Dave Owens - Micro Writing Part 4

The End of July, 2019

For today’s dose of Dave’s Wisdom concerning Micro Fiction, read an excerpt from a piece I wrote, a piece of horror, and see what magic Dave works with it.

• Don't want to scare anyone off, but be warned. General torture ahead.

Original Hook - (185 words)She woke to pain. She felt beaten and broken from top to bottom. Her toes had throbbed all night in those sky-blue Christian Louboutin candidate pumps she had worn, so she wasn’t sure if that particular suffering was new or not. She ached inside as well. Her dress! Her gasp changed to a grimace as a sharp pain lanced through her side. She had never broken a rib, but she had suffered through many Sundays of watching football with her fiancé and remembered the agony he reminisced about after every injury on the screen. She was pretty sure it was the same. She cracked open an eye, crusted with blood. The other eye wouldn’t open at all. An aroma of metal, sweat, and drying blood drowned out her Chanel No. 5. Her mouth felt sticky and dry. Her tongue worked around clumps of some viscous substance and several new gaps in her once perfect smile. She sobbed then. From the pain and the silly little thought of the years she had worn braces and headgear to get her teeth all neat in a row. Ruined.





Concise Hook – notice the story does not change. (70 words)

She awoke to awful pain. From head to toe, every inch of her body suffered from the torture she endured at the hands of her captor. She managed to force one blood crusted eye open, while her tongue searched her mouth, but her tongue found only stumps where once her beautiful teeth glistened in smile. She sobbed from the memory of the years she wore braces to create that smile.

Note: In the revision I omitted the part about the husband. More info about her captor might show a greater sense of the situation. In a longer story, the husband section might bring a greater mood to the story, but for flash fiction stick to the essentials. The writer may find many ways to revise the story, and the hook. One perfect way does not exist.

You can read the entire original short piece here.

For the student: Please read the entire original story and see what you can do to produce a more concise story.

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Tune in tomorrow for our last day of Dave's takeover. Don't forget, he is asking for submissions of micro work you have done. Send it in to him! 

email: editor (AT) netsite21 (DOT) com
Facebook: Writer1947

Monsters Read & Reviewed and Inuit Cartography

22FEB18

Tea & Tales with Mabry

One of my short stories was reviewed! Over on Youtube, there is this wonderful person, A.L. Mabry. She has a show over there called Tea & Tales with Mabry.

The link to her episode with my story is here: 
Tea & Tales with Mabry reviews Monsters by Frank Montellano

Although she wasn't a huge fan of the story, I really appreciated her taking to the time to review my story. It was very odd experience, having someone read my story aloud. I didn't listen to the whole rendition, which led to an interesting conversation with my wife. I wasn't really interested in hearing my story read aloud and wondered if I was an odd duck or if she thought that was typical of authors. Her thoughts were that it should be a milestone moment, sort of a "Hey, look it's something I made!" and another author also had the same opinion. So, maybe I am an odd duck. 

It does remind me of a trip I made to Vroman's bookstore in California to see Neil Gaiman read a section from his book Stardust. I was enraptured, loving to hear the words read by the author himself. I drew a picture of him, and he signed it afterward, so that was pretty cool. Makes me think maybe one day I will read aloud one of my stories. Anyways, while I am not interested in hearing my story read, you can click on the link and hear the whole story. It's sort of a horror piece, sort of a fantasy piece, and sort of military story. It will be one of the thirteen or so short stories to make it into my short story collection scheduled to print within the next two years. 

Hope you enjoy it!

In other author news, I worked on editing one of my first stories I wrote, about a family of Travelers (otherwise known as Gypsies, though they consider that term derogatory). I am lengthening and improving the story for inclusion in my short story collection. Taking some of Mabry's comments about my other story to heart, I added in some sensory details as well. 


Picture for today: Inuit Cartography. They used carved bits of wood shaped like coastlines to find their way from place to place. A different way to make maps. Hm, now that I think about it I hope I haven't done this one before! 

Small piece of Horror

13 JUN 17
I wrote the following piece in response to a prompt. Not sure if it is the beginning, middle or end of a future story. Has the feel of somewhere in the middle, though I can't imagine the heroine later in the story yet!
EDIT: I was asked to put a warning beforehand, for the younger audience members out there.



TRIGGER WARNING: Horror




UNTITLED
She woke and the first feeling was pain. She felt beaten and broken from top to bottom. Her toes had throbbed all night in those sky-blue Christian Louboutin candidate pumps she had worn, so she wasn’t sure if that particular suffering was new or not. She hurt inside as well. Her dress! Her gasp changed to a grimace as a sharp pain lanced through her side. She had never had a broken rib, but she had watched a lot of football with her fiancé and remembered what pain he had complained about. She was pretty sure it was the same. She cracked open an eye, crusted with blood. The other eye wouldn’t open at all, it felt swollen shut. An aroma of metal, sweat, and drying blood drowned out her Chanel No. 5. Her tongue tasted blood and several new gaps in her once beautiful smile. She cried then. From the pain and the silly little thought of all the time she had worn braces and headgear to get that smile just right.

She tried to move, but found she was tied to a chair. Her elbows and hands were lashed to the armrests, her knees and legs bound by ropes as well. It was almost a relief. If she wasn’t bound to the chair surely she would have fallen out of it onto the floor by now. She couldn’t kick if she wanted to. Her head rolled weakly to the side and with her one good eye she noticed her left pinky finger was bent out at a wide angle. The deep blue nail polish on her pinky looked oddly out of place, away from the others. That’s not good, she thought. Luckily she couldn’t feel that particular pain at the moment, though the absence worried her in a different way.

More agonies were checking in from all over her body as she found enough energy from somewhere to look around. She was in a grey concrete room, maybe a basement. There was a sputtering vent fan high in a corner, maybe blowing air in or out, she could not tell. A metal table against a far wall drifted in and out of focus as her mind continued its slow climb to full consciousness. A quick scan of the table’s surface showed her some of the instruments of her torture. Pliers, a blowtorch, a hammer, hand saw, car battery, and her left shoe, strikingly colorful amidst all the other plain, industrial gear. With her foot and ankle still in it. The expensive sole was still red, the blue sides were now red as well.

That was what finally made her scream.

A door opened somewhere behind her. She tried to swivel her head, to seek with her one open eye, but her neck pained her. A man she didn’t recognize soon stumbled into view. Short, hard to tell since she was sitting down, but not even five foot tall she thought. Sharply dressed, his faced hinted at dark thoughts no manner of good clothing could hide for long.

He came closer, invading her personal space. He reached out and ran a finger along her cheek, tracing a ragged tear and making her wince anew at the feeling. “I like damaged goods.” He looked her straight in the eye. “I’m going to love you!”

She suddenly recognized him. Memories of her torture flooded through her and washed away her sanity. Her mind tumbled back into the sweet embrace of oblivion, her last thought was of her ending.

The sudden crack of gunfire shocked her awake. The smell of gunpowder overwhelmed the other acrid odors of the deathly room. Her eyes wouldn’t open. Over the ringing in her ears, she heard several male voices. The one nearest her said, “She’s still breathing. Looks like we got here just in time Cap’n.”

Picture for today is something horror-ish, to go along with the piece.