I ended up enrolling in the contest again this year, and have finished the two stories for the first round. I did not make it into the next round, which is ongoing this weekend, so I decided to go ahead and post the stories I have done.
For those that don’t know, the Flash Fiction Challenge is a yearly writing contest where writers are given a prompt to complete over the course of a weekend. The challenge is that it is a 1000 word count limit since it is flash fiction. Last year I did fairly well but did not proceed to the last round.
Anyhow, the first round’s challenge for my group was to write a thriller that takes place at a costume party and an item that must show up is a bucket. I always struggle with thrillers. There were a lot of details I ended up having to cut from what I wrote, and I feel like I would like to revisit the story to add all the details back in without worrying about the word count. This story was definitely the weakest of the two, and I worried about even scoring any points for it at all – I wasn’t sure if I had stayed within the genre. It placed low, but did still score 6 points. The title is Bucketguard.
“My son is one of the top researchers for my company,” Crandall Ward had said two days earlier, his voice bursting with pride. “He’s been studying preserving memory electronically, and he’s on the edge of a major breakthrough. There are those that would want to steal that knowledge… and others that would want to put a stop to it.”
“Why’s that?” Eliza had asked.
“Imagine being able to eventually bring a person back from the dead in a new prosthetic body, or even allowing them to continue their life in a simulation. Effectively, he’s on the edge of human immortality. There have been… threats. But he’s set on attending this social function.”
“And that’s why you contacted us?” Frank had said.
Ward nodded. “You came highly recommended.”
Jonathon’s only request was that his bodyguards blend in as guests. Since this was a costume party, that meant costumes.
Now, before the party, Frank watched the dog onesie’s plastic eyes slowly transition over him from toe to top, and felt the prescience of a headache build slowly in his temple. “That,” said Eliza, “is your costume? You’re wearing a bucket.”
“I improvised.”
The dog shook its head, placing paws to hips. “I hope it’s clean.”
“It’s new.” It was a metal bucket with pieces cut out to form a smiley face. The holes had been lined with tinted vinyl and foam lining inside made it comfortable to wear.
“If you had time to buy a bucket, why not just buy a costume?”
“I don’t know where to get a costume in April.”
“You could order one online?” Eliza knew the answer to that, so Frank didn’t bother responding. He detested doing anything online. Frank relied on contacts and word of mouth for his bodyguard service. And the periods of idleness between gigs was starting to lengthen. Eliza liked Frank, but she suspected that if she didn’t move on, she’d find herself staying out of loyalty. And loyalty didn’t pay bills.
They met Jonathon at his laboratory and rode with him in his limousine to the party, which was being held at the lavish mansion of a young socialite named Lisa. Lisa had been a friend of Jonathon’s from middle school. Jonathon was dressed as a cat, and on the way he and Eliza bantered over whether cats or dogs were better. Once there, Frank and Eliza moved into different spots, mingling in the background and always keeping Jonathon in sight. Jonathon settled onto a couch with a drink and their host, conversing like old friends.
Frank frowned. The party seemed to be ending rather than starting – there were people leaving, and the catering was being cleared away. Despite that, Lisa’s security detail – all black clad men – seemed to be increasing. Since there wasn’t much of a crowd to mingle in, Frank moved himself closer to the edge of the room and stepped into a darkened hallway. From the very edge of his limited vision, he noted that he was being shadowed.
Trusting Eliza to keep an eye on Jonathon, Frank crossed the hallway and found a doorframe to step into. The shadowy figure following him walked past. Frank stepped forward and put the man, dressed like a member of Lisa’s security, into a choke hold. The man struggled, but Frank maintained his grip until the movements stopped. Discarding the bucket, he moved back into the party room.
Which was empty. Frank stood for one dumbfounded moment until he heard shouting and what sounded like a fight breaking out. Across from his doorway was another, leading back into the hallway they had arrived in originally. Frank ran into that hallway in time to see the vestiges of a dog onesie slide into another room at the end.
Following, Frank heard Eliza shouting. He saw the dog lift one of its paws and gunfire followed, the bullets ripping through the fabric with ease. Eliza was shooting at a man exiting the room through French doors leading outside – Frank could see the raised gun in his hands as he fell. Frank pulled his own pistol out and moved forward, hearing Eliza cursing up a storm as she followed.
Outside, they saw five black-clad men pushing Lisa and Jonathon forward toward the edge of the property. Frank started to raise his gun, but Eliza slapped at him as she ran past. “You’ll hit your client, dumbass.” Frank huffed and followed after, lowering his shoulder as he prepared for a tackle. He watched Eliza fly in with a devastating kick to take out one of the men holding Jonathon, before swinging around to land a series of punches on the other. Frank shifted his target as he saw one of the others reach for a weapon. He tackled that man, rolling over him as they both hit the ground. Frank wrested the gun from his opponent and hit him in the head with a satisfying crack.
Twisting, he shot one of the other opponents in the leg. The gunfire spooked the others and they ran off. Jonathon looked up at Frank, dazed, cat ears missing, and took a proffered hand after a moment. “Lisa? Are you all right?”
“She should be,” Frank said, “Since she set this up.”
“What do you…!?” Studying the expressions on their faces, seeing a sense of realization wash over Jonathon’s face, Lisa lifted her chin defiantly and stopped speaking.
“Why?” Jonathon asked.
“What you’re doing is an affront to God.”
“Let’s go,” Eliza said, placing an arm on Jonathon’s shoulder and steering him toward the front of the mansion. Once his limo was pulling away, Eliza pulled the dog head off, shaking her blonde hair out. “What happened to the bucket?”
“It hindered my vision.”
Jonathon was staring at Eliza, slack jawed. Frank raised an eyebrow and Jonathon cleared his throat. “I guess my father was right, about me needing protection,” he said. “I don’t suppose the two of you are looking for a more permanent job?”
The feedback from the judges this time around was very long, which I found quite helpful. A lot of the issues come from the way that I chose to edit the story – the original version would have cleared up some instances of confusion, but in order to quickly get the needed information into the 1000 word slot, I did a lot of fumbled editing. I do find the request for more details to be encouraging, because I had wanted there to be many more details, so I found all of the feedback to be quite fair. Following is the feedback:
”Bucketguard” by Mary O’Doherty – WHAT THE JUDGES LIKED ABOUT YOUR STORY – {2039} Your costuming for your protagonists was whimsical, and the image of a bullet exploding from a dog’s paw rather hilarious. {1846} This story gripped me right from the start – Crandall’s dialogue is not only realistic/believable, but it also introduces tension and potential conflict, drawing the reader in quickly. Indeed, the dialogue throughout is stellar, and helps, also, to reveal the characters. I was very intrigued by Jonathon’s research and the early presence of bodyguards in the narrative. Great work providing small details that additionally help to flesh out the characters, such as how Frank “detested doing anything online” and “relied on contacts and word of mouth.” With such a short amount of space to develop characters, it’s the little details like these that bring the characters to life. Similarly, I loved the single sentences that, in such a short space, create a tense mood or atmosphere – such as how Frank notices the black clad men increasing, despite the party seeming to be coming to an end. Excellent work creating believable action scenes. {1597} I thought the concept of the digitized memory and someone who thought this was an affront to God was a compelling premise for the story. I liked the dog and cat costumes you described and how it lead to a debate about the actual animals. I liked how Jonathon offered the two a job at the end of the story, which was a nice way to end it. WHAT THE JUDGES FEEL NEEDS WORK – {2039} You seemed not a particular point of view for your story. It seems most appropriately to be third person omniscient, but winds up feeling more like third person limited, except it skips haphazardly back and forth between Eliza and Frank. Be careful not to dizzy your readers by changing your subject of focus too often. Consider the character you find the most interesting. Follow them! Suspense and action are important in the thriller genre. While you took a solid stab at suspense, your action may have been a bit lacking. For example, Eliza ‘flying in with a devastating kick’ doesn’t say as much as you’d like. How does she leap? Where does she land? I would have liked to hear more about her hand to hand combat than ‘a series of punches’. Frank’s scuffle on the ground could have also been more sensuously described. {1846} If you’d like to continue working with this story, there are just a couple places that could possibly use some clarification. I had expected for Jonathon to be a more central character to the story, since the story opens with a lot of information about him. But I think the story is ultimately about Frank – he is the main character here. This is another small fix that could be done a number of ways, but one example is to have Frank verbally respond to Crandall first (vs Eliza) and have some kind of internal thought/reaction/response. This is a very small detail, but I felt somewhat confused about the following sentence and could not quite picture it clearly: “Frank watched the dog onesie’s plastic eyes slowly transition over him from toe to top” – what I don’t quite see is how the plastic eyes look or observe. I mention it because it did stop me for a while in my reading, trying to picture the costume. I had a little curiosity about Lisa and how she and Jonathon had managed to stay in contact since childhood – this isn’t something that needs to be “fixed” by any means, I think the explanation that they knew each other from way back when is enough to explain why she’s hosting the party, but as a reader I did find myself curious to know more about that, if even the information is given in a single line. {1597} The names Eliza and Lisa are a little too similar, so I would try to make them more different. While you have a lot of action in the story, it is described very matter-of-factly, almost from a distance, for example, “Twisting, he shot one of the other opponents in the leg.” Try to make it more immediate and connected to the emotions and experiences of the characters, rather than using such a bird’s eye view of the events.
mehryment 