Category Archives: short stories

CONTEST WINNER: The Stranger’s Gift

by
Janet Smart

A stranger pushes open the door of the soup kitchen. A harsh wind rushes in. A few flakes of snow rest upon his white hair; he brushes them off with his gloved hands, frowns, and sniffs the air filled with the aroma of fresh baked cornbread.

The homeless whisper among themselves and wonder who this stranger is that has come upon bad luck this Christmas season. He gets his food and sits by himself near the fireplace in the corner of the room.

The regulars know everyone who visits the kitchen each day. There is Larry—tall and thin, who has been out of work for a year and does odd jobs—George, a Vietnam vet down on his luck, and a gray haired man who doesn’t have any family left. The volunteers in the soup kitchen are his family now. 

The next day the old man pushes open the door again, stomps the glistening snow from his black galoshes, and shuffles inside.  

“He’s back,” the regulars whisper between sips of coffee.

He obtains his bowl of hot soup and a buttered square of cornbread. He gazes around the room searching for an empty seat. Flecks of icy snow fall from his bushy eyebrows.

Each day the scene repeats itself. But, one day, one of the regulars sits by him and passes the time. The old man leaves the soup kitchen with more than a full stomach and a warmer body. He doesn’t smile, but he leaves with a small flicker of hope in his weary eyes. 

The stranger continues to come in out of the cold every day at suppertime. A different person sits by him each time. 

The patrons give to the old man. The homeless don’t have much, but each one wants to give him some of what little they have. They share a tattered scarf to put around his neck, one of their extra napkins to wipe the soup from his moustache, or information about the best places on the street to sleep. They give to him, expecting nothing in return.

Every day, when they see him enter, they strain their necks and watch as he brushes the flakes from his white hair and stomps snow from his black galoshes. Someone always sits with him and shares small talk and stories. They yearn to put a smile on his face.

“What should we say to him?” they ask among themselves.

 “How can we make him smile?” asks Larry.

 “Should we tell him jokes and riddles?” asks the gray haired man without a family. “Where is he from? I’ve never seen him on the streets before.”

“I don’t know,” each one answers. “He never speaks of himself. I only know, even though he is sad, he makes me feel better. His spirit slips into me, and I can’t help but smile.”

“I want him to smile, too,” says George.
Each day they look towards the door to observe the old man as he enters. Again one of them chooses to sit beside him, hoping to make him feel at home and bring a sparkle to his eyes.
Christmas Eve arrives and the old man comes again. This time a group of people sit with him. They give small tokens of friendship to him—a portion of their cornbread, a piece of a paper bag to line his shirt to help keep out the cold wind, and a needle and thread to sew up the hole in his red coat.

The old man eats, waves goodbye, and then hurries away. He leaves with a small twinkle in his eyes and a big smile on his face.

The next day the regulars come in for their special meal of turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, rolls, and pumpkin pie. A real treat compared to soup and cornbread.

They watch for the old man, but he does not come. On the tables, packages wrapped in gold foil and red ribbons glisten beneath the flickering fluorescent lights.

“What are these?” they ask the volunteers.

“We don’t know. They were there when we arrived this morning.”

They sit at the tables with their tray of holiday food. Lighted candles spread the scent of cinnamon throughout the room. They touch the packages with their cold hands and glide their fingers over the slick foil.

 “I wish the old man was here,” the vet says. “We could share the gifts with him.”

A note engraved on gold paper on top of each box reads, I wondered if there was any good left in this world, until I met all of you. You gave me friendship and gifts when you had little to give. When I was down, you gave the Christmas spirit back to me and brought back my smile. Now I give back to you. You were my first stop on my trip around the world last night. Merry Christmas to all!

With shaky hands, they open the boxes. A feeling of happiness comes out and envelops their bodies. Like children on Christmas day, they exclaim, “Santa?”

Let’s Dabble in Drabbles!

by Jessica Nelson
I imagine your first thought upon seeing this post title is Awesome internal rhyme! I imagine your second is What the heck is a drabble?
Allow me to introduce you to the shortest form of short stories. A drabble is a story that is exactly 100 words. No more, no less.
“Why would I ever want to write a drabbble?”
Funny you should ask that. Here’s why:
Drabbles force you to write your story succinctly. There can be no extra fluff. Every word must advance your story. Every word must be carefully chosen to describe as much as possible by saying as little as possible, because you only have 100 words to play around with. That’s it.
Short stories, by nature, tend to be character driven. As the shortest category of short story, drabbles demand that you get down to the nitty-gritty of your character. You have to find out what makes your character tick and convey that to the reader in less space than most scholarship essays.
Since this is a short story, our friend Rhonda Browning White reminds us to keep these things in mind:
  •  One consciousness (point of view)
  • One central action
  • One major change in the life of the character
  • A single emotional impact
  • A single understanding

She also reminds us to “use our zoom lens:”

  • Focus on one specific moment in time and/or place
  • Start at the flashpoint—the instant when something is different
  • Focus on one simple plot line
  • Focus on one main character
  • Focus on one internal conflict and one external conflict
Drabbles are the ultimate test for a writer. It’s easy to tell a full story in 1000, 5000, or 80,000 words. You have all the time in the world to move your characters around and reveal who they are. To do all that in 100 words tests your very nature as a writer. As writers, we tend to be wordy and long-winded, waxing poetic about the sunset at the beach or the less-than-pleasant fragrance of our character’s son’s gym bag after a week in his locker. (If that last sentence had been part of my drabble, I would have used up a third of my available space.)
The best way to start a drabble is to begin as you would any other short story. Just start writing. Word vomit all over the page, and get everything out. Once that is done, we can get to the hard part.
Here’s my example:
          Kara clutched the gun in her sweaty palm, her trembling finger resting on the trigger. Part of her worried that the gun would accidently go off. A larger part of her just didn’t care anymore. That part of her played words on loop like a broken record, over and over again.
          I’m sorry, Mrs. Peters, but the insurance won’t pay any more. Unless you can find the money to keep up the payments on your own, we have to send him home.
          Her jaw clenched as she saw her son in her mind’s eye. He was lying in a hospital bed, surrounded by beeping machines and tubes that tangled all around him. His hair was gone, and his face was gaunt, but still he smiled at her, his big blue eyes shining with warmth and love.
          It’ll be okay, Momma. It will.
          An errant tear ran down Kara’s cheek. She sniffled, then lifted her chin and deliberately pulled back the hammer. “Put the money in the bag,” she said. “Now.”
 Not bad, if I do say so myself. There’s not an exceptional amount of plot going on here. It’s almost like a snapshot from a longer story, but that’s okay. You can still infer what the big picture is from this brief excerpt. Now, here’s the thing: that version is 170 words long. Not a drabble—yet.
Let’s try again.
           Palms sweaty, Kara clutched the gun in her sweaty palm, her trembling finger resting on the trigger. Part of her worried that about the gun would accidentally go off accidentally firing. A larger Part of her just didn’t care anymore. That part of her played words on loop like a broken record, over and over again.
          Words echoed through her mind. I’m sorry, Mrs. Peters, but the insurance won’t pay anymore. Unless you can find the money to keep up the payments on your own pay yourself, we have to send him home he can’t stay here.
          Her jaw clenched as she saw her son in her mind’s eye. Jaw clenching, she envisioned her son. Head bald and cheeks gaunt, he was lying lay in a hospital bed surrounded by beeping machines and tubes that tangled all around him. His hair was gone and his face was gaunt, but still he smiled at her, his big blue eyes shining with warmth and love.
          He smiled. It’ll be okay, Momma. It will.
          An errant tear ran down Kara’s cheek. She sniffled, then lifted her chin, and deliberately pulled back the hammer cocked the gun. “Put the money in the bag,” she said. “Now.”
This is what you’ll see if you use Microsoft Word’s Tracking Feature. It’ll keep track of your edits, and for our purposes, allows you to see just how much I had to take out and all the things that were rephrased. By keeping myself to a firm 100-word limit, I had to think outside the box to get my point across.
Let’s take a look at it without all the marks. Here’s the final product:
           Palms sweaty, Kara clutched the gun, her trembling finger on the trigger. Part of her worried about the gun accidentally firing. Part of her didn’t care.
          Words echoed through her mind. I’m sorry, but the insurance won’t pay anymore. Unless you can find the money to pay yourself, he can’t stay here.
          Jaw clenching, she envisioned her son. Head bald and cheeks gaunt, he lay in a hospital bed surrounded by beeping machines and tubes.
          He smiled. It’ll be okay, Momma. It will.
          She sniffled, lifted her chin, and deliberately cocked the gun. “Put the money in the bag. Now.”
Eureka! 100 words. Is it super frilly? No. But does it tell enough of the story that you understand what is happening? Yes.
Perhaps that Great American Novel you’re working on needs some bells and whistles. Truth be told, it probably does. But much like cars, if your story has an exorbitant amount of them, your reader will get frustrated. Use drabbles as an exercise in brevity and succinctness. It will greatly improve your writing and please your reader—and your editor!
Now, I challenge you to try it. Write your own drabble, and leave it in the comments here for a chance to win a 1000-word free edit! This contest will run until Saturday, July 12, at 12:00am Eastern Time. May the best drabble win!
And for more information about how to use the Microsoft Tracking Feature, email me at jgirl126@gmail.com for a How-To manual.

SUDDEN, FLASH, SHORT-SHORT


By Rhonda Browning White

No, I’m not talking about skirt length, but about a form of fiction that’s growing in popularity. The short-short, a.k.a., sudden fiction or flash fiction. What exactly is flash fiction, and why should you consider writing in this form?

Flash fiction varies in length from 250 to 1500 words and can be written in any genre. Instead of spending days or weeks plotting and fitting together the chapters of a novel or book, you can easily pound out a work of flash fiction in a matter of minutes. Another bonus of writing sudden fiction is that it can loosen so-called writer’s block (though I don’t believe in that condition—but that’s another article). It will cause your mind to shift gears and can often be a form of welcome relief to keep you writing while you’re taking a mental break from a longer piece of work.

Is it easy, then? Not always. The strict limits of word count will challenge you to create tighter, sharper prose. The goal of sudden fiction is to provide the reader with a flash of insight or illumination that may provoke deeper or longer thought. Even a super-short piece of fiction should have a climax and resolution to feel satisfying to the reader.

So what are some tips for creating exciting sudden fiction? Here are the basics:

  • Limit the number of characters. One or two are usually enough.
  • Use only one scene or setting. Think of a snippet of life as viewed under a microscope.
  • Include vital information only. Detailed back-story has no place in flash fiction.
  • Use sparse dialogue. Save lengthy conversations for a regular short story or novel.

It’s good to know, too, that there’s a growing market for flash fiction, so it’s a valid way for beginning and experienced writers alike to build a resume of bylines and publications. Collegiate and literary magazines like Glimmer Train Press often publish shorter fiction pieces, as do online literary journals. Romance magazines like True Story and True Romance publish dozens of short-short pieces each month. Weekly supermarket magazines like Woman’s World pay well for sudden fiction. Be on the lookout, too, for anthologies like Sudden Fiction: American Short-Short Stories that specialize in flash fiction.

Short-short fiction will likely continue to grow in popularity, thanks to our busy and hectic microwave lifestyles. Most pieces can be read in less than a minute, but enjoyed for much, much longer. Remember, the best things often come in small packages, so try your hand at flash fiction today!