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Writing Exercise: Magnified Moments
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For our first exercise, we'll try writing a magnified moment. A magnified moment is when you take a moment in time and expand on it, describing it in great detail. You'll want to include lots of sensory details so that the reader can fully picture the scene. I recommend keeping the verb tenses in present tense -- this will help add to the immediacy of the moment. You should have at least one clear central protagonist and some form of conflict. Typically, the conflict is resolved in a flash fiction piece, but I like to be more creative and leave that up to the writer.
I'll be generous with the word limit since this is our first exercise: 200-1,000 words. But try not to go over 1,000!
Go ahead and post your flash fiction pieces in a comment below.
Here is my example, which I published on this site a while ago. It's 500 words in length. I welcome your comments and critique! :)
The First Rain of Summer
His nails are raking circles across her back. They are in the slender darkness of twilight. The summer heat so thick it flows into the room in dense waves. The air inside her room is stirred by the lazy arms of the ceiling fan, and she feels a pressure on her chest like she can't breathe. They are lying on her twin bed, the sheets sticking to them like glue. Her naked skin feels like it has expanded in this incredible heat.
His mouth begins to kiss the circles his nails traced across her back. She pulls away, impatient with his overtures to desire.
"Quit it, Sam, it's too hot for that."
Hurt, he turns over on his back, as far from her as he can get on this small bed. She knows she should not have been so short with him but pride keeps her from apologizing.
So instead she gets out of bed, peeling the sticky sheets away from her body. She walks towards the one huge window in her studio apartment, stands there like some defiant statue, her figure flanked against the dark sky. Clouds are gathering in the distance. She reaches out to touch the pane of glass. It is surprisingly cold to her hand. In a sudden impulse, she pulls the window open. Just to feel the growing wind cool her skin. The clouds are beginning to turn darker, more ominous. It is going to rain.
"Darling, come away from there. Someone might see you."
She laughs a triumphant laugh as the first drop of rain hits her forehead. Now she is hanging out the window, oblivious to the passing of people and cars below on this busy New York intersection. They look like ants from this height anyway. Insignificant. The rain is starting to come down hard, in sheets. She opens her arms wide as if to embrace it.
"Susan," he says. His tone is urgent. She hears her name but not his tone.
Turning her face to him, he sees a side of her that he had not been shown all these six months he has known her. Her beauty shining like a lamplight in this darkness. Lightning flashes, a brilliant zigzag across the sky. Her features are lit up in that instant, and then the darkness drowns her face again.
He gets out of bed, pulled by something he cannot explain. Why has she chosen to unveil this side of her, why now? He wants to touch her, but she feels infinitely far away now. Her skin and her eyes are glowing with a beauty that is ethereal, like the faeries in the books he read as a child. The rain making her black hair hang heavy down her back. His desire is washed away, replaced with.. with what? The word filling his head and his limbs with a dull ache, pushing up inside of him like a well. The word touching him as her small hands reach out to grasp his, the water making their handclasp slippery. He wants to say the word to hear it resound within his own ears, to know it.
"Isn't this incredible?" she exclaims, her voice tiny against the roar of wind and rain.
"Yes," he replies. His eyes lock on hers, his hand brushes a wet lock off her forehead. "Incredible," he echoes back just as another burst of lightning fills the room. And then it is dark again.
Ooooooooh, time to go sit on the front porch and try to glue something together with the help of caffeine and nicotine and any other eeens I can find.
>>excited about this group!
In fact, this one involves sitting at my desk. That's all there is to it.
I was going to try and write a more traditional narrative but anyone who knows me knows I find normal very obscure. This concept is something I have been throwing around for a while and at one point thought it might make an interesting short story but I reduced it to it's core and concluded with a non conformist ending (that's aloud right?) I think it tells a much more gritty and sad account then I first anticipated. Let me know what you think (If it even qualifies as Flash)
Nymphaea Lotus: Love and Erotomania
As had been the formula skillfully devised during our three-month courtship Desiree entered the bar a full two minutes before me. It seems odd to want to keep our love a secret but I have never been one to require public displays of our love and she was my princess. Nymphaea lotus, my Egyptian water lily, rootless, unbound and whose sweet smell and ample bloom calls forth those who dare test her watery plateau.
She is on the dance floor as I arrive, her sweater already shed, she is testing me by exposing herself like this, everywhere men gawk at her lack of modesty. She has many outfits but this one I hate the most as it falls across her unbound breasts and clings high against her bare thighs, she knows I dislike the way she acts in front of these people. We have had many arguments about outfits like this and again today I believe I may be required to repeat this one again, but for now I will allow her the fun of a night out with the girls. I sit at the end of the bar as we have planned and watch.
She truly is beautiful her hair flowing in the air conditioning, she pulls it up away from her face just like she knows I like, throwing it into a ponytail that sways from side to side as she makes her way across the crowd to reapply her face.
She always leaves her drink sitting at the end of the bar knowing I get thirsty too; I take a quick sip and return it to its home. I search for her face in the crowd and find her in the arms of a man. Confused I wander over. Maybe she fell and this man is assisting her back to her feet. As I creep even closer I can see he has his hands on her ass and her leg is lifted against him pressing her moistness into his thigh.
I rage
"Excuse me, get your hands off my girlfriend!" I pry the two apart, her face filled with alarm, what could he have been doing to her? She sends me a silent thank you.
"Hands off buddy" the intruder shoves me hard I fall into a pillar and collapse on the ground "Who is this guy?" He turns toward Desiree as I pick myself up.
"This is my f-ing girlfriend jerk-wad." I grab her a little too tightly by the arm "Come on Desiree, let's go." She is speechless with my bravery but resists.
"Do you know this guy Tess?"
She speaks "No! I'm scared." she lies but why?
I look into her eyes; she is crying I drop her arm "What's going on here?" I inquire confused "Are you breaking up with me?"
"I don't know you." At his insistence she moves behind the intruder, the one who is single-handedly ruining my relationship with Desiree.
"What's going on over here?" a doorman approaches to intercept.
"Look she said she doesn't know you, I suggest you take your loafers and leave before someone gets hurt."
"This guy has his hands all over my girlfriend and now they are..." I try to explain but cannot even grasp the moment.
"Do you know this gentleman?" the doorman will clear this all up I am sure she will just laugh, definitely something she would do, a real joker my girlfriend.
"No, I have never met this guy before!" she points a wicked finger at my face and everyone turns to catch my reaction.
Fists are thrown and blood falls from my mouth, I am loaded ass first into the backseat of a cop car.
What a crazy Friday night I think to myself on the ride home already picturing her sitting on our bed ready for sleep in her nightgown. I hope she has an explanation for this all.
I shake my head smiling; she will be in the park tomorrow maybe I will ask her there.
You have a good ear for dialogue. There are one or two run-on sentences, but in a crazy way they kinda work with the narrative.
Riveted, Barely Breathing
It was the head tilt. His head was looking down at her and tilted slightly to the right. He was going to kiss her. You could see his desire smoldering behind his lips even though you couldn't see his eyes or hear what he whispered.
But she stood straight, looking up with her eyes only, lashes touching her eyebrows. She was not receptive to him. It was the moment of no return. She could cave, softening her ramrod straight-backed stance, inclining her head just a fraction of an inch toward his. He would have her then.
Or she could stand her ground, back up slowly, look away from him and go. You weren't sure where he heart was in this situation. How did she really feel about him? The thought that she would choose him tore you apart. Secretly, you wanted her to love you. But she had told you many times that she never could.
You were hoping she would make up her mind, watching from the shadows unsure if you should act. You wanted her to make her own decisions, but staying with him will ultimately lead to heartache. You wanted to prevent her from hurting. But you couldn't control her actions any more than you could control the tides.
And you want to run, get away from this situation, but like a car accident, you stand riveted, barely breathing.
I know she loves me, her pinkish curly hair clings like lotus flowers around her angelic feature. She has to love me. Just yesterday she gave me a note to bring some dumb jock, but she is on the cheerleading team. I mean the point is she trusts me to take some note, that obviously was not of romantic origin, to some person who she is involved with only in a suprficial extra curiccular activity capacity.
Yeah! She even asked me yesterday to meet her here at the pizza parlor today.
Oh my god and here she comes. I can't believe it she is even bringing her mom to meet me.
"Hi Mrs. Fullilove. Yes it a pleasure to meet you too."
WAWAWWAWWA
"Yes we are going to go over our test info."
WAWAWWAWWA
"Sure we'll be done in a couple of hours, we'll be fine."
As her mom drives away i realize it isn't going to be fine because my tue love kisses me on the cheek and runs into the arms of the big huge jock with the note.
I watch her breathe for a long moment. The light from her window shines like a caressing finger from the heavens over her face, giving her an almost angelic look, as her mouth is slight agape in slumber.
"I see you," I whisper.
She does not hear me. I am far too stealthy a morning stalker for her to even be aware of my skulking presence.
I am careful not to walk over the creaking floor boards below my bare feet. I am careful not to rouse her from her dreams.
My quarry is unsuspecting. Though she is crafty, and even wiser than I could ever be, she does not know what I know. She does not know that I watch her; nor how closely I watch.
Holding my breath I take another step. I pause to let my breath out slowly so as not to alert my nemesis laying there on the bed. Should I be caught, there is no telling what I should have to do to ensure my anonymity.
Another step.
She rests.
And another.
She snorts only slightly, hinting at my lack of patience, too quick to seize my prize. I stop and wait.
She rolls over, moans, licks her lips, wetting her sleep-dried tongue. And she rests back into a sleep.
I count to ten, then, once again, hold my breath, and take another step towards her, then another, and before I know it, I am standing over my prize, almost giddying myself in a fit of giggles.
I wear that evil grin I'd practiced so often before I enter her bed-chambers. I wish I could see it for myself.
My excitement mounts, as my hands raise, and I lower them gently, slowly, cautiously as not to make a sound as I descend upon my prey.
"Peter!"
Did she just speak? Perhaps it is my paranoia that speaks in my head. The woman does not move.
"Peter?!" I say nothing. I do not give into my fugue. "If you tickle me with those hands that are over me right now, there is no measure to the lengths that I will go to to exact my revenge upon you,"
I am caught. And before I can react, the lioness spins within her covers and takes my hands and pulls me into her bed. She giggles and places 3 morning kisses upon my cheek, "You will never get me, Pete. Never, I don't know why you even try!" she says.
She is my wife, my soul-mate; the love of my life. "Clearly. I'm in no position to argue. I will get you one day, my dear, I will.. and on that day, I will RUE!"
"Whatever you say. Did you make coffee?"
"I did!"
"Excellent!" she smiles an angels smile.
Ok, maybe she DOES hear me when I try to sneak upon her, but I will never stop in my attempt to tickle my wife in the mornings for it is this spice that keeps our marriage alive!