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Killer-of-Lawyers posted:250 words!? Does cc have any good study threads or whatnot? That's a very low word count. I'd recommend reading the Flash Frontiers archive if you want a good sample! All they publish is in this range. It's tight but really fun to create, imho.
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Nov 17, 2022 06:05
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| # ¿ May 22, 2024 08:51 |
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I'd appreciate some feedback on this piece, which is the same one I submitted to Thunderdome in August. The crit I got from that was basically "nice breezy little nothing," which is fair enough, but it doesn't give me much to go on. Is this worth revising to submit, or should I scrap it and go find 250 more words somewhere? Anyway: Wondering and Wishing It's the birthday of someone you used to love. You memorized it long ago, back when every fact about himself he shared with you was a gift, and it's never left. Every year is the same: the realization, the wondering where he is now, and then the well-wishing. It's easy to wish misery on people in concrete terms, but it's much harder to wish them joy: you can hope that he's living his best life, but what would that even look like? You haven't seen him in twenty years. You settle for a sort of interior-design-magazine image of happiness, whites and greens and sky blues, a beautiful home for him to to be happy, safe, self-actualized. You don't know whether to picture a partner or children or pets, or even what he'd look like now, so you keep the figures blurry as you send ambient love out into the universe for him. Be well. Be great. Thank you for being my friend for a while. Sometimes, you wonder if anyone's thinking of you the same way. You think unbidden of a boy who sat behind you in freshman English, a boy who wrote three paragraphs in your yearbook that year. You were hazy on his name then and surely don't remember it now, and probably he doesn't remember you -- But you wish him well, anyway. There's surely enough love in you to go around.
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Nov 21, 2022 22:07
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Will this thread remain open for last-minute submission discussion and crits? I have a new idea but probably won't have a chance to together a draft for a few hours.
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Nov 24, 2022 06:55
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Late for the contest, but worth a go at producing something better than "nice Tumblr post," I guess: The Last Button The wonder of space exploration dies for Shareese when the first warning light flickers on the ship's console. In the frantic days that follow, she realizes just how much wonder is an emotion that requires safety: that wistful, open-eyed curiosity about the world can only come from someone who knows where their next meal is coming from. As the ship breaks down, Shareese starts losing track of where her next breath is coming from, let alone food. She changes from scientist to shaman, memorizing the settings of knobs and presses of buttons that silence the alarms, keep the engine from going too loud or too silent, and keep the dispensers spitting out enough protein ration to keep her alive. She doesn't dare look at their bearings. She doesn't want to know more than she has to. The curiosity creeps back in as the fear starts to die away, stress reaction burning itself out. It only makes sense, really; there are two ends to the bell curve of hope, and if wonder thrives at the happy end, why shouldn't it at the other extreme, when there's nothing else left worth thinking about? The "what the hell" point, Shareese calls it in her mind as she stares at the last button on the console she hasn't pushed. It's unlabeled and recessed, covered by a glass lid. What does she have to lose? Why not? "What the hell." Flip. Press.
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Nov 25, 2022 13:00
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