favorite part of the Cafe has always been writing fiction. While I love seeing my fellow Cafe members’ thoughts on different parts of writing, seeing how we interpret the same prompt is really fun. My favorite short story that I’ve written is “A Certain Kind of Magic“. It was the first story that I had in my head that came out exactly as I wanted it to. It’s also one of the first stories that I thought was really good and I was proud to show it to all of my friends.
Ted Boone: “Gravity” — The juxtaposition of ancient culture and far-flung future humanity was challenging, especially in light of the 1000 word flash-fiction limit. I’m really pleased with the end result.
We think it was William Faulkner who first said that a writer must “kill your darlings” but it’s been repeated endlessly ever since so that may be apocrypha. But any time there’s a discussion of the mechanics of a writer’s process, there should be some mention of David Mamet. He’s never visited the Cafe (at least as far as we know) but he’s influenced every storyteller out there today in some way, large or small, whether it’s realized or not. Mamet’s famous memo to the writers of The Unit is worth a read, at the very least.
The Cafe regulars this week discuss our particular processes in approaching a zero draft (or first draft or sixth as the case may be) and turning it into something readable. We are forced to confront our worst writing, thankfully before anyone else sees it, and thus our own weaknesses. It can be painful but it’s certainly necessary. Like hernia surgery.
We’ve got your table over here. Our servers are on the ball and ready to attend to whatever you need. Just flag ’em down. You don’t need a red pencil.
The hardest part of a writer’s life is maybe, just maybe, is putting one’s work out for others to read and give feedback. There are some anxious, hand-wringing moments when a writer is sure that exposure as a fraud is imminent, when that trusted friend may come back and suggest that the writer give it up and keep the day job.
It’s not those comments that are the most worrisome, though. Perhaps the comments that say “it’s good but…” or “I liked it but…” are the hardest to take. ‘But’ is a deflating kind of word, isn’t it?
Well, our writers this week are going to tell us about handling critiques and rejections. They’ve got their coffee, the stage is lit and the mic is open. Pull up a chair here and our servers will be circulating, ready to take your orders.
We told the Confabulators to write a fictionalized version of something true for the flash fiction this week. As many people know from the many Hollywood “based on a true story” renditions, just because something claims to be based on a true story, doesn’t mean it has much truth to it. So we asked those Confabulators (who were willing) to reveal how much truth there was to their true story last week.
The actions in my story are almost 100% true, at least as well as 12 year old August remembers them. But I already know 12 year old August’s story, and didn’t have a lot of interest retelling it. Instead, it’s told from the point of view of my dad. His thoughts and feelings during my story will remain his and only his, and I can only hope that I did him justice.
After my mom passed away, I spent a month writing down everything I could remember about the experience. After that I put it away and didn’t look at it for over a year. When asked to tell a true story, I decided some of my best material was probably there, so I went through the massive manuscript and found something anecdotal I could tell in a flash fiction. It is mostly true, even if the events and conversations didn’t happen exactly the way they are presented.
As with most stories, there’s a grain of truth to “Going for Broke.” I didn’t want to just tell a true story, however. Real life rarely has a good solid ending. Most true stories don’t end, they just lead to the next story.
So after writing a rough draft of the “true” event, I decided to really fictionalize it. I set the story in 1945, and I made the narrator (me) into a former army grunt who worked long shifts at a Pittsburgh steel mill. I made Nathan much more of an antagonist than the guy he is based on. I gave the narrator a wife and baby to up the stakes of his losses.
What’s still true in the story? Well, there was a poker game, and I did break my shoulder blade after falling on the way to the bathroom. And — true to the story — I still managed to come in second place that night.
How much truth is in my story? Enough that hopefully you believe most of it COULD have happened, but not so much that it would get me in trouble with anyone named in the story. Essentially, the beginning is true. Then there are some bits from other stories mixed in that are also true. The only part that’s not true is the one about — ah, you already know that.
Life is filled with stories. Some lives are interesting because of their historical context, like Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series. Others lives are only interesting for a brief period of time because of some tragic event that happened — such as Alive, the story of the 1972 Andes flight disaster that led to the survivors resorting to cannibalism.
The point here — and I do have one — is that our stories are often rooted in the real world. We may build fantastical worlds with flying airships and robot servants, monsters and mad scientists, but even these stories to some extent are built on our lives. Maybe the heroine in the story is patterned after an old girlfriend. Or perhaps the undead creatures coming for the hero are the sticky-fingered, snot-nosed children you babysat last year.
This week, the contributors at the Cafe have been asked to submit a flash fiction story based on real-life event. We’ve left it to them to decide how much of their real lives are being reflected in these pages. Maybe only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. Or maybe the story has been stretched and mangled beyond recognition (the way Hollywood tends to treat screenplays that are “based on actual events”).
We hope you enjoy this month’s confabulations. Be sure to give some feedback on your favorite stories.
Writing is — as they say — re-writing. It’s a difficult process that begins with the author, but usually includes one or more outsiders who act as critique partners. A critique partner can offer valuable feedback, because he or she is removed from the written work and acts as a first audience for the author.
What worked? What didn’t? Were the motives of the characters clear or is there a gaping plot hole in the center of it all? As writers, we learn to accept certain amounts of criticism, but it inevitably falls on us to give it as well.
This week, we’re asking the writers to give us the inside scoop on critiquing a work. How do they approach a critique? What kind — and how much — feedback is most valuable? We know our contributors are at various stages of their writing lives, so the responses are likely to be varied and interesting.
We hope you enjoy reading their responses. And, as always, please leave us your feedback, too.
