Even if you’ve never written a single word, at some point in your life someone has told you how important a plot is to a story. If you have nothing else, you need a plot. For architect writers, the writer that meticulously plots out the story down to the very intricate detail, creating a plot is easy. It’s the first brick in a towering foundation. … Continue reading Using Movement or Conflict instead of a Plot
I lean my head back, feeling the top of the wooden chair press into the base of my skull. It wasn’t as stifling as it had been during the day, but stickiness clung to me, leftover from a day of sweating in the heat. The cicadas don’t seem to mind the muggy evening air; encompassing me, their cacophony of buzzing, four walls of interwoven sound. … Continue reading For What Comes Next – Short Story
The helmet sat outside for hours, a price tag dangling off the old cotton chinstrap. Everyone who arrived came in cars, leaving them parked on the street. “I used to have one of these,” the first person to pick it up said. There’s an expression that applied to him. “Age has not been kind.” He picked up the helmet and popped out the firm canvas … Continue reading By The Passage of Time
The car was a real beauty. The body was a seamless forest of dark green paint, apart from the myriad of scrapes and dents. The convertible soft-top was stuck halfway between up and down, with more holes than fabric, letting the rain drown the backseat. That was okay, though, because the doors no longer had handles, and I had to hoist myself over the door … Continue reading My Falcon
James stared out the car window, drawing shapes on the condensation collecting inside. “Doin’ okay there, sport?” his father, in the driver’s seat next to him, asked. He liked to call James “sport” or “pal.” Even “kiddo.” It didn’t matter that James was twenty-seven and had lived alone for the better part of ten years. “Yeah, Dad. Doing okay,” James said, hovering between sarcasm and … Continue reading Lost in Thought
Deep in the Yunnan province of western China, there is a small town next to a large ear-shaped lake. Few people live in this town. If you’re lucky, you might be able to hear them. A candy-seller pushes his cart, shouting to children who don’t come. A fresh fruit stall that only sells durian, filling the streets with a pungent odor. The town, originally built … Continue reading Memories: Tricks picked up from a riverbed
James stared out the car window, drawing shapes on the condensation collecting inside. “Doin’ okay there, sport?” His father, in the driver’s seat next to him, asked. He liked to call James “sport” or “pal.” Even “kiddo.” It didn’t matter that James was twenty-seven and had lived alone for the better part of ten years. “Yeah, Dad. Doing okay.” James said, somewhere between sarcasm and … Continue reading Lost in Thought (A Short Story)
