Penstricken
Andrew Ferguson – Author
My Stories Category
The Church Mouse
Posted on February 7, 2021 Leave a Comment
Based on a true story…
The Landlord and Landlady were busy today. Pulling out the furniture and hoovering behind every nook and cranny where I’d been, or even might’ve been. They even shoved their infernal vacuum nozzle into my room. I wasn’t in at the time, praise God. I was out scavenging, but they’ve definitely been here. They’ve cleaned up all my business, sure, the bits they could reach anyhow. They’ve settled down now. Their telly’s been on for hours.
6 ‘Six Word Stories’ for the 6th (vol. I)
Posted on January 16, 2021 Leave a Comment
If you’ve been following this site for a while, you will perhaps remember that I have occasionally written posts featuring 6 six word stories… Since I happen to think it’s a great way to put the imagination through its paces (not to mention test my skills in brevity), I thought it would be a good idea if I made such a post whenever the 6th of a month happens to fall on a Sunday, since I only ever post on Sundays.
And… I’ll just check the calendar here and… yep, that’s OK. If we do it this way, you should still only have to put up with one or two of these kinds of posts a year at most. So it’s all good!
6 More Six-Word Stories
Posted on January 7, 2021 Leave a Comment
If you’ve been following Penstricken since it started in 2015, you may recall that on one occasion I set myself the challenge of writing 6 six-word stories using Thinkamingo’s Story Dice as stimuli. Since I am in an unoriginal sort of mood today, I’ve decided to do it again. The only difference is that this time, in addition to taking my cue from the story dice, I also intend to make each story a different genre, i.e. sci-fi, historical fiction, etc.
As before, I am using one die per story.
Suspense: A Deliberately Awful Story
Posted on January 1, 2021 Leave a Comment
Today’s short story came about as a result of a random creatively prompt provided to me by the Android app, Writer Unblocked:
In 1000 words or less, write what happens when a B-movie director gets stuck between floors in an elevator.
When I got this prompt, I couldn’t help but think that it actually sounded a bit like a B-movie about a B-movie director so naturally I thought it would be a bit of a wheeze to write it in screenplay format (or at least, as close to screenplay as I could get it; I’ve never actually written a screenplay before and WordPress has rather messed up my formatting) and give it the paper thin plot, terrible dialogue and half-naked robo-bodybuilder you would expect to find in a B-movie. My tongue was, as you might expect, firmly embedded in my cheek when I wrote this.
Christmas Eve: A Short Story
Posted on December 25, 2020 Leave a Comment
It’s Christmas on Wednesday so that can only mean one thing: it’s time for a Christmas themed short story!
Santa: Origins
Posted on December 25, 2020 Leave a Comment
Well it’s Christmas Day tomorrow, so I guess that means it’s time for a story! And what better genre than a sci-fi/horror with a festive twist.
A Fanciful Tale of Heroes and Call Centres
Posted on December 24, 2020 Leave a Comment
It’s been a while since I posted one of my own humble stories, so I’ve quickly knocked together this little bit of nonsense for your enjoyment. Unlike a lot of the stories I’ve published on the site before, this is not a rejected competition entry. I wrote it for no purpose other than to amuse myself and hopefully, dear reader, to amuse you as well. I suppose it’s best described as a fantasy (since it features heroes guilds and all that kind of stuff) but it also draws heavily on some of my own less fantastic experiences. It also happens to be a little experiment in writing a story using minimal narration; it’s almost entirely dialogue. As ever, this story is entirely my own work and has never been published anywhere else, whether online or in print. I hope you enjoy it.
Ideas from the Everyday
Posted on December 10, 2020 Leave a Comment
Not everything you write needs to be published. Therefore, it’s okay to write rubbish.
For example, a few years ago, on one particularly snowy winter, I got stuck on a bus for fifteen and a half hours on what would have normally been a twenty minute journey. The true story of what happened was pretty boring. I sat there for fifteen and a half hours, trying not to think about toilets and amusing myself by watching people building snowmen on the motorway. When I finally got home (after I had had something to eat and a good night’s sleep) I went about the business of trying to turn it into a work of fiction.
Learning From Rejection
Posted on December 6, 2020 Leave a Comment
The reason I have decided to post just one more of my own stories this year is because it’s nearly Christmas and this story does have a bit of a Christmas theme going on in it. However, rather than just giving you the story to read and expecting you to like it, I’m going use this story as an example of how writers can (and should) use their rejected stories to help them develop as writers, by analysing their own work to see how they might improve upon it.
6 Six-Word Stories
Posted on December 5, 2020 Leave a Comment
So this week I’ve challenged myself to write six six-word stories using Thinkamingo’s Story Dice as stimuli. The Story Dice is an app for Android OS which allows you to roll anything between one to ten dice with various pictures on each face. The idea is that you use these pictures to develop a story. Since I’m only writing six-word stories today, I decided to only use one dice per story.
So this week I’ve challenged myself to write six six-word stories using Thinkamingo’s Story Dice to give myself a stimulus. The Story Dice is an app for Android OS which allows you to roll anything between one to ten dice with various pictures on each face. The idea is that you use these pictures to develop a story. Since I’m only writing six-word stories today, I decided to only use one dice per story. Alea iacta est.
