A year ago, I blogged about a micro-fiction short story contest that I was entering, and I even shared with you the story I wrote and rejected. I reread it and kind of like my story “Sk8tr Boy.” I wish I had submitted that one rather than the story I settled on using that didn’t get me past the first round of judging, which is my goal for this year. I just hoped I would not get a prompt to write a story in the horror genre again this year. It’s not a comfortable writing zone for me. So, this year, I received these prompts.
Ugh, horror again. And a slang word – lite. I immediately reached into my humor bag o’ tricks to see what I could make work. Here are a couple ideas I contemplated.
I considered writing about a huge monster trying to trace their giant hand on a sheet of paper, getting frustrated that it wouldn’t fit, and going on a rampage that included destroying the local lite beer bottling plant.
I contemplated a story involving the Frankenstein monster trying to trace it’s family tree, but it had so many branches because of so many people’s body parts that it got frustrated and had to drink a lite beer to relax.
Thankfully, neither of those made the cut. Within an hour after getting the prompts at 11PM last night, I had a first draft written of an erotic horror story. It sounds like a monumental achievement, but there’s a maximum length of 100 words. I can typically write about 700 words per hour, so the challenge is to say a lot with less.
They always offer as an example of micro-fiction this 6-word story attributed to Ernest Hemingway:
For sale: baby shoes, never worn.
It supposedly tells a very sad story. But maybe not. What if their baby was healthy but just had big feet that were too large for the shoes?
Or, what if the shoes were stolen and the thief was trying to sell them to make a few bucks?
Anyway, that inspired me to workshop this story:
For sale: lite beer for tracing.
My trusted story readers told me I had completely missed the horror part, so I reworked it a bit. Sadly, I couldn’t decide between these 3 versions:
- For sale: scary lite beer for tracing.
- For sale: lite beer for scary tracing.
- For sale: lite beer for tracing. Boo!
Rejecting those options, I did settle on my current story full of horror (a vampire), tracing (with a finger), and lite beer. I’ll share it with you soon, but I only have 12 hours left of the 24 hours I am allowed to write, edit, and submit my story, and I don’t even have a title yet! I’m considering Blood Lite.
Jim Flanigan Looks at the World 