Joseph Young and Kathy Fish collaborate: 20 microfictions

A couple months ago Kathy Fish and I decided we wanted somehow to work together, to collaborate. We decided on a project that would involve each of us writing 5 pieces of microfiction. When we were finished, we would cut our stories more or less in half. We then sent our half stories to one other, these semi-stories that sometimes broke off in the middle of a sentence. We took these half-stories, 5 written by me, 5 by Kathy, and we finished them for each other, creating 10 brand new Kathy/Joe and Joe/Kathy hybrids. Below are these 10 hybrids, with the originals, written solo, tucked in beneath.

I’d recommend other writers find a collaborator to try this with. What a great thing not only to take someone else’s words and work with them and care for them as if they were your own, but also to give over care of your own words, words so meticulously chosen and labored over, and entrust them to someone else. It was an eye-opening experience—an amazingly cool one.


Kathy hybridizes Joseph [Joseph’s originals in brackets]


William Grett

I'm signed on, baby, she said, I'm yours. Starting today we live simply and honorably as the bears. They removed their rings and clothes. He took the jar of marmalade and dropped it from the back porch, red protoplasm and glass. She watched the honey bees.

[William Grett]

[He took the jar of marmalade and dropped it from the back porch, red protoplasm and glass. She watched the honey bees chew it in their jaws. They’ll get jelly footprints, one said. Bad teeth, the other.]


Punch

You dress like a Communist, he said (as windmills, an army of them, signalled). I admit I have concerns with this and that. Her clothes, her shoes, always in the same shade as her hand. 102 miles, she said, pressing the corner of the mapbook to his eye.

[Punch]

[They were headed for California’s midriff, the bellyring of the state. Nevada had gotten a tan in the same shade as her hand. 102 miles, she said, pressing the corner of the mapbook to his eye.]


Kissinger Reading

And all the while, he laughed, adjusting, we behaved like elephants chasing grasshoppers. She wasn’t sure it was an intelligent use of power.

[Kissinger Reading]

[3 chickens ran in ellipses, chasing grasshoppers. She wasn’t sure it was an intelligent use of power. He caught one, let her feel its firing head.]


Owners

The bridge traveled over more nothing, cracked brick and sand. They went for a long time before she thought to say, if I'd known I would have paid more attention. Their cheeks, their cheeks and kneecaps were ruched and raw, yes, but I can't say I remember their eyes.

[Owners]

[The bridge traveled over more nothing, cracked brick and sand. They went for a long time before she thought to say, Turn off the gas. He did and they went on from there.]


Stomach

Eventually, he believed he could eat the moon. Make an arrow of his body. Walking was no different than flying. A counterculture of rogue cornstalks waved rich in the wind. Goodbye ghosts, he said, pouring the fish, ridiculously.

[Stomach]

[She put her hand in the bucket, to stir the minnows like soup. The grass waved rich in the wind. Goodbye ghosts, he said, pouring the fish, ridiculously.]


Joseph hybridizes Kathy [Kathy’s originals in brackets]


Mothra

My brother opens his arms, showering my bed with a happenstance of wrapped and tied things. His face in the tv light dissolving, reconstituting. I've seen this one, he says.

For a week, I set loose marbles, buttons, red caterpillars. These last have curled themselves to tight wheels. Just asleep, I say, to my brother, but he’s now refused to watch.

[Mothra]

[My brother opens his arms, showering my bed with a happenstance of wrapped and tied things. His face in the TV light dissolving, reconstituting. I've seen this one, he says. Let me change it, then, I say. Feeling all over. Knocking everything off.]


How to Prepare, How to Eat, Where Has the Summer Gone, and You Ought to Be Ashamed

The kids eat with their faces in their plates, suckling soft and pungent things. There are four of them, but sometimes it’s as if the water has made six, stringing them from the lean summer sun. They have failed to stick to their exercise regimen and their arms have grown soft, their chests concave. They have not carried up the deck umbrella, nor strung its spokes with the festive lights. The neighbor woman marches over with blackberries.

[How to Prepare, How to Eat, Where Has the Summer Gone, and You Ought to Be Ashamed]

[They have failed to stick to their exercise regimen and their arms have grown soft, their chests concave. They have not carried up the deck umbrella, nor strung its spokes with the festive lights. The neighbor woman marches over with blackberries. Ignoring the signs.]


Sidereal

He'd sent mittens in red and green, forgetting that it was summer there and that his children's hands had become large and grasping things. And that they ran shirtless like pagans at night under a foreign sky. Well, he says, attempting something generous, but this breaks off under scrutiny of his feet. They’ve gone so white, ten knobs, so tender and necessary of sleep.

[Sidereal]

[He'd sent mittens in red and green, forgetting that it was summer there and that his children's hands had become large and grasping things. And that they run shirtless like pagans under foreign stars. They take his gifts and dress up the tree like a sentry: a monster with four hands.]


He Shoots, He...

Dumanski fakes left, fakes right, powers down the middle. Ignores Carver. Ignores the crowd. Lobs a three pointer. Fails. Wrests the ball from Carver. Hangs back, dribbles. The crowd. Dumanski, aflame, bows. Carver, charging. Dumanski muttering. My moment, my moment.

After that there is just the hoop, the bruised sky, the bruised peach in his bag. See you, he says, fading over the black top.

[He Shoots, He...]

[Dumanski fakes left, fakes right, powers down the middle. Ignores Carver. Ignores the crowd. Lobs a three pointer. Fails. Wrests the ball from Carver. Hangs back, dribbles. The crowd. Dumanski, aflame, bows. Carver, charging. Dumanski muttering. My moment, my moment. The crowd, with naked intent, seizes the court. Seizes Dumanski. Dumanski lets fly the ball. Dumanski, pummeled, obliterated. Smiling.

Scores.]


I Gather Them Up Like Kindling

It’s one of those late nights, surf rushing. All the cards are red or black, though we don’t know which. My brother's arms and legs break off, then break apart. His hands spider across the floor. Scatter like that.

[I Gather Them Up Like Kindling]

[He says, those are fragile. But I can’t stop myself. The sounds of glass and bones. My brother's arms and legs break off, break apart. His hands spider across the floor. Scatter like that.]


Bio: Kathy Fish's stories are published or forthcoming in Indiana Review, Denver Quarterly, FRiGG, Wigleaf, Keyhole, Quick Fiction, and elsewhere. A collection of her work is now available from Rose Metal Press in a book entitled "A Peculiar Feeling of Restlessness: Four Chapbooks of Short Short Fiction by Four Women."

Bio: Joseph Young lives and writes in Baltimore, MD. His book of microfiction, Easter Rabbit, will be released from Publishing Genius Press in December 2009.

from Ethel Rohan

The Tremendous In The Tiny

In many ways I’ve changed three-hundred-and-sixty degrees as a writer. I’ve gone from writing two novel manuscripts, three partial novel manuscripts, some thirty-plus short stories over the course of a decade, to now favoring Flash and Micro Fiction. In the past twelve months I’ve written well over a hundred Flashes, publishing close to eighty to date, and still feel like I’m only warming-up.

Early in my writing career, my stories came from an image or character I’d observed or remembered, or that somehow popped into my mind, taking seed. I wrote slowly, liking to “perfect” each line before I moved onto the next. I didn’t use prompts or exercises, but pulled from my memory and imagination. I liked to know where I was “going” in the work, and took my sweet time getting there. That’s also all changed.

Today my Flash stories are still triggered by the observed, imagined, or remembered image or character. However, now for my first drafts, I also use prompt words gleaned from whatever poem, Flash, story, novel, or song lyrics inspires me and write as fast as I can, free of that inner critic, tapping into my sub-conscious, and letting everything spill uncensored onto the page.

I write the Flash in one sitting, put it aside for at least a day, and return to it with fresh eyes, finding its heart, its conflict and resolution. My goal is to revise the Flash to the point where every word counts, where there’s trouble and strangeness, where every expectation is twisted, where there’s a satisfying end, where the work is, hopefully, electrifying.

You can read some of what I believe to be my more successful published Flashes to date here:

“Under Water,” Monkeybicycle

“Babies On The Shore,” PANK

“Rocket Into A Pocket,” (So New) Necessary Fiction

Myfawny Collins and Kathy Fish, to name just two of the best contemporary Flash writers in our midst, both had enormous influence on my growth as a Flash writer. Go read their work. Study how they do what they do. You’ll learn far more from their Flash stories than you ever will from reading this essay. Good Luck!

BIO: Raised in Ireland, Ethel Rohan now lives in San Francisco. Her work has appeared in or is forthcoming from elimae; PANK; Wigleaf; Storyglossia; Monkeybicycle; Word Riot; mud luscious; Staccato Fiction; (So New) Necessary Fiction, and many others. She blogs at www.straightfromtheheartinmyhip.blogspot.com.

from Tara Laskowski

My random thoughts about flash fiction:

Writing flash is no easier or harder than writing a regular short story. You can just write more of them, so your chances of getting a good one among the pile are higher.

Don’t try to be too profound. I suppose this is a personal preference, but my favorite stories are the quiet ones. I would prefer to read a 200-word story about a couple who, while washing dishes, realize their differences might doom them, rather than a 200-word story that tries to incorporate a car chase, zombies and a moralistic ending about human nature. (Actually, if someone could do that, it would probably be pretty cool.) Not to say you should be boring or mundane, though. However, bringing out the extraordinary in what otherwise might be boring or mundane is what really gets me.

You’ve got the opportunity to drop into people’s lives at just the right moment. No set-up, no history, no getting-to-know-you first dates—jump right to it. You can sneak up on your characters at that very moment the change is happening, the verdict is in, the sex is bad, the relationship is doomed, the gun is fired, the vampire is bitten, etc. And then leap out again, leaving the reader with just enough information to get all that’s come before and all that’s to come in the future and why all of it matters deeply.

Flash takes up less space in print journals, so editors are happier to see your work than the 29-page short story you slaved over for months that would take up 1/3 of their real estate.

There are tons of amazing web-based journals out there that publish flash, and they have quicker turn-around times. So you get rejected (or sometimes accepted) quicker!

There are tons of amazing web-based journals out there that publish flash. So if you do get published, you can send the link of your story to aunts, cousins, friends, enemies, pets, and they can actually read it. And like it. (Except for your pets, who, unless they are really really interesting, will probably just sniff the computer screen and walk away to pee.)

Flash is like poetry. The words matter. Every one. And don’t be afraid to cut them.

Know your strengths. I think every writer is different. Some have a better grasp on the moment, some drift towards more complex, longer stories that would do better in novel form. While I think everyone has the capacity to write all different lengths, it’s important to know what attracts you and what you think you do best. And go with it.

The most important thing, and sometimes the hardest thing, is to have fun. The stories that I think are my best are the ones that I had fun writing.

Bio: Tara Laskowski is the 2009 Kathy Fish Fellow and writer-in-residence at SmokeLong Quarterly. She earned an MFA from George Mason University and continues to fight traffic living just outside of Washington, D.C.

Read “Ode to the Double-Crossed Lackey in ‘Thunderball’” in Barrelhouse

Read “Only a Number” in decomP

Read “The Hamster” in Smokelong Quarterly