My mother never ripened. When she was young, they bit into her and stopped the natural ripening process. After they’d spit her out, she stayed green until she began to rot. At the end of her life she was…
Acclaimed shortform author Chelsea Stickle has recently published two chapbooks: Breaking Points, which explores crucial moments in women’s lives through a variety of flash forms; and Everything’s Changing, which conjures images of transformation, both magical and otherwise. Chelsea took…
Sibling Circus My brother was addicted to dog biscuits and this might have been how our act started. When our mother arrived, he’d pop one in his mouth, throw one to the real dog and then toss one to…
Sibling Parenting Ai Ping’s brother said women who habitually declared they found happiness in everyday things were the hardest to please. If a woman required x affirmations of happiness a day, each having an effect which lasted an average…
CRAFT is delighted to share a triptych of humorous microfictions by Grant Faulkner, previously included in Best Microfiction 2022. The following pieces take on the subject matter of craft and critical essays from the perspectives of three fictional individuals,…
This final girl is fleeing like all the others, flinging open the front door of a small suburban house. This final girl is screaming, long hair streaming, all torn T-shirt and superficial injuries and sudden athletic desperation. But something…
My Favorite Elvis The boy and the dog were both named Elvis. Whenever Daddy hollered “Elvis” they both came to him. Even when it was one of them he wanted: the boy for a chore, the dog for a…
This is what you do if he wakes up sad. This is what you do if he comes home angry. This is what you do if he stops taking his medication. This is what you do if he stays…
There is a town at the edge of things where women hold in their screams. They die young: high blood pressure, heart attacks, strokes, cancer. The girls watch their mothers and grandmothers and aunts play Ring Around the Rosie,…
Nine of us cram into Brad O’Neill’s dad’s Buick, a girl to each lap, and Gulp’s snugging my middle before all the doors crash shut. I look back to see his tanned cheekbones; it’s really him, Gulp North, under…
I drafted “It Will Be All of These Things” during one of Monet Patrice Thomas’s famous writing challenges. Anyone who has followed her on Twitter for the past few years may have noticed the hashtags: #TheBJChallenge, #TheKinkChallenge, #TheBigO; you get the idea. Participating writers have a month to generate a flash-length story or essay. All entries must include a literary portrayal of sex and fulfill a prompt Monet keeps secret until the official start date. The prompt for this challenge was First Time. #FirstTimeChallenge. So I spent thirty days thinking of teenagers.
I had a seed of a premise. I could see the love interest vividly. I gave him a boring name and a dew-graced setting. I accumulated notes. One was: Maybe it should make me feel better about the world, but it doesn’t. Did I mention this was March 2020? Even before lockdown, I tweeted about what a difficult time I was having with the piece. I posted a photo from my journal with the giant letters B-A-D scrawled over crossed-out paragraphs.
With two days left to write, I didn’t have a story. All I had were thoughts of teenagers. I needed constraints. I turned to one of my favorite flash stories, “Peggy Park, August 1992” by Bryan Washington, which first appeared in Hobart before landing, retitled as “Peggy Park,” in his brilliant collection, Lot. If you haven’t read this story go read it now. It’s magnificent. It’s under 900 words and has more than twenty characters, most of whom have futures laid out in the exposition. The dramatic action is complete and triumphant and funny, too. I love every sentence of that story. So, desperate to turn in a draft, I decided to experiment with the form. Put another way: I stole the structure. Shamelessly and poorly. I packed nine kids into a car and never quite achieved a plot or a fully drawn sexual interaction, but I sent the piece to Monet at 11:59 p.m. with a minute to spare. And then I tweeted a gif of Winona Ryder from Heathers, post-explosion and sooty with a cigarette hanging from her mouth.
I revisited the draft in August, determined to finish something I could feel good about submitting to a magazine. While I searched for the story’s aboutness, one character’s miscarriage became a city council run; an EMT changed into a police officer. I cut the boys’ dialogue and let Sarah talk instead. My super smart first flash readers, who I met thanks to Kathy Fish’s classes, helped me turn “pilfered” into “stolen” and a mongoose into a mastiff. They hinted that I consider eliminating Sebastian, but in uncharacteristic decisiveness, I clung to him. Revision after revision, the piece remained about 400 words, like maybe it knew what it wanted to be, like maybe I was just along for the ride. In every draft, Gulp got more dangerous, and the car’s destination remained uncertain, sort of like the world. In every draft, the narrator became more aware of her desires, sort of like me.
RUTH LEFAIVE’s stories and interviews appear in Best Small Fictions 2018, Little Fiction, Longreads, Split Lip Magazine, The Offing, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. Her work recently placed 2nd in the Fractured Lit Micro Fiction Prize. She lives in Los Angeles where she is working on a collection of short stories. Find her online at ruthlefaive.com.
