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Archive for the ‘Writing Process’ Category

How We Write – Infected

After the 2016 election happened, Kyros knew that he wanted to write a story to process his feelings about the incoming president. This was a rare story that didn’t have any prompts (except maybe our fear for the future due to the outcome of the election). We wrote this over a couple days and decided that we would each publish it on our personal Facebook pages on January 20th, 2017, Inauguration Day, as a form of protest.

INFECTED

The guide stepped up to the podium. With a flick of his hand, he brought up a holomap of the planet spinning silently below. One area in the northern hemisphere glowed in a soft red.

“This section of the planet used to be called the United States of America. This nation contained two strains of a political virus, conservative and liberal. Neither was especially bad or good. They just caused the infected person to view the world in a slightly different manner.

“That changed when a mutated strain of the conservative virus began spreading through the populace. This new strain caused individuals affected by it to become ever-so-slightly fact-resistant. Few people of the time noticed because initially, only minor facts were rejected.” (more…)

How We Write – Newly Recurring Afterlife

Prompt: The wounds we cannot see

For the month of June, we’re going to showcase some of the political stories we’ve written, starting in June 2016 as we led up to the last election.

First up is Newly Recurring Afterlife, the most recent one we wrote.

Kyros woke up one morning, shortly after the school shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL, with this story racing through his head. He immediately dashed to his computer and started writing. Normally, when we write a story, we outline the basic idea, then go back over it, filling in details, embellishing here and there. That was not the case with this story. It poured out whole cloth. He messaged Orion to join him before the normal start of their day. He was only a couple paragraphs in at that point. They went to work and the entire story was written in just over an hour. For comparison, a normal short takes about one hour to outline, and about 2-3 hours more to write and edit. This story demanded to be told!

We both felt strongly about the reactions from sitting Congressmen who, rather than actually working to prevent another tragedy, only offered up the hollow phrase “You’re in our thoughts and prayers.” This is the same thing they’ve done since Sandy Hook in 2012! We decided that a bipartisan response was needed, so we wrote one.

NEWLY RECURRING AFTERLIFE

“Physical injuries heal, but it’s the wounds we cannot see that do the most damage because the damage is to our psyche, not to our body.” -K. Starr

 

The Congressman woke up.

He tried to move.

He couldn’t.

Struggling, he found he was tied to a post.

“Help! Can anybody help me?” (more…)

How We Write – Some Time To Kill

The prompts were: some time to kill and languishing in a cheap motel. These suggested a bad, forties dime novel detective story to Orion. You know that type, where the sultry woman shows up to hire the hard-boiled detective to solve a mystery. She tried to write one evoking that era and style but simply had to put her own twist on it, as you’ll see.

Photo by Steven Lewis from Unsplash

SOME TIME TO KILL

I was languishing in a cheap motel on the disreputable fringe of the city, waiting for a contact to show up. It was the type of place you breezed past without noticing, on your way home from work. From its flickering neon sign to the debris-strewn parking lot where anonymous vehicles hunched against the wind, it was invisible.

A scratching sound interrupted my third perusal of the daily paper. Tossing it down on the faded, worn bedspread, I went to the door and applied my eyeball to the peephole.

Nothing.

That’s odd, I swear I heard something.

Cautiously, I turned the knob. (more…)

How We Write – Magical Rapscallions

Our prompts were: Fish Food, Orange Juice, Onions

Orion used to spend her weekends pretending to live in the Middle Ages. (One year, she spent 26 of 52 weekends under canvas!) So, it’s no surprise that every once in a while a story lands there too. Also, we really like telling stories of people hoisted on their own petard. Couldn’t you tell?

 

 

MAGICAL RAPSCALLIONS

“I can’t believe how lucky you are, Leo. The king really gave you time off from your regular chores to study with Donatello?”

“Yes. I was stunned. But, I’ve always wanted to be a magician.” A grin split his youthful face. “Donatello says that I’m a natural. He’s never had a student progress so quickly.” He puffed out his chest.

Angelo, the head cook, and Leo’s best friend, raised an eyebrow and looked down his long nose. “Not everyone is so fortunate as to have a patron like you do.”

Leonardo made a face. “Maybe so, but it means I have twice the work I did before.” (more…)

How We Write – Flashes to Ashes

Our prompts were: probable homicide, not for publication, works for me and moving right along.

We had way too much fun with this set of prompts! When Orion and Kyros saw ‘probable homicide’ we both remembered the plethora of cop shows that were on TV in the late 70s and early 80s and decided to pull random characters from those old shows to populate this story. And since we both watched the 1990s DC Comics’ TV shows, we threw in a few comic book characters for good measure as well.

Lt. Kojak from Kojak

Sgt. Wojciehowicz from Barney Miller

Officer Poncherello from CHiPs

Barry Allen from The Flash

Clark Kent from Lois and Clark, The New Adventures of Superman

Lois Lane from Lois and Clark, The New Adventures of Superman

And as for our villain, we’ll leave it up to you as to who that is. Leave your guesses in the comments below.

FLASHES TO ASHES

The unmarked police car with a lone bubble light flashing on its roof careened into the Dunkin Donuts parking lot, screeching to a halt just shy of the yellow crime scene tape. A stocky bald man in a dark suit stepped out of the car, pausing just long enough to unwrap a bright red lollipop and stick it in his mouth.

“What’s going on here?” he demanded, addressing the detective holding the tape up for him.

“It’s really bizarre, Lt. Kojak,” Sgt. Wojciehowicz said, grimacing. “All that’s left of this Barry Allen character is a pile of ashes and one arm with the middle finger extended.” The big man chuckled. “It looks like he at least got in the last word.” (more…)

How We Write – Out of Uniform

Our prompts were: Gesturing, guessing, getting it wrong; pointless pondering; buffalo hide sandals.

With twice as many prompts to work into our story, still we wrote one of our shortest pieces, at 287 words! It was the buffalo hide sandals that led us to the clothing of the Sixties. Pointless ponderings sounded like a pompous boss (it’s called alliteration when several words in a sentence begin with the same letter or sound). One thing led to another, led to another…and a story was born.

OUT OF UNIFORM

“What the hell are you wearing?”

Her companion looked down, inspecting his garments. “What? I look fine.”

She shook her head, gesturing at his outfit. “No, you don’t. What about that tunic? It’s completely inappropriate. And no one wears buffalo hide sandals anymore, either.”

He gaped at her. “They were okay the last time I was here. It’s fine, really.”

She sighed. “This isn’t the Sixties anymore. You’ve got it all wrong.” (more…)

How We Write – Driving Me Crazy

Our prompts were: He was such a bad driver; not for all the tea in China; and what do you mean by no?

Looking at the prompts, it just seemed natural to Kyros that the person saying “no” was responding to having to ride with the bad driver, and that they wouldn’t ride with them “for all the tea in China.” This evoked the many field trips Orion took in the fifties with the other kids from her Methodist Church.

When you’re trying to write flash fiction like this, look for links between the words. Draw from your own experience. What does A have to do with B? Once you have even one link, you have the germ of a story. Let it grow from there.

DRIVING ME CRAZY

 

“No?” Pastor Mike demanded. “What do you mean, no?”

“I won’t ride with him,” I shot back, shaking my head. “No way.”

The minister glared down his hawk’s nose. “C’mon, Alex, at least tell me why.”

“He’s dangerous.” I gestured over my shoulder where the youth pastor, Kurt, sat in his car. “I won’t ride with him. Not for all the tea in China!” (more…)

How We Write: A Saucer of Ice Cream

Our prompts for this story were: summer, pet, friend, you, ice cream. This time, they came from both of the writing groups Orion was in. The words summer, friend, and ice cream obviously inspired kids having a picnic of some kind.

But we couldn’t just write a simple story like that. We had to put our own spin on it. When Orion first heard what Kyros had planned, her eyes bugged out and she exclaimed, “You can’t do that!” But he convinced her, so here’s the sweet, twisted result.

Oh, and in case you’re curious about where the characters’ names come from, Pandor and Epimeth are shortened versions of Pandora and Epimetheus, the first humans created by Prometheus in Greek mythology.

A Saucer of Ice Cream

“I’ve never had this flavor of ice cream before, Pandor” the little boy squealed, spooning another large bite into his mouth. “It’s yummy!”

“I know, Epimeth” the little girl exclaimed. “My daddy picked up the stuff to make it on the way home the other day. Mommy made it up special ‘cause it’s been so hot this summer.”

They heard a crash from inside the house. Suddenly, the family pet burst through the door, careening across the yard directly at them. (more…)

How We Write – Islands of Sleep at the End of the Map

Our prompts were: Islands at the end of the map, drinking water.

This was the first short we wrote where we didn’t interpret the prompt literally. Our prompt, drinking water, became the name of a street, instead of just having someone drink water for no reason other than to use the words. Besides, we set the story in a pub! Who goes to a pub to drink water?

We also experimented with the form on this one. We wanted the reader to become part of the story. We hoped that by the end, the reader will feel like the narrator is speaking directly to them.

When we edited the story, we found the length was exactly 503 words. So we read back over it to see if we could find three words that were unnecessary to the plot to make it end up at exactly 500 words. And we succeeded!

ISLANDS OF SLEEP AT THE END OF THE MAP

 

Barkeep? Gimme another drink.

No, I have not had enough yet!

What’re you doing here in the middle of the day, pal?

Sally sent you? To bring me home?

That’s not going to work. I got business I need to handle.

This thing? It’s magical. Got it from Esmerelda. You know, the witch on Drinking Water Lane. (more…)

How We Write – Future Tense

The prompts for this story were grand, judgment, and stone hammer. The prompt, grand, reminded Kyros of the Grand Canal in Venice because he had just come back from a vacation there. The prompt, judgment, immediately made both Kyros and Orion think of tarot cards because they both use them occasionally. That left the stone hammer. Being fans of Viking culture, Orion and Kyros always liked Thor’s hammer necklaces. Kyros also remembered that the Eight of Pentacles in the Morgan-Greer Tarot deck has a stonemason using a hammer.

Our story of a woman on vacation getting a tarot card reading unspooled from there, as did the plot, a nice little romance.

FUTURE TENSE

 

“The first position indicates your past year.” The tarot reader tossed her hair back as she turned over the first of the five star-covered cards to reveal a medieval workman at his bench. “The Eight of Pentacles. Hmmm. It looks like you’ve been working too much, my dear.”

Oh, she has no idea, Elizabeth thought to herself. This last year’s been nothing but work! Well, maybe not all. A wry smile came to her lips. There’s always Jason. Though all we’ve done lately is fight… She let that thought trail off, giving her mind a shake. This business meeting in Venice was the perfect excuse to take him somewhere he’d never been before. Hopefully, this beautiful setting will help rekindle our romance. C’mon, what’s more romantic than the Grand Canal?

(more…)