#flashfiction
These are public posts tagged with #flashfiction. You can interact with them if you have an account anywhere in the fediverse.
Are y'all ready for #ThursThreads tomorrow? It's our #Anniversary ! 13 years! Bill Engleson has promised to be the judge (and be fair), so get your writing muscles flexed and come tie on your tale! #WritingCommunity #FlashFiction https://siobhanmuir.com/blog
#WordWeavers 2025.09.16 — Share a snippet with a color in it.
I'm hoping you didn't mean only a single color. This is from Reluctant Moon. It's #SF and it's a first draft. And, yes, orb is correct, not sun.
She offered me a metal flask. "Drink," she said. "I don't need you passing out."
I drank. Oh! Limes and a hint of floof honey!
A bright orb peeked down from a cloud bank into a sliver of clear horizon, westering in earnest and breaking free, growing bright enough that I had to squint. The furnace heat tightened my skin. The scattering cumulus turned yellow, orange at the edges. A salmon pink flooded out toward the cirrus that formed a lacy ceiling above us. The view here atop Residency Hill—which proved to be the highest vantage around—with sleepy city of domes and skyscrapers off to our left colored by a brilliant dusk, stole my breath as I sunk beside the ancient, forever young, died-and-rebuilt woman around whom a world revolved. I wanted to lessen her burden.
She reached her flask toward mine. We clanked them and she chuckled. I leaned against her steady shoulder as she watched the brightness sink and slow as it settled on the horizon. Time slowed, it seemed, and I decided it was anticipation. I placed aside the flask and reached toward her—
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author #mystery #thriller #romance #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory
#microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory
#WebAuthorsCafe 1: Introduce yourself and your work. If you want, add a link to where your work can be found.
I'm a published SF and fantasy author who burnt out in 2001 and returned to storytelling using the excuse that fan fiction wasn't real writing—you can't sell it—so I could let go of the fear and angst that had stopped me before. Spoiler: It is real writing. It is also wonderful practice.
I began posting online in 2015. I started by writing stories that continued certain series episodes, extending it where the show lacked depth, but later created original characters and situations that went far beyond the scope of the original material, or would have been flatly incompatible. I specialized in radical backstories and histories that if you squinted properly, might evolve into the rather sketchy characters in the show—sometimes squinting through a microscope.
Since then I've been adapting my characters and plot lines to conventional F&SF stories, and extending those otherwise constrained restrained characters into my own original universe, creating stories that highlight my fervor for telling #gender related and #feminist stories.
When I considered this hashtag in the beginning, I forgot that I do still publish quite often online, now only on Mastodon. Writing short scenes that are satisfyingly complete by themselves was a revelation that occurred only after I started on this site. I'll direct you to two short tootfics (I have a 5,000 character limit, so I by this I mean approximately 750 words). These are not as polished as they could be, but I think they highlight my characters, stories, emotional content, and humor. Both are in the Reluctance Series #RSReluctanceStory. Surprisingly (for me), it turns out I pinned both story posts, so I guess I think they're pretty good. Many of my better samples can be for in my pinned sample story link post; one of these days I have to add my newer stuff to that list…
Reframing the Experience: https://eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/112497915608418589
The Wanted Poster: https://eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/110136451462609798
Pinned Sample Story Link Post: https://eldritch.cafe/@sfwrtr/110470537747067765
PS: I thought about linking to my 900K of fan fiction, but I don't want to muddy the waters, and do want to maintain a separation. If you know who I am IRL or under another aliase, please keep this to yourself.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#Fanfiction #serial #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory
> #PennedPossibilities 324 — SC POV: If you could relive…
Eldritch CaféThis month's flasher story is not about the protein on the plate. It's all about the sauce.
https://stephanieanneauthor.ca/2025/09/11/eat-the-rich-a-flasher-story/
#blog #blogpost #horrorstory #flashfiction #shortstory #horrorauthor #eattherich
This isn’t a story about how there are no ethical billionaires.…
Stephanie Anne, Horror Author#WordWeavers 2025.09.10 — Share a snippet with an animal in it.
From Inklings. Wintereyes is in the women's bathroom avoiding a male student.
A shadow flitted in a high window beside the sinks. My squirrel friend perched on the sill, tail twitching as he chittered about students touching faces behind the pine trees. Squirrels really are squirrelly. I'd once given him nuts; now we were forever friends. I had changed myself so I could understand his species, then cursed him with some of myself so he and a few of his sibs and nest mates slowly grew smart enough to understand.
I wished I could ask him about the exchange student.
"Exchange" was a concept he'd never understand. "Student" had waited until his walnut grew big enough that he understood he himself was learning. Not a wolf or a hound. No wonder they were food. I'd eaten plenty—too stringy in spring, far tastier now in autumn—but wasn't sharing that with him…
[Author retains copyright (c)2024, 2025 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#romance #fantasy
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSInklingsStory
#microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory
#PennedPossibilities 779 — MC POV: Do you think you have any idiosyncrasies?
[Bolt, a day angel woman from Reluctant Courier (for the Mob), answers:] I had to ask my soft-bodied reporter friend what the word meant, then compounded the problem saying that I didn't think dictionaries existed outside of libraries so I couldn't be expected to have one. I'll get him back, though. He volunteered to join me at the gym and will get to explain to him the next day how sore muscles mean you're getting stronger. [Smirks.]
Author adds: She has them.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#cozy #mystery ##sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory
#microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory
haxadecimal @brouhaha@mastodon.socialSame As It Ever Was
They went to the Sermon on the Mount, the Gettysburg Address, the fall of the Berlin Wall. At first they were very surprised, but they soon found that it was the same everywhen. At all of the major historical events, the crowds consisted almost exclusively of time travelers.
Copyright 2019 @ brouhaha @ mastodon.social
Rewritten and newly titled 2025-10-09
Originally posted to Twitter 2019-10-20
This was my very first Flash Fiction story.
#flashfiction
haxadecimal @brouhaha@mastodon.socialTrue AI had finally been achieved, thanks to robocalls.
Copyright 2025 @ brouhaha @ mastodon.social, 2025-09-09
haxadecimal @brouhaha@mastodon.socialThe resulting dramatic increase in robocalls to attempt to collect the utility bills resulted in substantially increased demand on the telecommunications network, which caused additional infrastructure to be built. This in turn pushed the network complexity over the critical threshold for sentience.
haxadecimal @brouhaha@mastodon.socialBy 2161, construction, maintenance, and operation of power and communications infrastructure had long since been fully automated. The fusion power plants and telecommunications systems continued to provide reliable service. However, all of their now-deceased customers eventually stopped paying for such services, as the credit cards used for their automatic payments expired.
haxadecimal @brouhaha@mastodon.socialFinally
In 1965, Arthur C. Clarke wrote an SF story about a worldwide telecommunication system becoming self-aware. This finally occurred two hundred years later, which was about four years after human extinction, due to a plague, possibly genetically engineered. That machine sentience was achieved so soon after human extinction was not a coincidence.
“Is there anyone you need to let know that you're going up with us?”
A sullen glance to the side.
“Your friends? Won't they miss you?”
The kid shook her head, still not meeting Annalise's eye.
Annalise and Wren shared a glance over her head.
“It's just a couple days,” Wren said.
Annalise nodded back.
“I'm… just going to run real quick back to the canteen,” Todd said. “Forgot to pick up some.... emberberries.”
Annalise managed to somehow not roll her eyes as Todd quickly hid the notepad and pen he'd been gesturing with behind his back just as Brook turned around. Emberberries didn’t even grow on this side of the mountains, and they weren’t in season anyway.
The kid narrowed her eyes at him. He grinned.
“Just get going,” Wren laughed.
Todd turned his grin on Wren, then slipped away to grab a bike from the bike station for the short ride back to Sparrow Ridge to leave a note on the community board about the whereabouts of their young companion. She was welcome to come with them, but it really was best to let someone know when you were going up. If for no other reason than a rescue crew would know how many they were searching for, in a worst case scenario.
Annalise didn’t have the heart to try to convince the kid go back to the village to tell them herself, and it looked like neither did Todd or Wren. Todd’s note would have to do.
“C’mon,” Wren said to Brook, “if you’re going to go up with us, we gotta show you the ropes—literally.”
That got a small smile from her. Wren shot Annalise a triumphant grin. Annalise did roll her eyes this time, which only made Wren smile more brightly.
As Annalise watched them step up into the cabin, she remembered her first day on the dirigible, years ago. It had been Hollis and Mylie who had shown her around. Wren had already been on the crew, but Todd had not yet joined them.
Now, Mylie was happily ensconced in the village of Foxflower, their destination today. She facilitated the local repair cafe, as dedicated to helping keep all the small particulars of village life in running order as she had been to maintaining the Abounding Kestrel. Wren did that for the Kestrel, now.
Hollis had died years ago, their long life at its natural end, not too many years after they had shown Annalise how to run the navigation board. She thought of them every time she engaged it and pointed the Kestrel toward their next destination.
Years before Annalise had been born, Hollis and their comrades from several villages had worked to bring a dirigible to the region, and for decades now a crew had regularly taken to the skies between the villages dotted around the mountains. The villages were separated by rocky terrain and rivers too rapid to easily navigate, but the Kestrel was able to bring food, supplies, and sometimes people between them.
Runners could make the trek between villages with information and occasionally small goods—a tradition with both cultural significance as a practice and practical importance as a contingency. And folks did journey on foot to visit or to relocate from time to time, though it was a substantial undertaking. For quickly bringing a load of cargo, there was nothing like a dirigible, Annalise mused as she finished loading in the cargo for this journey.
When Annalise made her way into the cabin, she saw Brook perched on the edge of a jump seat, attention rapt on everything Wren was saying as they explained the workings of the Kestrel. Annalise wondered if the crew of the Kestrel would soon be considering a new regular crew member, or if this was just a temporary respite from whatever in the village was troubling the kid.
Whatever it was, Annalise didn’t think it was that bad. Brook was not traumatized, as far as she could tell, and Wren—who had one of the best senses for people Annalise had ever encountered— didn’t seem to think so, either. Annalise wasn’t going to worry. It was likely a spat. And while Annalise thought the direct approach to conflict resolution was the best approach, if the kid needed a couple of days away to clear her head, there was nothing wrong with that.
Annalise joined Wren and Brook to show Brook the navigation board, to her delight. She picked it up readily, and Annalise had to take a moment to quietly cherish just how right it felt to be passing on to someone else the knowledge she had received from Hollis, even if it would be used only for this journey.
As they were just finishing up with how to read the radar output, Todd bounded into the cabin. They all glanced up at him.
“Ran into some friends of yours in the village,” Todd said, trying and failing to affect a casual tone.
The kid bristled.
“They gave me this,” Todd said easily, holding out a folded piece of paper. “It’s for you.”
Brook seemed to want to hold onto her scowl, but she couldn’t keep an expression of wide-eyed trepidation off her face as she looked at the slip of paper in Todd’s hand. Todd held it forward for her with a gentle smile.
The kid stood up and gingerly took the note. She curled into herself as she held it open and started to read, but by the time she looked up from it, her shoulders had lowered and she was standing with more ease. There was the faintest flush high on her cheekbones, and she blinked a few times as she looked out the broad front window toward Sparrow Ridge.
“Still coming with us?” Wren asked.
The kid nodded, still looking away.
“Yeah,” she said softly, almost to herself. Turning and meeting Wren’s eye she added, with more certainty, “Yeah, I’m still going. But I think I’m coming back.”
#solarPunk #solarpunkSunday #youthLiberation #familyAbolition #anarchism #dirigible #flashFiction
#ThursThreadsPlus is up on #Patreon and you get over 1K in new words just to get to the prompt. Come on by and join today. #FlashFiction #AmWriting #WIPWords https://www.patreon.com/posts/thursthreads-4-138159126?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link
It’s been a while since we’ve heard from the mother, but she is always with us.
https://open.substack.com/pub/salrandolph/p/mother-of-wheels
A (very) short story about the mother and chance. Part…
Free WordsLast night, rushing for the last tram. Halfway to the stop — bunch of boys, huddled. In the middle — at first I think, another boy. No. A girl. Tomboy. Sitting on the asphalt, legs stretched, rollerblades on. Something’s happening. Some incident.
(01/02)
This account is mostly a creative outlet. Despite my best efforts, I am drawn to #poetry, #flashfiction, #microfiction, and #shortstories so expect a lot of that. As far as genres go, I am all over the place. You will see themes arise, I am sure. I have old fandom roots. I like my share of #fantasy and #scifi, but I don't have a singular focus.
So that's my #introduction
I am hoping to find a community to connect with here, but we'll see. Social media is always a gamble.
Still a few spots left in my flash class! Mondays 12-2pm (north american central) on zoom. Starts Sept. 8, goes 10 weeks. $200.
To keep it more accessible for folks with less time, we'll finish the sharing & feedback in the first 90 minutes. But if you have the time, you can stay for the last 30 minutes to go deeper.
Write a lot, share your work, get feedback, learn about craft, and find community:
#WritingCommunity #WritingConversations #WritingClass #FlashFiction
When: 10 Weeks, Sept. 8 - Nov. 10, Mondays 12-1:30pm…
Google Docs
#WordWeavers 2025.08.29 — SC POV: What's your favorite color to wear?
[Devil-girl who is a supporting character in Reluctant Courier (for the Mob), the current WiP:] Black, midnight blue, midnight red, dark purple, mauve. I never grew out of what you'd call my goth period. I prefer my jewelry silver tarnished black, even though it sometimes irritates my skin. Mind you, having run away from all the responsibility, status signaling, and the clothing thing, I don't have much incentive to dress. These days, clothes and accessories, their quantity or lack of quantity, and quality are more often tools for me, to change my appearance, to blend in, to foster team spirit, to reassure, to distract, or to manipulate and control others. What colors I might prefer matter little. My intended audience's preferences matter far more.
[Author retains copyright (c)2025 R.S.]
#gender #fiction #writer #author
#cozy #mystery #sf #sff #sciencefiction
#writing #writingcommunity #writersOfMastodon #writers
#RSdiscussion
#RSstory #RSReluctanceStory
#microfiction #flashfiction #tootfic #smallstory
