I’ve put on the crock pot with boneless beef chucks, diced carrots, diced green peppers, beef stock and garlic. I’m ready to take my shower and then take my walk to Pittsburgh’s “Little Italy” to pick up some toiletries; but I thought I’d leave you with a new flash fiction story to read.
Flash fiction is culture. Flash fiction is education. Flash fiction is entertainment. For the writers in the reading audience read first for entertainment and then again looking for tension, story movement, use of dialogue for characterization and backstory and the use of concrete sense details that appeal to sight, smell, hearing, taste and touch.
Writing the very short story is a challenge but contains its own rewards. I hope you enjoy Sex Videos. I’ll be back later for more blogging.
The micro-fiction writer must turn thoughts into words into characters into a significant event with closure.
Words on a piece of paper or on a computer screen are the projections of thoughts. The words give the thoughts order so that a reader will be able to make sense of the writer’s thoughts.
Each character takes on a different thought pattern of the writer, usually thought patterns that are at some level of conflict (tension) with each other.
Because the writer is writing a very short story this conflict is captured at a significant moment when there will be some movement in the conflict that has not occurred before; and since this is flash fiction the movement will be slight but definitely there.
The end of the movement will bring some sort of resolution to the conflict (tension).
Last night was the first time I saw On The Waterfront. I got a tape from the Carnegie Library here in Pittsburgh and the movie stands up to the hype. A young Marlon Brando stars as Terry Malloy, an uneducated dock worker and ex-professional boxer who stands up to the corrupt union leadership. The film won eight Academy Awards in 1954 and Brando’s performance popularized the “intense, gritty virtues of Method acting” that influenced a generation of actors.
Good movies have a lot to teach writers about “show don’t tell.” Just like a flim a writer has to write in scenes to give characters a chance to directly interact the way they do in Woman, Wife and Lover, Love Hurts and Girls Kissing Girls.
Kissing To Be Clever
May 31, 2009 — pittsburghflashfictiongazette“Kissing To Be Clever” is the title of a Culture Club album. I was a big fan of Boy George and the band. Of course “Do You Really Won’t To Hurt Me” and “Time” were my favorites.
Just a little while ago I was sitting in Del’s Italian Restaurant in Pittsburgh’s “Little Italy” and the bar had the music station on one of the televisions. All the other televisions were mute and Culture Club came on and it wash “Do You Really Won’t To Hurt Me” from the Kissing To Be Clever album. And I thought Kissing To Be Clever would be a great title for a flash fiction story. So, I’m trying to come up with a short story with that title. Whatever it takes. For a writer writing fiction this is normal.
I hope you’ve enjoyed your Sunday. I think this is all the blogging I’ll be doing for today. I bought a six pack of beer after having several beers at Del’s and I’m feeling kind of mellow. Be sure to check out the new story Sex Videos. It’s all about sexuality, marriage, love, sex videos and friendship.