Welcome to the one hundred and thirty-fifth in this daily series that is ‘5pm Fiction’.
Late April 2011 I discovered http://StoryADay.org and the project that is to write 31 stories in 31 days. Anyone who knows me or follows this blog, knows how passionate I am about short stories so my clichéd eyes lit up at this new marvel. And just a few days later there I was, breathing life into new characters. This went on to become (with some editing of course) my 31-story collection eBook Story A Day May 2011.
I was nearing completion of the 2012 project when I decided that I didn’t want to stop at the end of May so 5PM Fiction was born. I put a load of prompts on the 5PM Fiction page and today’s was to write a story with the following keywords (taken from http://creativecopychallenge.com, their #140): in, out, far, near, use, abuse, thrust, launch, smile, die. Here is my 200-worder.
A figure to die for
“In or out?”
“Eh?”
“Are you coming in or going out?”
“Neither.”
“Then why are you standing there?”
“’cause I’m waiting for someone. Not that it’s any of your business.”
“I was only trying to be friendly. Holding the door open.”
“You needn’t have bothered.”
“I can see that now.”
“And…?”
I was just in the mood today for an argument, and it didn’t really matter how far I went or how near to my face his was, I wasn’t going to be wrong. I didn’t want to use any violence, and I didn’t think it would come to that, but I wasn’t going to take any abuse from a thug like him. Shaved head or otherwise.
He thrust his hands into his pockets. They didn’t look deep enough to hold anything dangerous.
I was on my way to a friend’s book launch so didn’t really have much time to spare but didn’t want to leave. But he was ignoring me and looking in the opposite direction. I followed his gaze and my heart nearly stopped when I saw who he was waiting for; a girl slightly older than him with an award-winning smile and a figure to die for.
***
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Unfortunately, as I post an interview a day (amongst other things) I can’t review books but I have a feature called ‘Short Story Saturdays’ where I review stories of up to 2,500 words. Alternatively if you have a short story or self-contained novel extract / short chapter (ideally up to 1000 words) that you’d like critiqued and don’t mind me reading it / talking about and critiquing it (I send you the transcription afterwards so you can use the comments or ignore them) 
on my ‘Bailey’s Writing Tips’ podcast, then do email me. They are fortnightly episodes, usually released on Sundays, interweaving the recordings between the red pen sessions with the hints & tips episodes. I am now also looking for flash fiction (<1000 words) for Flash Fiction Fridays and poetry for Post-weekend Poetry.
