How We Write – Far Out Vacation

This week, we had five prompts, more than our usual.  They were: Vacation, Mysterious note, I can see this one coming, Third chapter, A dip in the lake.

You wouldn’t think a short story would require much research, let alone scouring Google Maps. But that’s what we did when writing this story. We had to find just the right place for a perfect vacation destination.Then as the story progressed, we moved the location slightly so it was close to a three-star Michelin restaurant.

Usually, before we post a story to our blog, we do a quick edit, giving it a little polish. Sometimes an edit will cause the stories to evolve. This one evolved significantly. When we originally wrote this story, it came in around 550 words. Once we finished polishing? It was over a thousand. The story is much better for it. We hope you enjoy our little Far Out Vacation.

FAR OUT VACATION

Miriam stretched in her chair.

“The French Riviera was exquisite.” She touched her companion’s hand. “Jack and I saved for three years to afford that vacation. But let me tell you, those last few days were brutal! All I could think about was how I wasn’t ready to go back to work and how I would give anything to stay another week. But we were out of money, so what could we do?

Her companion nodded, encouraging her to continue.

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How We Write – Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus!

When these prompts, Cavemen with computers; A dynasty of dinosaurs; Pools of light, rivulets of shadow, deserts of dark, came up, we struggled to figure out how to have cavemen with computers. Outside of some very weird Geico commercials, that’s not something you encounter every day. But drawing on our shared history of working for large companies in so-called cubicle farms, we hit upon the idea that morphed into the story you are about to read. Kyros had way too much fun crafting the spell they used. Orion wishes there was a video of him reading it. You would probably all laugh just as loud as she did. Maybe next time she’ll sneak a recording and share it with all of you.

SIC SEMPER TYRANNOSAURUS!

 

A fierce roar rattled the office windows.

“Arroh, get in here!”

Oh, crap, what did I do now? I mentally went over the checklist of my duties. I already filed the meeting reports, contacted the affiliates, and ordered his lunch. The budget isn’t due until next week. What could he want? Another roar jostled me out of my thoughts. I tiptoed into my boss’s office.

Behind the vast expanse of desk, Mr. Rex Saurus sprawled on his office couch, an ever-present snarl contorting his long face. I used to envy all those sharp teeth, that is, until I caught a glimpse of his dental bill.

“Y…yes, sir?” Dammit, why did I stutter? Not a good way to impress the boss.

His short arms jerkily waved a sheet of paper at me.

“This report on the Stegosaurus Housing Project is incomplete and the numbers don’t add up!” He frowned down at me. “Do I need to replace you with someone more…precise?”

“No, no, sir. I’ll…I’ll fix it, sir. Right away. Sir.” (more…)

How We Write – Alphabet Murder: One Prompt, Two Results

The Alphabet Murder poem was a challenge to write a poem where each line begins with the next consecutive letter of the alphabet. That’s way harder than it sounds, especially, of course, for the letters Q, X, and Z! In Orion’s, the first stanza was the crime itself and was relatively easy, with multiple words per line. The second stanza, about the aftermath of the murder, trying to use shorter lines, was way more difficult!

When Orion asked Kyros to help edit the Alphabet Murder poems, he couldn’t resist trying his hand at the same challenge, so now there are two sets of poems instead of just the original one. He set his first poem where Orion did, a boathouse, but the second poems go in very different directions. Oddly enough, the poems turned out relatively the same length, too.

See what you think.

ALPHABET MURDER,

BY THE LETTERS

by Orion T. Hunter 

 

As everyone knows,

Benny was no good.

Come morning’s light

Down at the dock,

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How We Write – Carta Mundi

Our prompt was: Here Be Dragons. To Orion, who loves maps, especially old ones and fantasy ones, the subject was obvious. She was also influenced by the poetry of Dave the Poet. A fellow member of the Kickstart Writers group, his poetry is often literate and humorous. Carta Mundi was the result.

CARTA MUNDI

 

When cartographers of old unfurled

Their atlases, charts, and maps

They had only parts of the world

Told them by sailors, and other chaps.

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How We Write – Life Savings

Our prompts were: A new kind of murder, Wells Fargo, That’s it then.

No, don’t ask me where our collective writers’ minds go when making up these prompts! Sometimes, we just look around the food court where we meet for the Kickstart Writers bi-weekly meetups. Sometimes the prompts come from our own writing. I think that’s what happened here. Kyros connected the concept of a bank with a new kind of murder and immediately thought of a killer bank vault. The question was, how was it killing people? Rogue AI, of course. It’s always a rogue AI. Ever since the HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey. The rest of the story followed quickly from there. But, because of what happens in the story, we thought we’d best alter the name of the bank. Don’t want any lawyers to send us unhappy letters, after all.

LIFE SAVINGS

The archeologist carefully brushed away the last of the dust and dirt covering the monolith. He sat back with a gasp.

“Look! That logo! I remember it from several other digs. It’s…uh,” The man pondered for a moment. “Bells Wargo, that was the name. It represented a…a currency place of some kind. They didn’t have universal credit implants like we do.”

His partner leaned closer, a frown of distaste on her face as she looked at the mummified body half in and half out of the closed door.

“Well, I think it’s my turn to ‘dig’ into this mystery.” She pulled off the heavy gloves she always wore and extended one bare finger to touch the huge square shape. “As the team psychometrist, it’s time I earned my pay.”

The world dissolved around her.

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How We Write – Tea With Mary Jane

It’s said that you should never piss off a writer, or they will kill you off in their next book. But writing can be a good way to express other feelings too. In this story, I thinly disguise real people in my life and put them in a humorous situation.

The prompts we had to work with were: tea bag, blue moon, leap year, and pot. The connection between the tea bag and the pot was too obvious, so of course, Kyros had to put a spin on the word pot and interpret it as marijuana.

Orion based the characters, very thinly disguised, mind you, on her friends, who spend most afternoons huddled around the puzzle table. Without the pot, of course! After we had the characters and the marijuana, the story just fell into place. Let us know what you think in the comments. Enjoy!

Tea With Mary Jane

“You okay, June?” Karla asked as the white-haired woman came into the commons and approached their table. “You look a little green around the gills.”

Three sets of eyes swung up from the thousand piece puzzle in front of them. Even Karla’s cocker spaniel, Lady, raised her head, hoping no doubt for either food or a man’s attention. Food disappeared as if by magic, while any man would set her golden coat aquiver until she had been thoroughly petted.

June giggled. “Oh, yes. Perfectly fine.”

Olive gave her a concerned look before placing a seemingly random piece into the puzzle. Selma, sitting in a comfy chair observing the action, clapped her hands quietly, a smile on her face.

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How We Write – Moving Down South

The prompts we had this time jogged one of Kyros’ memories, so that became the framework for this story. Our prompts were: The view out of my window, muddy shoes everywhere, and UPS truck (which we ended up interpreting as Universal Package Service because of the location). In another life, Kyros was the cable guy. One day he pulled up to a home in a new development area that had a sea of mud for a front yard because they hadn’t laid the sod yet. Shortly after he arrived, the homeowner’s kids barreled past him and into the house, leaving a trail of muddy footprints. The mother’s reaction was priceless and left an indelible mark in Kyros’ memory.

The decision to set the story on Mars came about because we had both recently seen the movie The Martian. So with Mars firmly in the forefront of our minds, figuring out what view was out the window was a snap. Olympus Mons is the largest mountain in the solar system. How tall? Would you believe that it is so broad and the slopes are so gradual that from the edge of the caldera, the base of the volcano would be beyond the horizon. It’s a volcano so big that it curves with the surface of the planet. Why wouldn’t you move someplace where that was your view?

Moving Down South

Half-buried amid towering stacks of boxes, Janet Parsons glanced up sharply as her kids thundered in the side door.

“Stop! Both of you!” she shrieked. “Look at your shoes!”

The two boys skidded to a halt and inspected their red-mud-covered sneakers. Ralph twisted around, his eyes following their crimson footprints back to the door.

His little brother, Cecil, gulped out, “We are sooo busted.”

“What did I say before you went outside?” she asked ominously.

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How We Write – A Cold Winter’s Night

Our prompts here were: The red box, the blue-edged side of darkness, and the white moon of winter. To Orion, under the influence of reading Mercedes Lackey’s Elemental Masters series of fractured fairy tales, the prompts suggested a dark fairy tale. She started with the setting and let the character lead the way. This Little Red Riding Hood, though, doesn’t need a woodsman to save her.

A COLD WINTER’S NIGHT

The white moon of winter, its old man’s face sharply drawn, shone brightly on the dappled landscape. Sometimes it hid from the girl among the branches of the winter-bare trees. The snow underfoot squeaked with her every step. She longed for color, any color to prove she hadn’t fallen into a black-and-white illustration from one of her storybooks.

Stumbling over a tree root, she almost dropped the long narrow box she carried. Darkness painted it ebony, though she knew its stain was bright red, its carved lid inlaid with abalone shell that winked at her as she fumbled with it.

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How We Write – Through The Mirror At Christmastide

The prompt for this story was: Nestled in the corner of the attic. Orion is fond of time travel stories, ignoring the logic, or lack of same, that Kyros usually finds in them. This little story unspooled itself from the idea of time-traveling through a mirror. The original story wasn’t quite as logical as it is now that Kyros has turned his hand to it.

THROUGH THE MIRROR AT CHRISTMASTIDE

“Terry, we have to save her,” James cried, making for the library door. I nearly lost him on the second set of stairs, barely glimpsing a door closing. My lungs burning, I flung it open, launching myself up yet another set of dusty stairs, this time into an attic.

A manor house this old had to have an attic, I thought, but who needed help to send Terry bolting up here? He’d just been holding a gold-framed photo as if it were the most precious thing in the world. Over his shoulder, I’d seen a pretty girl with long golden curls and dimples smiling sweetly from the back of a spotted pony. I’d never seen her before, but then, Eastland Manor was James’ home, not mine.

I caught up to him in a dim corner under the rafters, staring at a huge ancient mirror.

“What…are…you…doing?” I asked between panting breaths.

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How We Write – Of Cook and Carrots

Continuing our examination of how we write flash fiction, next up is OF COOKS AND CARROTS. This short was written from a single prompt, carrots.

For us, contrary to what we have heard from other writers, working from a single prompt is much harder than from multiple prompts. When you have several prompts, you start to see connections between the words which creates the world and thus your story. With a single prompt, however, the possibilities are endless and we find we don’t know where to begin. With this story though, once the character of the wizard showed up, the story practically wrote itself. From the time we started until we finished was barely over an hour. Enjoy!

OF COOKS AND CARROTS

“Cook, have I not told you before?” the wizard asked, raising an elegant eyebrow. “I refuse to eat carrots.” He pointed one long finger at the steaming trencher with its orange intruders. “Take these things away. Now.”

The red-haired cook didn’t budge. Instead, he crossed his arms over his chest, a long wooden spoon held at the ready. He rocked on his heels, making his spotless white apron sway beneath his belly.

“Master, do you remember the omelet you raved about this morning?”

Puzzled, the wizard nodded. “Of course. It was splendid. What of it?”

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