#short stories

[shorteststory]

POWERBOMB

#short fiction #short stories #microfiction #flash fiction #very short stories #vss #photography #art #fiction

[ahordeofwasps]

My latest scifi short story "Please Contact Your Administrator" is available to read! It has:

Software updates gone wrong,

Not so stealthy robots making sneaky deliveries,

Lotion that is bad for your bones,

And more!

You can read it here!

#writing #science fiction #scifi #short stories #robots #writeblr #Please Contact Your Administrator

[authoradampowell]

The sky has split open and millions of winged creatures have poured down all over the globe. Some look like animals but some look more humanoid though not quite. There’s an uncanny valley response to seeing them. You stare at one that resembles a dog from out your window. There’s something off about it, it is like looking at a dream version of a dog.

At first they all have various demands, but one demand stands out in particular. A tall, lanky humanoid flashes a picture of you all over the world’s social media and news. This turns out to be the winged creatures’ one official and true demand. You have to come back with the creatures to marry their 8000 year old queen. Otherwise they’ll stay here and take over the world.

#writing #indie writer #indie author #books #indie books #book #writers on tumblr #writeblr #writers #writing prompts #writing prompt #short story #short stories #mythological creature

[rkmoon]

Okay boys, girls and nonbinary hoes, I'm doin it Im gonna plan for my first ever original short story wish me luck

#writeblr #writing #writers on tumblr #writerscommunity #writblr #writers #short stories

[flowerytale]

Anaïs Nin, from the short story “Elena”, Delta of Venus (published posthumously in 1977)

#anaïs nin #delta of venus #short stories #lit #literature #poetry #love #fragments #typo #*

[metamorphesque]

"Good morning, Jack. How was your night?", Vardges Petrosyan (translated by metamorphesque)

#quotes #literature #translated literature #vardges petrosyan #short stories #armenian literature #my translations #musings on stars #classic literature #romantic academia #light academia

[teslacoils-and-hubris]

We need to be more focused on fucked up short stories as a society. We've all read the yellow wallpaper, the lottery, lamb to the slaughter in middle school but then we never talk about fucked up short stories outside of "haha remember when Ms Johnson made us read that story about the lady killing her husband with a leg of lamb then feeding the murder weapon to the police?"

That ends today!! Appreciation for fucked up short stories time!! Comment your favourite weird story your English teacher made you read that still sticks with you to this day PLEASE I need to read more fucked up short stories

I'll start- the veldt by ray Bradbury, rappachini's garden by nathaniel hawthorne, and this one is a little bit of a cheat because it's a graphic novel but The Nesting Place by Emily Carroll still haunts me (every story in her through the woods collection really, but nesting place especially)

#doc rambles #short stories

[nkjemisin]

Well, it's official, and now I can talk about OUT THERE SCREAMING, a new anthology of Black horror that's edited by Jordan Peele. I have a brand-new short story out in this, and I'll be sharing a Table of Contents with Dr. Chesya Burke, Nnedi Okorafor, Cadwell Turnbull, Tananarive Due, P. Djeli Clark, and more!

#out there screaming #jordan peele #horror #black horror #anthology #short stories

[redglassbird]

I will NEVER get over the fact that I can write stories. Like I can weave threads of whimsy in a whole new world and make people feel things if I weave them well enough???? Stories are worth so much!!! Lines of poetry are literally currency to me like I get to write little lines and then writing little lines helps me notice things when I read other peoples' lines????? Magic! Whimsy! Characters! Words! Words! Words!

#idk if any of this made sense #writing #writblr #writers of tumblr #poems #stories #fiction #short stories #creativity #hobby #vibes #dark academia #light academia #cottagecore #cozy #text post #words #pretty #fantasy #high fantasy

[shorteststory]

PLAYING WITH DEATH

PS: My new line of D&D enamel pins is now live on BackerKit!

#short fiction #short stories #microfiction #flash fiction #very short stories #vss #photography #art #fiction

[marlynnofmany]

It’s back!

If you missed it the first time around, the “human are weird” anthology is back for a second printing. (There’s even a new story included: “Black Box” by Dara Brophy.)

Here’s the blurb:

In science fiction, humans are usually boring compared to other races: small, weak, with no claws or tentacles, and no special abilities to speak of. But what if we were the impressive ones, the unsettling ones, the ones talked about by all the other aliens? What if we're weird?

If you’d like a collection of excellent stories about humans inspiring awe, fear, and utter confusion, it’s available everywhere books are sold!

#humans are weird #humans are space orcs #haso #hfy #eiad #science fiction #short stories #my writing #other people's writing #Did you know? The story I contributed is in the Token Human timeline #though it takes place after the short stories I've been writing lately #and shortly before the novel A Swift Kick to the Thorax #I hadn't even thought up the current series of stories when I wrote this one #so Robin is working on a different ship #shortly before she gets a job on an alien planet #though she doesn't know that yet #anyways it's fun #and so are all the other stories in here #there are some GREAT ideas #I recommend #The Token Human #and more

[the-modern-typewriter]

Some of you asked (in response to this post) what were my favourite stories I'd posted on tumblr were. In no particular order, here are the top 5:

The Blue Key (I think it's the best standalone story I've written, except maybe this Medusa one that I haven't posted anywhere yet. It's pure me and my obsessions on the theme and I'm really proud of the writing itself. I genuinely think it's good. As writers we spend enough time doubting ourselves, so it's really nice to look at something you have done and be like 'huh, yeah, actually!!')

Villain locked up + treated badly (I really like the actual writing craft/descriptions in this one. Again, I think I did a genuinely good job. It makes me feel excited about my writing.)

Super beautiful villain (I can remember my thought process during writing this very clearly. E.g > I'm too ace for love at first sight based on purely physical attraction > so what's going on here? > ooh, ugly/beautiful themes and our stance on morality, plus foil characters, this is tapping into one of the things that fascinate me! I remember someone pointing out 'well, this character could just be ace and kill the villain' and me internally being like 'but I AM ace, do you think that makes you immune to wanting?' Anyway. If I was ever going to pick up a story to expand fully in my own time, it would probably be this one. It just brims with potential to me. Or the ace and the incubi one for a lighter version.)

Tired hero/Villain in cathedral (I often under-utilise setting in my tumblr posts, because they're just not to focus, but I really like how I quietly used the setting in this one. I just love cathedrals)

Princess/Demon Prince or Reincarnated wife of the monster king (oldies, but goldies. If I was ever going to write a me version of a more typical dark romance novel, I reckon it would stem from one of these. I don't know. There's something in the dynamic that I find interesting and dare-I-say mildly original. Worthy of sinking my teeth into.)

#writing #my stories #writeblr #fantasy #hero x villain #short stories #writing snippets #story snippets #idk

[flowerytale]

Leonora Carrington, from ‘The Sisters’, The Complete Stories

#leonora carrington #short stories #typo #typography #words #fragments #lit #literature #emotions #*

[sophia-sol]

Every year at about this time (...very approximately) I post a reclist of 10 short stories I particularly enjoyed reading in the last year, all of which can be read online for free. Here's the latest list, and I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!

1. Sestu Hunts the Last Deer in Heaven - MH Cheung Beautiful and odd. A story of what happens after you've killed the gods, the unexpected realities and the things you have to live with. I love stories about after the climactic things traditional fantasy narratives are about, and this one excels!

2. If You Find Yourself Speaking to God, Address God with the Informal You - John Chu Two butch Asian weightlifter dudes bonding with each other and then dating, and one of them happens to have superpowers, but the superpowers aren't the focus. This is SO charming!!

3. Two Hands, Wrapped in Gold - SB Divya This is a really cool retelling of the classic fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin from the Rumpelstiltskin character's pov, building out the world and his background and making him a sympathetic character with a specific history. Haven't seen a fairy tale retelling quite like this before and it's great! And I say that as a connoisseur of fairy tale retellings.

4. A Farce to Suit the New Girl - Rebecca Fraimow A troupe of Jewish actors in Russia, in a time of political upheaval. This story has such a good and powerful feeling of activity and forward momentum, and of the way a community supports people even if things are weird or complicated! I love every single character and how firmly they are themselves.

5. Sheri, At This Very Moment - Bianca Sayan The sacrifices you make to spend time with the ones you love - a snapshot of one brief visit together, out of two lives that only rarely get to align. Made me teary the first time I read it!

6. Spirochete - Anneke Schwob An engaging second-person pov story about possession and identity. It has such a great sense of timing! And the last line GOT me even on second read when I hypothetically knew what was coming!

7. To Embody a Wildfire Starting - Iona Datt Sharma Ahhhhhh this story is so good at embodying the horrible complexities of the choices people make in the worst of situations, that good and bad and divine and evil and just plain personness can all reside in one being. Also it's about a dragon society and the revolutionary humans who tried to make everyone into dragons, and also about parent-child relationships, and also about a bunch of other things. God it's good.

8. Obsolesce - Nadine Aurora Tabing Is it really me if I don't have at least ONE story about robots in my rec lists? (actually I just went back and checked and in multiple previous years I inexplicably didn't, maybe it wasn't me writing the reclist in those years lol) ANYWAY who wants to have sad feelings about robots again! I know I always do! In a world where anyone who has a physical body instead of having their consciousness transferred is more and more obsolete, no matter if your body is human or robot, what do you hold onto? This one has a real good melancholy tone.

9. Letters from a Travelling Man - WJ Tattersdill ....does what it says on the tin. Letters to a dear friend, from a man travelling for the first time to the unfamiliar part of the world that friend comes from. I love the sense of place you get from the letters, as well as the deep and abiding importance of this friendship in both their lives. Another one I cried over!

10. Texts from the Ghost War - Alex Yuschik Another epistolary one, but this time in text messages instead of letters, and between characters who start the story antagonistically! About mech pilots in a ghost war, and making connections, and finding things to care about, even when stuff sucks. I love them!! (also, I am inescapably me, whoops, it took me until I read some fanfic of this story to realize that almost certainly the story was meant to be canonically shipping the two leads, I never notice romance unless there's anvil-sized indications.) Anyway this is a really good story!

#annual rec list #short stories #short story recs #fantasy #science fiction #sff

[whumpster-dumpster]

Short stories are no less important than long stories. Writing a 100-word story or a 50-word story or a 10-word story or a 3-word story does not make you any less of a writer than someone who writes 100k or more. Your short stories are valuable too.

#not whump #writing #short stories #i've made posts like this before and i'll probably make them again #because i need the reminder #and someone else out there might need it too

[dnschmidt]

New Short Story: William and the Clockwork Devil

In this clockpunk portal fantasy, a young man named William finds himself transported to another world. This strange place seems like the Middle Ages, but the villagers are threatened by mechanical monsters and centaur highwaymen.

A masked doctor explains that poison has driven the kingdom mad, and William is the only remaining knight. Is the doctor trustworthy, or has he been struck with the madness, too? William must choose between pretending he's brave enough to battle an invincible clockwork dragon, or letting the masked doctor "cure" him with medieval brain surgery.

Available for Kindle for just 99 cents.

#kindle #short story #fantasy story #clockpunk #plague doctor #portal fantasy #creepy #short fiction #short stories #dark fantasy