I tried flash fiction two weeks ago and I think I’m hooked after just one story!
I meet with a group of wordy types every month for the Launceston Writer’s Group and we tried a flash fiction exercise last meeting. We each started by writing a setting and a character. Each of us spent several minutes crafting some spectacular settings and elaborate characters, only to be told they had to be passed along to our left!
So we had 15 minutes to write a story of 500 words or less with a character and setting we had just seen. Here’s what I came up with.
Scene: Pelican sitting on a wharf
Character: Boy fishing
Time limit: 15 minutes
Word count: 266
He pulled the line back in again, heart-breaking disappointment spreading across his sun-blistered face. The boy, who could not have been more than seven, had been fishing at this same spot every morning this week. And every morning he left after three hours, having spent his loaf of bread with no return on his investment.
Like me, a pelican had also been watching the scrawny boy’s pathetic fishing efforts each morning. I expect he was chuckling to himself, thinking fondly of the beak-full of fish he had enjoyed as the sun rose. From his vantage point on the wharf pylon the pelican’s black eyes watched on knowingly. He knew the secrets of the sea, and wasn’t going to reveal them to someone who didn’t even know what these fish ate.
The boy wasn’t from around here; that was obvious after the first morning he fished. His too-short T-shirt and ragged shorts looked like they were the only clothes he owned. I watched as he picked up his rod and empty bread bag, sighing with his whole body.
His small footsteps approached the doorway and I decided today I had to do something. This forlorn creature had been haunting my thoughts for five nights now. As the boy’s shadow approached I got up, grabbing my wallet from the bench beside me.
“Here,” I said, handing him a $10 note. “The fish are a bit temperamental this time of year.”
The small face, skin flaking from the freckled nose, beamed up at me, and the boy skipped back to the caravan park at he edge of the beach.
I love this 🙂 More please! Flash fiction is such good fun.
Thanks Anna! I feel like I could happily write these vignettes all day.
I really enjoyed reading this! Mine are usually handwritten in my notebooks. I should share some snippets on my blog sometime. Could be fun!
You should Vanessa, I’ve had a great response to posting some of my creative work! This was scrawled on paper but not difficult to type up considering how short it is.