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Microfiction: Snow and Sadness

Short stories require big effort...

140-Character Story: It Bites

So difficult. So painful. The snow, the wind, and the cold all bite. But not as bad as those wolves. Run faster and leave the others behind.

Wolf and Snow

280-Character Story: See Them Again

In the normal course of events, I would've been delighted to see my mother. Always loving and caring. I really miss her. And here she is in front of me. A happy reunion waiting to happen. But it can't happen. She's been gone too long. She's not real. So why can I feel her hug me?

Author's Note:

I swear I'm not a sad or gloomy person. That last story may have been a little on the depressing or hopeful side depending on how you look at it. Don't worry, my mother is alive and well and will probably stay that way for a long time. But I do know the feeling of wanting to see a loved one again. Hug them one last time. Even if it might be a dream...

The first story was really a fun one to write. I wanted to make both of these stories the EXACT character count, which definitely took some playing around with the wording. When I think of really short stories, I often think of ones that end, more or less, on a cliffhanger. I started out knowing that I wanted the end to be about running and I built it from there. The idea for the snow and cold came from the coming forecast for this week (as of the time I'm writing this, snow is predicted in a couple of days) and the idea for wolves evolved out of the snow.

I hope you enjoyed! And please feel free to comment with criticisms or suggestions below!

Photo Credits:
Wolf and Snow

Comments

  1. Hey Rhys,

    I especially love short stories like this that are open-ended and ambiguous. I think that it was cool that you were able to make these while meeting the exact character count, as I'm sure that made them much harder to make despite how short they are. Even though both stories had a sad and gloomy tone, they were a lot of fun to read!

    I wasn't really sure from your author's note, but I wanted to ask, were these stories connected in some way? After reading the first story, I immediately thought the second story may have been the delirious imaginings of someone slowly dying from hypothermia (as morbid as that may sound), because I thought it was following the same themes of snow and the cold. I'm not entirely sure if that was the intention or not, but it was a fun possible connection to make as the reader.

    Great job on these stories, I really had a good time reading them!

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  2. Hey Rhys! The short stories were awesome! To be honest the second story had me questioning if I should email you to make sure everything was okay! But after reading the notes Im glad to hear everything is okay! I love that short stories like that can leave the reader to use their imagination! Its really cool that the numbers are exact too! Good job!

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  3. Hi Rhys!

    I love reading microfictions so I always look for them when I do my blog commenting. I liked that you thought of your own topics instead of creating a microfiction from a story from class. I think this is a little more challenging as you have to think of a story yourself first and then try to write a microfiction. Your second story really touched me as I lost my grandpa about two years ago. I felt that story deep in my bones and I actually got a hopeful, loving sense from it. Great job!

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