My Stories | Penstricken

100 Word Story: Popping Off

Posted on March 19, 2021 Leave a Comment

It’s time I subjected you all to another one of my under-performing flash fictions I nevertheless believe in.

100 Word Story: The Secret of Sig. Pieroni’s Pizza

Posted on March 11, 2021 Leave a Comment

It occurred to me that a takeaway restaurant could make a lot of money if only the owner had exclusive and discreet access to a time machine, thus allowing him to deliver food promptly no matter how busy a night he was having. However, I neglected to actually show you the story that came about as a result of that plot bunny.

100 Word Story: Little Thieves Are Hanged

Posted on March 3, 2021 Leave a Comment

What follows here is entirely my own work and has not been published anywhere else in the world, whether on print or online, nor do I expect it to be. And so, without further ado, I give you, LITTLE THIEVES ARE HANGED by. A Ferguson

100 Word Story: The Monster

Posted on February 23, 2021 Leave a Comment

I recently entered a couple of stories into the National Association of Writers’ Groups 100 Word Mini-Tales competition. Suffice it to say I didn’t win, but since I believed in the potential of every one of the stories I entered, it seemed only fitting to try and publish them elsewhere. I selected this one to publish here on Penstricken after the winners of the competition were announced. The rest, I’ve submitted to other places.

As ever, what follows here is entirely my own work and has not been published anywhere else in the world, whether on print or online. And so, without further ado, I give you…

6 ‘Six Word Stories’ for the 6th (vol. II)

Posted on February 20, 2021 Leave a Comment

Those of you who have been following this site for a while (God bless you, patient and forbearing people) will know that I have taken to posting 6 ‘six word stories’ whenever the 6th of a month happens to fall on a Sunday. Well it just so happens that today is Sunday 6th August, and so it’s time for another exciting instalment of 6 ‘Six Word Stories’ for the 6th.

You probably know the rules by now. I roll six Story Dice and I write a six word story loosely based upon whatever image is displayed on each die, starting from the top left (you can check out my previous efforts here, here and here). As ever, the following stories are entirely my own work.

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.