Ravens' View

Making a Sandwich

Here's this week's short story challenge from Chuck Wendig at Terrible Minds. In his words:

You have up to 1000 words to write a story — not a scene, but a story — where a character makes a sandwich. Any kind of character, any kind of sandwich, but the point is to infuse this seemingly mundane act with the magic story-stuff of drama and conflict. Make it the most interesting “person-making-a-sandwich” story you can possibly make it.

As always, these challenges are fun - so here's my story ...

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Making a Sandwich

"Want me to make you one too, hun?" 

"No thanks Dad, I had a bite earlier. Just this tea is fine."

"I don't mind, I'm already making one for your mother."

She watched his slow yet precise movements around the kitchen. He'd always been the cook in the family, taking simple pleasure in the routines. He opened the fridge, took out the bacon, turned to the cutting board, picking up a knife on the way. He cut off two thick slices, placed them in the pan, back to the fridge with the bacon - part of a smooth dance that he'd done for years.

"I'm making her favorite," he said, "a BLT. Fresh bread from Henderson's, bacon nice and crispy, a tomato from our garden, some mixed greens, and light mayonnaise. Tell you what, I'll split it between the two of you."

"Thanks, Dad," she said. "So, have you thought about what we talked about?"

The Unlikeable Protagonist

Another flash fiction challenge from Chuck Wendig at Terrible Minds. This week's goal is to write a protagonist that is a balance, unlikeable yet nice enough to keep us reading about them. Move beyond the standard black hats and white hats of the Western. 1000 words or less, due Friday noon via a link

I was doing a Valentine's story, with my heroine a sweet young thing taken advantage of - I like her better as a little unlikeable. Here's my story - 676 words.

 

A Valentine's Gift

She shivered as he settled his cloak over her bare shoulders for the quick dash from the limousine . Shivered not from the evening chill, not from the silk lining of the cloak, but from anticipation.

Kathleen had known Victor for several years, their paths crossing at various clubs and charity galas, but as no more than nodding acquaintances. He drove a luxury car, dressed in expensive clothes, dated a succession of beautiful women, and was her latest target. She was from a rich family, an only child, and had quickly learned to use her beauty, wit, and charm to get whatever she wanted from men. Now she wanted Victor, but on her terms. Kathleen had seen women quickly succumb to his smoldering gaze, but when he'd tried that with her at a charity ball he'd seemed surprised at her resistance, her continuing coolness towards him. He'd recovered quickly, praising her beautiful green eyes - never guessing they were contacts, tinted to complement her red hair, with a bit of UV filter added in.

He'd persisted in his attempts to charm her though, and finally, after she made his seduction a New Year's resolution, she started to thaw. She'd begun to smile and flirt back, laugh and touch his arm as they shared an afternoon coffee at a sidewalk cafe, or a carriage ride in the park, then would draw back for several days and ignore his calls. He would then send her more flowers and jewelry, with beautiful letters begging her to see him again, she would relent, and it would repeat.

One Small Story in Seven Acts

Another flash fiction challenge from Terrible Minds. Chuck had discussed various plans and structures to build a plot around, one was a seven point structure. Below is the structure, as well as my short story using it.

Behold, a rough seven-act structure - and how I used it:

• Intro (duh) –> alarms and crisis in space
• Problem or Attack (duh) –> AI has lost most memory access
• Initial Struggle (character first tussles with source of conflict) –> use alternate memory to manage problem
• Complications (conflict worsens, deepens, changes) –> more systems failing
• Failed Attempts (oops, that didn’t work) –> tried master reset, even worse
• Major Crisis (holy sh*tbomb, everything’s gone pear-shaped) –> self destruct on, can't escape
• Climax and Resolution (duh) -> use vintage iPhones to compute, escape

And the story (note, went in and removed section headings below, to let story flow better.)

Present Tense

Another challenge from Terrible Minds - to write only in the present tense. This was difficult, but I think I came close. Story follows.

 

Julie stares into the dark, eyes wide open, listening. She hears it again, a thump, then a muffled curse. She is pretty sure no one else has a key to Dan 's apartment, and she knows he's still in Taiwan. She's tempted to call out, but decides using 911 is safer. She fumbles on the bedside table for his phone, but when she picks it up, instead of a dial tone she hears a recording.

"Hello ... Dan ... your telephone access is now restricted to ... no ...calls, as per Federal regulations. You now have ... seven ... outstanding responses in your iVote queue. Press 1 for a list of your priority items, 2 for a list of all items, or 3 if this is an emergency."

She presses 3.

"I'm sorry, that is an invalid response. Press 1 for a list of ..."

She presses 1.

"You have ... one ... mandatory vote. If you are voting now please stand in front of your iMonitor to show your vote. Remember to ensure your face is free of any coverings, for optimum response from the iFace system."

Random Photo Story

From the blog Terrible Minds, comes another Flash Fiction Challenge. We were directed to go this site, which pulls up six random photos at a time from Flickr. From those six, we were to pick three, and use those as inspiration for a short story, 1000 words max, by noon EST on January 27th.

These are the three I picked. I don't know anything about the people or places shown, nothing implied about them, I just used the images as starting points for my own imagination.

    
The images are - a building in downtown Taipei, Taiwan http://flickr.com/photos/22310015@N06/6016785855/

two guys sitting on a rooftop http://flickr.com/photos/50792682@N00/3457578328/

and two girls biking down a road http://flickr.com/photos/12203542@N05/5641941202 .

And now the story, it's about 575 words long ...

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