Day 231 Writing Short Stories

Simple

The jab made him step back. It had come fast and sharp against his lower ribs. He could still hear the sound it had made against his sweaty body. It had been like a whip—a whip with a ring that had drawn blood. There was a deep cut on his lower rib.

The snarky bastard took a step forward again, dancing around him, thinking he was more clever than he was because of his size. The man laughed at him and gestured to the crowd to cheer him on. He chanted about his size and slowness. How dumb his face looked. And said the one word that made him always see red: simple. Thus far, he had been willing to let the bastard walk away unscathed, but now there would be a price to pay.

He let the man come again, waiting for him to stop fooling around and fight. The man danced around him, hopping from one foot to another, thinking he was confusing him. Then the man launched, but this time he was too slow. He had been watching the man’s dance and patterns, and he favored his right side and low, fast movements.

He grasped the man’s forearm and locked it in his, drawing it tight against his body. With one simple move, he could snap the man’s elbow for good. The man tried to struggle against him, searching for space between them. He didn’t let him. He kept the man in place, pressed against his sweaty muscles.

He lowered his head until it was at the level of the man’s ear. “Slow, eh? Simple, eh?” he whispered. “I guess even a slow one can kill.”

The crowd roared in response. They were after blood, but not his. This time it was for the dancing fool. He could deliver it, but he wasn’t a moron. The man was a noble-born and his family would come and seek revenge if he killed him. They might come either way if he let the son of a bitch walk, but at least he would walk out of here alive. It had to count for something.

Lizard

The towering jungle rose high above him. The screams of the apes echoed around him as he crawled onward, trying not to be seen. He was hunting the most dangerous animal in the world, the dinosaur. But he feared not. He was the most skilled hunter there was. He was agile, smart, and stealthy.

He gritted his teeth and held his breath as he snatched the dinosaur into his hands as softly as he could, so that it wouldn’t drop its tail.

He lifted from the grass, looking around him, trying to search for his mother amongst the other parents sitting far off from the kids running around the playground. When he found her, he dared to return to his mission and glance into his hands. The little lizard nestled between his palms, unsure of what had happened to it.

He smiled and put his hands back together. He had hidden a jar in his mother’s bag. The dinosaur was coming home with them.

Idol

A girl meets her idol at the most embarrassing moment of her life. I skipped this one.

The prompts are from the book A Year of Creative Writing Prompts.

Holy space cows, I really need to practice writing fighting scenes. It is not my strong suit. Maybe I should add more fight scenes to my prompts. Even when I struggled with every word, every image, I still had a fun time writing Simple. It is decided; I want to master fight scenes.

What I find hard in writing the fight scenes is getting the flow of movement and images in the readers’ heads so they can follow the fight as it is happening and make sense of it. Then, the second thing I find hard is that even one wrong word or concept can break the immersion, putting so much pressure on the writing. Lastly, I’m not very good at writing long fight scenes. I’m too matter-of-fact, and the fight scenes are over before they start. But I think I can learn to write them better; I just need to practice and repeat.

Thank you for reading ❤ Have a fantastic day!