This post discusses my story Tasty Tiny Magic
No Spoilers
Don’t get me wrong: there is nothing quite so satisfying as getting lost in hundreds of thousands of words in an epic novel. That being said, over the last few years, I’ve really fallen in love with microfiction as well. Not just short stories or flash fiction: I’m talking about the stories that are a couple hundred words at the most.
I try wielding my pen against the challenge of microfiction from time to time, and occasionally I’m happy with the results. It’s hard! Honestly. It’s a rough assignment, and making a periodic attempt at the craft just makes me enjoy pieces I read so much more.
To date, the shortest piece I’ve published has been Tasty Tiny Magic, at 243 words. Originally, I thought this piece would be much longer, but sometimes that’s just not a decision the author gets to make. Of course I tried to bulk it up and make it sit in a much larger space than it needed, but within that space the very small story looked out at me and said “When you’re done being silly, please trim me down again.”
Microfiction is getting easier to find, and this development in the publishing world makes me do a little happy dance. (Go ahead an imagine my happy dance. Then take whatever you’re imagining my dance skills to be and decrease them by half. And then by half again. And probably a third time.)
But while my dancing ability is lacking, my emotions are genuine. I love very short fiction. Some of them are so unbearably clever. Like this one for example: Splat by Richard J Dowling. Just Brilliant! It took sixty seconds to read, and gave me smiles for months.
If anyone has any microfiction out there (either your own, or others’) feel free to promote it below! I’m feeling rather flighty at the moment, so I’m particularly in the mood to read more nibble-sized stories.