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Wood the Writer

Tag Archives: flash fiction

New Short Story – Alone in the Picture Gallery

22 Wednesday Feb 2017

Posted by Jessica Wood in art, culture, Short story, story, writing

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creative writing, flash fiction, lit, picture gallery, short story, writing, writing prompt

I have returned from the slumbering depths with a new short story! Ok, I’ve actually been super busy with work over the past month and have had a few sick days too, but I have scraped together enough time to post this new short story, which is actually closer to flash fiction.

This is another short that I’ve been re-working and sending off to several contests and anthologies without luck. I feel that I’ve done enough with it that I possibly could so I’ve decided to post it here for my blog visitors to enjoy.

I began this short with a prompt to write something inspired by a museum visit, so I wrote about a real experience I had back when I volunteered at a museum in the UK. The details are slightly different, but this basically did happen to me. Hope you enjoy:

This work is my possession and must not be repeated or re-printed anywhere else without my prior consent.

Alone in the Picture Gallery

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I always looked forward to rainy days. They were bad for most people but not for me. Fewer visitors to the museum made my work go much quicker and gave me some alone time with the artworks. The museum became my personal playground for a short while. I knew that it needed visitors and their precious donation money to stay open but I still much preferred peaceful days like that overcast Monday morning.

I had been checking the light levels of the paintings just as I did every day. There was nothing unusual about them on that day. The dull sky was good for the paintings so I was even happier.

The old man’s blaring voice came out of nowhere, startling me.

“What’s that you’re doing?” He said, appearing behind me suddenly like something out of a cartoon. I must have been so absorbed in my work that I hadn’t noticed him approach me.

“Light meter readings, sir.” I said, with my best ‘tourist smile’ on my face.

I was asked questions like these every day, even on a quiet Monday morning. It was all part of my job, but not one I particularly enjoyed. I’m much more comfortable taking care of paintings than I am talking to people. I rattled off my usual answer so that I could get back to my work.

“Long term exposure to direct sunlight damages the oil paintings, so I’m recording how much light-”

“Do you know how long I had to wait for the bus this morning?”

I was a little thrown back by his abrupt question. It was a little too much for my limited social skills.

“Uh…I don’t…I don’t know, sir.”

I thought that maybe he was making a complaint to me, being the only staff member in sight. But the museum didn’t even have a bus service, so what was he complaining about?

“Forty five minutes.” He said. “Forty five minutes standing in the rain! Can you believe it?”

“Yes, that is a long time to wait.” I mumbled awkwardly. Not knowing what else to say, I turned back to the painting. Socialising with customers wasn’t exactly my job, so I shouldn’t have to feel bad about it.

“There used to be one every half hour. Now they come every hour.” The old man continued.

“Oh…I see.” I said, hoping that writing on my clipboard would give him the message that I had a job to do.

“They’re all the same, aren’t they?” He said, following me as I walked to the next painting.

“I suppose so.” I said, not entirely sure who ‘they’ were.

“And the worst part is they see nothing wrong with it.”

I tried to shuffle to the left but he moved closer. His breath smelled like barley sweets. I was almost afraid that the stench would damage the paintings. I looked around the room, desperate to see a colleague I could rush to with an imaginary problem. But we were the only two people there.

“That’s our society for you, people becoming self-entitled. They want everything to be about them. I mean, we have two thousand television channels but are we any better off?”

By then I knew that I would be there for a while, trapped alone in the corner of the picture gallery by barley breath. I wanted to just say ‘Please excuse me, I need to get back to my work’ but my natural shyness wouldn’t let me. If I was bolder, I could have asked him why he waited for 45 minutes in the rain when he could’ve just stayed at home and come another day. But I didn’t.

My nodding had become rhythmic by that point. I discretely watched the door, hoping for a lost day tripper to wander in and ask me for help. But the whole museum seemed to have emptied of people. Nobody else would be silly enough to come out in this weather.

 

After fifteen minutes of his ranting, I was thinking of faking a horrible stomach condition just for an excuse to run from the room. I silently prayed for the radio on my belt to alert me of something urgent, but it stayed silent.

I cast a desperate glance at the long line of paintings I still had to check before noon. I thought that maybe I should just go and check them anyway, but I would feel rude, even in front of this miserable old fusspot. He’d just follow me around the entire museum until my shift was over anyway.

If I was more confident I would have screamed ‘Shut up! Shut up you stupid old windbag, no one cares about your stupid tiny problems except for you. Why else would you stand in the rain for forty five minutes and come to museums just to find someone to moan at?’ But I didn’t. I just stood there smiling and nodding, crying internally.

“…Sent the letter four weeks ago and they still haven’t done anything about it. You’d think they’d do more considering what they’re paid, don’t you agree?”

What? What had he been talking about? Was it the supermarket aisles being moved around or the neighbour’s dog barking at 3am? Whatever it was, I was sure it couldn’t be more annoying than cornering a random museum employee to use as a personal comments box. Isn’t this what the newspaper letters section was invented for?

“Oh yes, of course.” I said, smiling and nodding like a dashboard ornament, the only social rules I knew. I hadn’t been paying attention to what he’d been saying for a while now, but I hoped that was the right response. I’m sure he wouldn’t have noticed anyway. He just wanted someone to agree with his insane ramblings. Maybe if I wasn’t so annoyed, I would have actually felt sorry for him.

“It’s outrageous, isn’t it?” He said, chuckling to himself, inciting me to give an obviously fake laugh in response.

The strangest thing happened then. He turned around, still laughing to himself, and left the room. My forced smile finally drooped. The stench of his breath would haunt me for weeks. Worse than that, he had stolen fifteen minutes of my work time then wandered off as if it had been nothing.

He hadn’t even left a donation in the box.

 

Can you write a story in six words?

18 Monday May 2015

Posted by Jessica Wood in Editing, musings, proofreading, Short story, story, writing, writing advice

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creative writing, editing, flash fiction, micro fiction, micro fiction writing, novel writing, novelist, short story, six word story, writer's block, writers, writing, writing contest

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Last year I wrote this article about how writing flash fiction, that is stories of 1,000 words or less, can help make you a better novel writer. I got some great feedback about that post from people saying how useful it was. One of the examples I noted was Ernest Hemingway’s famous six word story which he supposedly wrote on a bet:

‘For Sale: Baby shoes. Never worn.’

That’s the one everyone quotes as it’s the original and probably the best, but there are many other great examples.

This year I decided to take my micro fiction writing a step further when I saw a six word short story competition and decided to enter. At first I didn’t know where to start so I tried a technique I use when I’m trying to come up with new ideas. I made a list of about a dozen six word stories then left it for a night. The next day I went back to look over the list and found which ones worked. I re-worked and tweaked those stories until I thought they were right.

Regrettably, I became distracted by something else and almost missed the closing date of the contest. I ended up entering my stories at the last minute without doing a final check through them. Unsurprisingly, I didn’t win the contest but it was still a wonderfully creative exercise. I think it would make a great warm up exercise for a Creative Writing class or a way to get out of writer’s block. You can practise your writing skills and challenge yourself creatively without having to spend ages writing out a short story.

As a novelist and a Tolkein enthusiast, I always use excessive waffle in my stories so I think there are certain professions that are much better at this exercise than I am. Advertising copywriters are essentially doing this to sell products. News headlines need to grab the reader instantly. When you think about it, there are examples all around us of people telling micro stories every day. Some of them reminisce with us more than full length novels do. How many famous advertising slogans have been stuck in your head since you were a child?

It may seem hard to sum up an entire event or emotion in a few words but we do it all the time in our everyday speech. When we swear, we are basically venting all of our feelings and frustrations in a single word. We use the simplest words to express our deepest emotions, ‘Thank you’ or ‘I love you’.

As you can see, six word stories can teach us a lot about the usage and beauty of our language. I’m still learning how to write them myself so I’m not going to go into how it’s done just yet, but I do recommend you give it a go. It’s hard to get right but if you do, you’ll find how to write a great story with the bare minimum of waffle, which will help you with your long form writing. Maybe try writing a six word story every day or when you’re trying to get over a writing slump. You might even get good enough to enter or even win a contest.

Have you ever tried writing a six word story? Do you have any advice for how to write one? Leave a comment and tell me.

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