Well I looked back at my written successes in this, my first year of writing for the eyes of judges and (more importantly) anyone else who fancies a short story from my brain.
Truth is, although I’m so proud to have had several successes, most of them have been pretty sad and sombre stories. Often they are adapted versions of personal situations me and my family have found ourselves in. As a result, I’ve realised that sometimes you need a break from the grey. A break from the sadness. A break from the foggy filter that makes time drag, tears fall and sad faces.
Once again, I entered the monthly Flash Fiction 101 competition on the Tortive Theatre website. For October the prompt we had to follow was “When I snap my fingers you’ll…” and I quickly created a few ideas to work with.
I can’t stress enough how difficult it is to make a WHOLE story fit in to so few words. I’ve been learning recently that sometimes, especially in creativity, less is more. Leaving the reader with questions or to invent their own imaginary ending is actually a good thing.
However, regardless of how true that is, in practice it doesn’t always work. This story is no exception.
Luckily for me, the judges at Tortive Theatre once again deemed one of my stories worthy of a short listing. The piece is exactly 101 words and it’s titled ‘The Power of a Personal Assistant’. It’s a bit of a laugh about a woman with an office-based dilemma, and her best friend/colleague who helps her out. It’s so short that if I say any more here I’ll give the game away.
Proof of my entry and shortlisting can be seen here. The finished piece is below for you to take a read. I hope you enjoy this one and maybe it’ll make you smile or even laugh! 🤣
Have a great day and don’t judge your beauty on the algorithms within an app that claims to ‘tune’ your face.
You don’t need that shit.
You’re already beautiful.
**********
The Power of a Personal Assistant
They sat in the café, surrounded by smells of cinnamon and brownies.
“How can I trust again?”
“Look, I want to say “when I snap my fingers you’ll forget” but that doesn’t happen.”
“We share an office. Watching them both ‘happily ever after’. I’m sick of it.”
She ate some cake.
“It’s been months Kate. He’s left, you’ve deleted him. Move on”
“It’s her. She caused this pain!”
“Don’t worry about that”
“What?”
“I add laxatives to her coffee randomly. She always leaves early. You need a break”
“You poison her? You’re sick!”
“Well, now she is too. Every other Wednesday.”
Creative Steph 