Flash Fiction #vss365

I’ve been taking part in the #vss365 writing game on Twitter recently. This is where you are given a prompt and have to write a flash fiction piece incorporating the prompt word and fit it within a tweet, which is not a lot, only 280 characters, about the size of this paragraph.

I’ll be collating these little flashes of fiction and posting them here. I can’t promise they’ll all be good. They take me a couple of minutes to write, and another minute to correct the spelling mistakes. It’s a good way for me to play with writing and flex the old grey noodle.

Prompt: Silver

He ran down the alley. His leather shoes clacked on the cobbles. A growl from behind made him stop and turn. He raised his arm. The pistol shook as he struggled against the fear. He pulled the trigger. The silver bullet hit the wall beside the werewolf. “Shit,” he said.

I also wrote a sequel to this as a separate tweet, because the author John Prescott moaned at me. You can pre-order his novel After here: https://kyanitepublishing.com/product/after/. I’ve read it and loved it. Here’s my Goodreads review of it:

So here is the sequel:

The werewolf looked at the mark the bullet had made. It clutched at its heart and collapsed to the ground, writhing. The man stepped back, his face a picture of puzzlement. The werewolf stopped its death throes and opened its eyes, reflected silver in the moon. “Psyche.”

 

Prompt: Protect

His arms were forced tight behind his back. The cuffs dug into his wrists. He was pushed towards the back door of the car. A foot. A trip. His face slammed against the door. He fell to the floor. He looked up and saw ‘To Serve and Protect‘ smeared with his blood.

 

Prompt: Regime

The old regime lay in smoking ashes. Celebrities were the rulers now. Followers, likes, retweets: their weapons of power. Slaying became the norm. Words the scythe of the wielder. Hits, executions, purges. Anti-social media the battleground of the new world.

 

Prompt: Epoch

Tweet after tweet from the fool behind the Resolute desk defined the epoch of the early 21st Century. Ideology and idiocy. It reached the point that people gladly queued up to enter the mothership to escape persecution and prosecution as they dreamed of a better world.

 

Prompt: Mythos

“#vss365 prompt for today is Mythos.”

“It sounds like the name of a breath freshener.”

“Try Mythos and you can have confident fresh smelling breath all day?”

“Yeah, just like that. Smell my breath.”

“What? No. Urgh. Have you been eating onions?”

“Maybe a few.”

“You need Mythos.”

 

Prompt: Fortune

He was the CEO of a Fortune 500 company when he first discovered cocaine. In the years following he went from world leaders and TED Talks, his affliction hidden, to begging outside the local mom and pop store, offering gummy blow jobs to truckers to pay for his habit.

 

Prompt: Braid

Although they were born continents apart, the fates entwined their futures, twisting each possible strand of their life. Braided together for eternity. Their destiny foretold. The mortal enemies will face each other and the future of the world rests on the outcome.

 

Prompt: Cosmic

“That’s, like, totally cosmic, dude.”

“What?”

“So far out, man.”

“What are you talking about? You’re not making any sense.”

“Mellow out, take a chill pill.”

“Your honour, I don’t think this is appropriate.”

“You’re in my court, busted by the fuzz for possession. You dig?”

 

These are all I have so far. I’ve only been doing for around a week. It’s a fun way to stretch the mind and practice your writing, and who knows maybe an idea for your next novel may spring from one of these little snippets. Keep an eye out on my site as I will be posting more over the coming weeks.

Feel free to add your own stories in the comments to any of these prompts.