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Originally posted by The Sage

You know, in an odd sort of why, I can see the setting in "Ravens" potentially becoming a new Gatetown on the Outlands in my PLANESCAPE campaigns.

Nonetheless, I'm enjoying all this free-fiction Elaine. It enlightens my Fridays. Woot!

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Originally posted by Erik Scott de Bie

Thanks Elaine! This is awesome!

And not to intrude on Elaine's scroll, but Free Fiction Friday is such a great concept that I'm jumping on the bandwagon. And so as not to take up space in the thread, here's a link.

Cheers

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Originally posted by ElaineCunningham

A little Arthurian fiction today on www.elainecunningham.com. In "Knight of the Lake," a very young Lancelot learns the importance of music and magic.

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Originally posted by Therise

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Originally posted by ElaineCunningham

A little Arthurian fiction today on www.elainecunningham.com. In "Knight of the Lake," a very young Lancelot learns the importance of music and magic.

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Just read it... absolutely wonderful!

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Originally posted by ElaineCunningham

A little Arthurian fiction today on www.elainecunningham.com. In "Knight of the Lake," a very young Lancelot learns the importance of music and magic.

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Originally posted by Seabus Mythforger

Absolutely fantastic Elaine! While I'm not the biggest Lancelot fan (Gawain was always my favorite), I am one of the biggest fans of Arthurian legend and especially since the BBC series Merlin came out I've been even more fascinated by the younger imaginings of the famous Knights of the Round Table. All I can really say is that if you see fit...keep 'em coming. I can read Arthurian tales all day long!

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Originally posted by ElaineCunningham

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Originally posted by Seabus Mythforger

Absolutely fantastic Elaine! While I'm not the biggest Lancelot fan (Gawain was always my favorite), I am one of the biggest fans of Arthurian legend and especially since the BBC series Merlin came out I've been even more fascinated by the younger imaginings of the famous Knights of the Round Table. All I can really say is that if you see fit...keep 'em coming. I can read Arthurian tales all day long!

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Thanks, Seabus! There's another Arthurian tale on my website: "Hidden Blades," a tale told from Guinevere's point of view. This is not a sweet, perfect, Mary Sue version of Guinevere. She's very human, more than a little manipulative, and willing to use her legendary beauty as a tool and a weapon.

Anyway. It's easy to find. Click on Catagories, choose Free Fiction from the drop-down menu, and scroll down to "Hidden Blades."

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Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

An interesting tale. One of those that makes me want to know more about the background.

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Originally posted by Kentinal

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Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

An interesting tale. One of those that makes me want to know more about the background.

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Well at best I get the sense of a long liver (elf?) that is dearly in love with an aging human. While is first time I heard about a flash story, 750 words does not allow much for background info.

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Originally posted by Farrel

I thought it was a beautiful read, thanks for sharing it with us all.

It brought to mind something that i'd been playing around with in my head regarding my current campaign. The player, a human mage, has recently fallen in love with a Silver Dragon but has kept his feelings to himself, I think he's wrestling with the fact that not only are they not the same species, but because her race is so very long-lived.

Great read Elaine, your writing always makes me think about stuff!

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Originally posted by ElaineCunningham

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Originally posted by Kentinal

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Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

An interesting tale. One of those that makes me want to know more about the background.

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Well at best I get the sense of a long liver (elf?) that is dearly in love with an aging human. While is first time I heard about a flash story, 750 words does not allow much for background info.

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::nods:: That's true.

Short fiction has difference goals than epic fantasy. Background information and world-building is not the primary concern, but there's actually quite a lot of it here, tucked into the corners of the tale. Eva and Brian were married for over 40 years. He was a strong, intelligent man, but now he's feeling the effects of age and Alzheimer's Disease. Eva is an elf or fairy ("talltale pointed ears") who has lived in times when priests and peasants would fear her kind. We even learns a few things about her kind: They absorb energy from the rain. They aren't fond of modern technology. They move around every few years to avoid detection, but they've developed skills (such as plastic surgery) that will allow them to stay in one place for a few decades.

Telling a detailed life story is not the point of most short fiction. Short stories usually focus on an event, an insight, or a decision. The decision reveals something important about the central character and often puts them on a new path.

The decision characters make often say something about their values and their culture. Kij Johnson recently wrote a brilliant, brutal tale about the cruelty of little girls, and how far people are willing to go--and how much of themselves they're willing to give up--to fit into a peer group. "Ponies" is available online at Tor.com. Here's a link: http://www.tor.com/stories/2010/11/ponies. I recommend it highly. Kij is an excellent writer and her short fiction has won several awards. If you're interested in exploring short fiction and want to see it done very, very well, it's hard to go wrong with a Kij Johnson story. Anyone who was a little girl, or has had anything to do with them, is likely to nod in recognition as they read this story.

There are many types of short fiction. Often the ending incorporates a twist of some sort, a reversal, or a subversion of expectation. A classic example is the O.Henry story "The Gift of the Magi," which employs both a twist and a bit of fond irony with the title. In "Maintenance" there's a reversal of expectations. Women tend to spend a lot of time and money trying to hold onto youth. Eva does the reverse. The title also implies her central dilemna: She is compelled to maintain her immortal status, but that instinct is at war with her desire to stay with the aging man she loves.

Sometimes the goal of short fiction to to evoke an emotion. The power is in the impact rather than the detail. Consider Hemmingway's famous 6-word story: "For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn." That has the emotional equivalent of a right hook to the solar plexis. In the terse, bleak prose you feel the impact of an infant's death. You don't need to know whose child died, or where, or why to have a deep and immediate response.

A while back, Paul Kemp posted a very short story entitled "The Sixth Floor" on his blog or website. In it, a guy woke up in a morgue. In the street below, he saw a zombie apocolype in progress. His first reaction was relief that he was above the carnage, but he swiftly realized, "Hello? MORGUE?" The story ends when the other forms beneath the sheets begin to stir. There's no need to hang around for the details. The story ends with a chilling realization that, "oh (expletive deleted)... I'm (another expletive deleted.)" You really don't need to know who this guy is, how he ended up in the morgue, what city he's in, how the zombie apocolypse started. If the writer does his job right, you'll probably wonder about all these things. But they're not necessary to the tale. A short story captures a powerful, self-contained episode in what feels like a real person's life. Paul nails that goal in this tale, which is in his ebook collection EPHEMERA.

You know, I really should teach a class or somethig and work off pedantic impulses in an appropriate venue, rather than imposing "A Short Introduction to the Short Story Form" posts on unsuspecting Candlekeep scribes.

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Originally posted by entreri3478

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Originally posted by Farrel

I thought it was a beautiful read, thanks for sharing it with us all.

It brought to mind something that i'd been playing around with in my head regarding my current campaign. The player, a human mage, has recently fallen in love with a Silver Dragon but has kept his feelings to himself, I think he's wrestling with the fact that not only are they not the same species, but because her race is so very long-lived.

Great read Elaine, your writing always makes me think about stuff!

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Dracophilia?

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Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

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Originally posted by ElaineCunningham

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Originally posted by Kentinal

quote:

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Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

An interesting tale. One of those that makes me want to know more about the background.

---

Well at best I get the sense of a long liver (elf?) that is dearly in love with an aging human. While is first time I heard about a flash story, 750 words does not allow much for background info.

---

::nods:: That's true.

Short fiction has difference goals than epic fantasy. Background information and world-building is not the primary concern, but there's actually quite a lot of it here, tucked into the corners of the tale. Eva and Brian were married for over 40 years. He was a strong, intelligent man, but now he's feeling the effects of age and Alzheimer's Disease. Eva is an elf or fairy ("talltale pointed ears") who has lived in times when priests and peasants would fear her kind. We even learns a few things about her kind: They absorb energy from the rain. They aren't fond of modern technology. They move around every few years to avoid detection, but they've developed skills (such as plastic surgery) that will allow them to stay in one place for a few decades.

Telling a detailed life story is not the point of most short fiction. Short stories usually focus on an event, an insight, or a decision. The decision reveals something important about the central character and often puts them on a new path.

The decision characters make often say something about their values and their culture. Kij Johnson recently wrote a brilliant, brutal tale about the cruelty of little girls, and how far people are willing to go--and how much of themselves they're willing to give up--to fit into a peer group. "Ponies" is available online at Tor.com. Here's a link: http://www.tor.com/stories/2010/11/ponies. I recommend it highly. Kij is an excellent writer and her short fiction has won several awards. If you're interested in exploring short fiction and want to see it done very, very well, it's hard to go wrong with a Kij Johnson story. Anyone who was a little girl, or has had anything to do with them, is likely to nod in recognition as they read this story.

There are many types of short fiction. Often the ending incorporates a twist of some sort, a reversal, or a subversion of expectation. A classic example is the O.Henry story "The Gift of the Magi," which employs both a twist and a bit of fond irony with the title. In "Maintenance" there's a reversal of expectations. Women tend to spend a lot of time and money trying to hold onto youth. Eva does the reverse. The title also implies her central dilemna: She is compelled to maintain her immortal status, but that instinct is at war with her desire to stay with the aging man she loves.

Sometimes the goal of short fiction to to evoke an emotion. The power is in the impact rather than the detail. Consider Hemmingway's famous 6-word story: "For sale. Baby shoes. Never worn." That has the emotional equivalent of a right hook to the solar plexis. In the terse, bleak prose you feel the impact of an infant's death. You don't need to know whose child died, or where, or why to have a deep and immediate response.

A while back, Paul Kemp posted a very short story entitled "The Sixth Floor" on his blog or website. In it, a guy woke up in a morgue. In the street below, he saw a zombie apocolype in progress. His first reaction was relief that he was above the carnage, but he swiftly realized, "Hello? MORGUE?" The story ends when the other forms beneath the sheets begin to stir. There's no need to hang around for the details. The story ends with a chilling realization that, "oh (expletive deleted)... I'm (another expletive deleted.)" You really don't need to know who this guy is, how he ended up in the morgue, what city he's in, how the zombie apocolypse started. If the writer does his job right, you'll probably wonder about all these things. But they're not necessary to the tale. A short story captures a powerful, self-contained episode in what feels like a real person's life. Paul nails that goal in this tale, which is in his ebook collection EPHEMERA.

You know, I really should teach a class or somethig and work off pedantic impulses in an appropriate venue, rather than imposing "A Short Introduction to the Short Story Form" posts on unsuspecting Candlekeep scribes.

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Oh, I get all that. This story does have all the information needed to appreciate and understand the tale -- I'm just saying that after reading it, I'd like to read more about this world of elves struggling to stay hidden in the modern world. There are other stories to be told in this world, I think, and I'd like to read them.

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Originally posted by Wooly Rupert

Oh, I get all that. This story does have all the information needed to appreciate and understand the tale -- I'm just saying that after reading it, I'd like to read more about this world of elves struggling to stay hidden in the modern world. There are other stories to be told in this world, I think, and I'd like to read them.

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