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.
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.
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
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…
Posted on February 1, 2021 Leave a Comment
One of the obvious perks to flash fiction is that you can have it written in a relatively short period of time. After all, flash fiction is usually defined as a story which is written in fewer than 1,000 words – the length of an average Penstricken post (in fact, the posts on this website often go a little over 1,000 words). Well, I manage to write these posts in a single morning most weeks so… how hard can it be to write a story of half that length, or even less?
Harder than you think. Remember, we’re not writing a poem or an essay here but a story. That involves the same basic elements common to all stories such as characters, plot and so forth.
One of the most important things to remember is…
Posted on August 20, 2020 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…
Posted on June 4, 2020 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
Posted on January 30, 2020 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.
Posted on November 7, 2019 Leave a Comment
I wrote this story earlier this year as an entry for a short story competition. Alas, I did not win and therefore was not published in print or online so I’ve put it here instead. The rules of the competition were that it was to be fewer than one hundred words long and given my frustrating tendency towards long-windedness, I thought it was worth having a go at…
Posted on September 19, 2019 Leave a Comment
Of all the flash fictions I’ve published on Penstricken over the years, I think this one is my personal favourite. I was originally inspired to write this story by the quote from Plato: ‘I am about to die, and that is the hour in which men are gifted with prophetic power’, but it quickly turned into a story about greed, family and how people face their own mortality.