Behind the Scenes of “Special Delivery”

As you may have seen, my latest story was published in this month’s issue of Splickety. And to follow up, I wanted to share a brief behind the scenes look at how “Special Delivery” came together.

Like other stories for Splickety, this one started with a theme, which was “Christmas abroad.” I personally have always been in the U.S. at Christmastime, so drawing inspiration from real life was out. I did want to make sure there was some type of conflict in the course of the story, but without much familiarity with other countries’ Christmas customs, I wasn’t sure what to work with. Fortunately, I do have experience with an obstacle that can easily be translated anywhere else in the world: running late for a flight.

Splickety emphasizing YA in its imprint this year, combined with the abroad theme, meshed perfectly in the idea of a couple students returning from a semester abroad. In this respect, the story was loosely inspired by real life, since I also gave my brother a Venetian mask after visiting Italy in college. It was also convenient that the different language offered an easy way to incite action (by realizing that the book wasn’t in English).

One area of inaccuracy probably lies in how I portray the airport. I spent … an unreasonable amount of time trying to figure out what shops exist in the Leonardo Da Vinci airport. And my story probably makes it sound a lot bigger than it actually is (as near as I can tell, it just has three terminals). And I really doubt that there are souvenir carts with Venetian masks in the terminal. And I can’t even say that they sell Venetian carnival masks anywhere besides … Venice. BUT all of that seemed more believable than the idea that anyone would leave the airport to find a gift that close to their plane leaving.

In fact, the first draft of this story gave the guys way too much time to get back to their plane. At first, I was concerned about keeping things realistic. But as I read through, I realized that the realism was detracting from the tension. So I kept scaling back the time they had to get back to their gate. Ideally, you shouldn’t have to choose between realism and tension. But if you do, always go with tension. Maybe Nathan’s just really bad with time management.

Regarding the end of the story, I think this is the first time I’ve had a total scene break in a flash fiction piece. I toyed with introducing the mask in the airport and ending the story there, but I think it works better as it’s being opened on Christmas day. This also helped address the issue that the bulk of the story doesn’t have that much to do with Christmas (other than the conceit of looking for a gift). Overall, I think the scene break worked, though I think it’s best to avoid them when possible if a story is less than 1000 words.

Overall, “Special Delivery” was another great writing exercise. It felt quite normal to be writing a Christmas story in August/September, because I’m doing the same stuff at work, haha. If you’re interested in reading it in a collection of fun, short Christmas stories to celebrate the season, make sure you get your copy (of the last issue) of Splickety today!

“Special Delivery” Published!

Hooray! My latest short story, “Special Delivery,” can now be read in this month’s issue of Splickety. This month’s theme is “Christmas abroad,” and my story is about a couple of college students about to head home after a semester in Italy … until a last-minute revelation threatens to ruin their flight home.

This story’s publication is just a tad bittersweet, because this is also the last issue of Splickety. I’ve really enjoyed writing flash fiction pieces to submit to them for the past few years. And I’ve tremendously appreciated all the stories they’ve accepted and the opportunity to work with their editors. Fortunately, two new publishers are spinning off from its closure (Havok and Spark). So I’m looking forward to the chance to submit to them in the upcoming year.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. First, Christmastime! So if you’re looking for a few flash fiction stories to get you in the holiday spirit (and maybe transport you around the world), check them out in the December issue of Splickety.

Hard copy & digital: http://www.magcloud.com/browse/issue/1533847

Kindle edition: http://a.co/d/bSm2i7H

Behind the Scenes of “The Birthday Party”

In case you haven’t seen the latest news, I had another flash fiction piece published this month. It’s called “The Birthday Party,” is available in print/digital and on Kindle, and is my first published romance story. And this is a brief glimpse at how it came to be.

As with all of my stories submitted to Splickety, it started with their theme for the month. Specifically “The ‘Aww’ Factor” for their Spark (romance) imprint. This prompt asked writers to incorporate animals or kids into a romance story—and make it really sweet.

When I started brainstorming, I thought people would be more likely to use animals in their stories, so I decided to try to involve kids (if you check out the issue, you’ll see it turned out to be a 50/50 split). Trying to come up with scenarios that would put a kid and single adult in the same situation eluded me for a while. The college student attending a cousin’s birthday party angle eventually came to me, but my original story had a lot more setup explaining just how reluctantly she came to the party.

With the family relationship established between Julie and Emma, I still needed to come up with a reason for the love interest to attend. Obviously, he couldn’t also be family. Even if he was friend of the family, I thought it would be a stretch for a non-related college student to come to a eight-year-old’s birthday party. I wasn’t sure about going the teacher route because I thought a lot of submissions with kids would use that angle, so I think him technically just being an education major rather than a fully-fledged teacher helped him stand out.

As for the plot, I originally thought the story would be mostly conversation-driven. I expected to have them talk about college, flirt a little, and eventually decide to go out. But when I finally reached the point of them actually meeting, I looked at my word count and thought Um, I don’t have enough space for that.

So I introduced the water fight as a way for a lot to “happen” without having to describe it all. Even with this, it clocked in significantly over the 700 words I usually shoot for. I looked for places to cut, but figured that any cuts would just make the storytelling cut corners. The water fight went through a few iterations before landing on the idea that Julie really wasn’t that jazzed about it, but saw it as a chance to spend more time with Tim.

Writing a satisfying ending was rough, but I’m ultimately happy with how it turned out. Previous submissions to Spark had impressed on me the importance of feeling like the relationship would head somewhere after the story ended. But I also wasn’t sure if an hour hanging out at a kid’s birthday party would realistically feel like a good occasion to ask someone out. Both because of this uncertainty and word restraints, I decided to leave things with a brief, flirty exchange predicated on the time spent with the kids.

Of course, I couldn’t talk about behind the scenes of this story without mentioning editor Leslie McKee. Her comments helped me better understand what readers expect from flash fiction romance—for example, peppering hints of interest throughout the story, and not just toward the end. I was really thankful to have her direction in polishing the story up before publication.

And that’s how I wrote “The Birthday Party!” I hope you liked this glimpse behind the scenes of how it came together. Any other questions on this little romance story? Feel free to drop them in the comments.