It’s crucial for successful fiction at times, isn’t it?
Flash Friday Fiction: Mea Culpa
Mea Culpa – 160 words
He’d been promised glory and honor, a place in history as a defender of the true faith. What he got was mind-numbing boredom. An impregnable castle and months of nothing but marching and stewing and raging at the enemy.
So he’d impregnated something else. Not on purpose, of course. The market maidens had been a welcomed distraction for lonely nights and lonely knights. How could he have known Marisa’s father was a sorcerer, a practicer of dark magic?
He’d done the noble thing. He’d asked her to marry him. But that had not been enough to appease Ahmad.
Eight hundred years into the future, Ahmad had thrown him.
The women in the marketplace still cast surreptitious glances at him, appreciation for his face evident in their eyes.
He never noticed. He only had eyes for the castle. Besieged by remorse, by loss, by the sense of what might have been.
“Forgive me, Marisa, for I have sinned,” he whispered. Daily.
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Here is another Flash Friday entry that I hadn’t posted during the time in which my website was down. We had to somehow include a marriage proposal within our 150 (+/-10) word story; how do you think I did?
Flash Friday Fiction – We All Have Our Roles To Play
We All Have Our Roles To Play -158 words
This is my punishment, she said, for sleeping with the French maid. I have to wear this costume and stand here for eight hours. God, I had no idea how much high heels hurt! I’m rather digging the stockings, though; I always did think I had nice calves.
The gas mask is to show how noxious my behavior was. Whatever. I can’t think of anything more toxic than our non-relationship itself.
The rope is in case I feel like ending it all, she said, a smirk playing across her lips. I don’t think I’ll need it, though: the sheer embarrassment might be enough to cause my death. Maybe I should just bash my head against those rocks.
I’m not even doing this because I love her. I don’t. I never have. But her daddy pays the bills. Her daddy hires the help. Her daddy is in love with me. And he’s promised me a Swedish nanny next time.
This was actually for LAST week’s Flash Friday Fiction contest, but my website was down at the time and I couldn’t post it. I had to drum up a 150 (+/-10) word story based on this photo prompt. Oh, and I had to include a death. I opted for humor over tragedy; what do you think of my result?
Calling All Women’s Fiction Writers: Writer’s Digest “Dear Lucky Agent” Contest is Open Through October 17th!
Contest alert for writers of women’s fiction! Enter Writer’s Digest’s Dear Lucky Agent contest for a chance to get the first ten pages of your manuscript critiqued by an agent (Paula Munier, Senior Literary Agent & Content Strategist at Talcott Notch Literary), as well as to win a subscription to WritersMarket.com. The contest is free and gets your manuscript (well, the query for and first two hundred words of, at least) before an agent.
What qualifies as women’s fiction? Here’s what the contest page says:
“Women’s fiction (also called upmarket fiction when dealing with women’s stories). If you’re wondering what falls into this genre specifically, this is how our agent judge explains it: “These are stories that revolve around women, women’s roles as mothers, daughters, grandmothers, granddaughters, caregivers, friends, community leaders, etc., and a woman’s place at home, at work, and in society at large. They are for the most part domestic dramas. What separates them from love stories is that the heroine’s relationships with her friends and family are as important if not more important to the storyline as her love relationship. These stories explore women’s relationships—with each other, with men and children, with the world, and with herself. The themes are those that strike a chord with women: love, family, friendship, sisterhood, motherhood, self-actualization, and what it means to be a woman in the world, past, present, and future.”
I entered, so wish me luck!
The Stuff of Nightmares
My sweet daughter came to me this morning, clutching my hip as tears streamed down her face. “I had a sad dream,” she exclaimed, sobbing hard.
“I’m so sorry.” I smoothed her hair. “I hate sad dreams. But the good thing is, they’re only dreams. They’re not true.”
She looked up at me, panic and grief etched in her expression. “But what if it comes TRUE?” she wailed.
“Do you want to tell me about it?” I imaged she had envisioned something truly awful, like her father dying or the world ending or something equally disastrous.
Gulping air, she nodded. “I dreamt I was in fourth grade,” she began, looking at me with anxious eyes. “And I was…I was…I was in one school while HE was in another!”
It was all I could do not to laugh. My daughter, my darling daughter, was angsting about the current object of her affections not being in school with her next year. When I reassured her as to how unlikely that was, she yelled, “But he MOVED in the dream, mom!”
My little bleeding heart romantic.
I knew it would be of no use to tell her it was unlikely Mr. Current Love would be her Forever Love, or even next year’s love. Maybe he won’t even be next month’s. I knew, because I was just like her at her age.
May she grow up to find her True Love, even as she discovers herself and celebrates who she is and what she can do. For in my world, being feminist and independent are in no way incompatible with seeking one’s own Happily Ever After. In fact, they enable it.
It’s one of the reasons I love romance novels. Most of them feature strong, independent heroines who aren’t ashamed to admit (at least by the end of the story) that wanting love, that seeking that intimate connection with another person in no way limits who they are or what they can do, but rather fosters immense personal growth.
I don’t fight against the part of me that craves romance, the part of me that loves sappy stories, the part of me that focuses wholly on my relationship with my husband. I celebrate it. I celebrate it, even as I cringe when watching my emotionally expressive daughter, knowing she’s going to get her heart broken at some point or another. A person who feels so deeply can’t avoid that. Nor should she, I guess. It’s how she will figure out who the right frog to kiss is, the one who’ll end up being her prince.
And if she decides eventually that being her own princess is enough, no prince required, I’m good with that, too.
Although I am hoping she’ll let go of the Drama Queen crown.