03 Wednesday Jan 2024
Posted in Flash Fiction, Speculative Fiction
For this week, the prompt for #FairyTaleFlash is “otherworldly land or portal/doorway.”
Ever since I was born, there has been a door in my basement. A black door covered in runes I cannot read. As there’s no door on the other side of the wall, logically this door must instead open to other worlds. I haven’t had the courage to open it yet, but hopefully I will eventually.
#FairyTaleFlash
12 Tuesday Dec 2023
Posted in Flash Fiction, Speculative Fiction
For this week, the prompt for #FairyTaleFlash is “stories that feature St. Nicholas, elves, or Krampus.” Well, as a long-term fantasy fan, I’m intrigued by how much more nebulous the term “elf” is in folklore than it is in, say, Lord of the Rings. For example, the first recorded references to “dark elves” and “black elves,” was in Snorri Sturluson’s medieval Icelandic text The Prose Edda, in which Snorri seems to be equating such beings with dwarves. This would make sense if you use “elf” in the more general sense to mean “fairy”; dwarves are subterranean fairies who like darkness. An interesting thing about that is that it could mean that Santa’s industrious workshop elves may actually be dwarves. Which inspired from me this very short piece of flash fiction:
My parents were shocked when I started working in Santa Claus’ shop. My family’s been blacksmiths since the moment we were changed from maggots to dwarves, and they couldn’t see a dwarf in any other life. But I like fresh air — claustrophobia is crummy for a dwarf.
#FairyTaleFlash
06 Wednesday Dec 2023
Posted in Flash Fiction, Speculative Fiction
Over the last couple of years, I’ve gotten heavily involved in the community of mythology, folklore, and literature hashtags on Twitter and other social media, such as #MythologyMonday, #FairyTaleTuesday, #WyrdWednesday, #FolkloreThursday, etc. Every week, each one posts a new theme, such as “ocean” for one #MythologyMonday week, and then “fruit” the next week, and they repost any posts that people make that are about elements of mythology, folklore, etc. that are related to the theme and use the hashtag. So, for example, on the Monday that #MythologyMonday posts about “ocean,” the site would then repost any myths people referenced about the ocean, fish, etc. The most unusual hashtag is #FairyTaleFlash, a companion to #FairyTaleTuesday. While every Tuesday, #FairyTaleTuesday reposts any fairy tale or fantasy factoids about its current theme, #FairyTaleFlash will instead repost any fantasy flash fiction (fiction small enough to fit on a single tweet) that follows the same theme.
Back in 2022, I created a few of my own flash fiction for #FairyTaleFlash.
Theme: Fables with morals
Every day a sparrow sat chirping on a man’s balcony. Eventually it annoyed the man enough that he drove her away. Once no bird was claiming the balcony, a huge goose moved in. His honking was far more annoying than the chirping, and he far harder to drive away than the sparrow was.
#FairyTaleFlash
(the moral of this story, by the way, is “if you try to get rid of your problems without thinking carefully about it, often they will get replaced by something worse.”)
Theme: Stories from an animal’s point of view
Every bear clan tells tales of human-shifters. Each day I dream of being able to put on human form and walk among them in their strange metal forests. Of accessing strange human powers such as opposable thumbs and ability to read. Imagine what that would be like.
#FairyTaleFlash
Theme: Unusual romances
“Didn’t I tell you I could arrange a feast grand enough for all our wedding guests?” the raven groom said.
“I should never have doubted you.” The raven bride gazed at the bloody battlefield. “How romantic! Everything’s perfect.”
The flock of ravens descended on the broken corpses.
#FairyTaleFlash
It’s a fun challenge, creating a story within a couple of days that’s only a few sentences long. Hopefully I’ll be able to get back into the right frame of mind to start doing #FairyTaleFlash stories again.