I wrote this story ten years ago. It was runner-up in the Reader's Digest 100-word story competition 2013. It has exactly 100 words. Covet You stand in the corner, silent. Your legs, your arms, your back all curve luxuriously, stealing space. You are taunting me. Teasing me. Come. Closer. Caress. Covet. I circle you, regarding…
Throat Clearing
Today I want to suggest one way you can improve your short fiction. Stop clearing your throat. Throat clearing is what many writers do at the beginning of a short story. They set the scene. They ease us in. But as the name of the concept implies, much of it is an unnecessary and ineffectual prelude to the good…
Left Brain, Right Brain – can you be an editor and a writer?
I often get asked how I can be an editor/proofreader and write creatively. How do I switch from analytical precision to free-flowing creativity? One activity seems very left brain, the other right. When I launched my proofreading and editing business I did wonder at first whether my anal retentiveness and perfectionism when it comes to…
Flowers
This, for better or for worse, is the "crap but short" story I referred to in yesterday's post. I just sat down and wrote the first thing that came into my head. What emerged was an unintentional mini-meditation on the issues preoccupying me at the moment: love and sadness, regrets and hopes, the dream state,…
Descent
We stand together looking at the view. It is more impressive than a Monet, as shattered as a Picasso. I try to tell him this but he interrupts. I may know nothing about “art,” he says, using his fingers as quotation marks, but in my very humble opinion that tree is an eye, that sand…
The Bank of Words
Robert Southey said: "It is with words as with sunbeams. The more they are condensed, the deeper they burn." Short fiction - good short fiction - can have an emotional impact and resonance not found in quite the same way in longer fiction. That is why I love it. The trouble is, it's fecking hard…
Crossing Over
Just for fun: I've written the same story, first in under 150 words, and then in under 300 words. I've entered both in different Flash Fiction competitions. Which do you think is best? Why? Crossing Over (150 words) We spear through the pre-dawn. As we shoot down the last hill before the pier, all wheels…
A Short Short Story
As I have previously pointed out, I love writing short fiction. Perhaps still high on my success in the 2013 Reader's Digest 100-word story competition (I came runner-up), I've just entered the BNZ (Bank of New Zealand) Literary Awards, in the Short Short Story category (150 words). As long as your story is deemed eligible, it's published…
Patricia Bell, Author 