I’m trying yet another strategy for these #FridayFlash Favorites. This week, since I had some time to post them and found a number of stories that made the cut, I’ll post a selection from this week along with a few from weeks gone past.

This week, I want to feature a special #FridayFlash, special not because it’s better than the best I’ve read, but special because its author may remove it as soon as she discovers this link. (Monday, I’ll post the tale behind that hubbub, and what it means for the writing experience.) So catch this story now, before it (possibly) disappears forever:

I’m referring to “Too Shiny for a Ladybird” by Rachel Carter, a story about the people we love, who make us who we are.

And on top of that…

7 More #FridayFlash Favorites

(in true random order, using Random.org’s list randomizer)

• “Calling in Well” by Tim VanSant — Not calling in sick, no. Most of us come in sick. Ah, only if we knew what well felt like.

• “Lost Email” by Icy Sedgwick — What happens to emails that don’t make it to their destinations? (Another of Icy’s wonderful character stories.)

• “Evening News” by Stephen Hewitt — If you watch a bird long enough, maybe you can begin to truly understand.

• “Kryptonite” by Chuck Allen — Every superhero has her weakness.

• “Tiger Valentine” by John McDonnell — A sweet, funny love story starring Larry the Alien (from this past Valentine’s Day).

• “The Last Man On Earth” by Mike Jackson — A classic SF idea with a thought-provoking twist.

• “How My Guinea Pig Broke My Washing Machine (A Mostly True Story)” by G. P. Ching — “Keep the guinea pig away from the washing machine.” (Slightly unusual for a #FridayFlash Favorite.)

Note: While I do browse Twitter for #FridayFlash posts, the best way to get me to read yours is to put it on the #FridayFlash Collector. I judge posted stories according to my own preferred flash fiction qualities; your mileage may vary. To be selected as one of my #FridayFlash Favorites, the post must be a genuine flash story, not a chapter in a longer piece, a series of one-paragraph vignettes, or anything else. It should have a beginning (conflict), a middle (thickening), and an end (resolution). Not necessarily a happy ending (though I do enjoy happy endings), but whatever conflict the story introduces at the beginning, it must resolve at the end. No fair building up suspense and then stopping in the middle of the story, just to avoid figuring out how to save the hero in 1,000 words or less; that’s cheating. The story should also be a single scene, because multi-scene flash usually does too much “telling” and doesn’t “show” enough to engage me in the story. (And scene divisions stop the flow, which I usually dislike in flash.)

Keep writing!
-TimK