Two new flash shorts for this week: The Searcher and What We Want. They’re quite different stories and both have already been submitted for publication.
I first mentioned What We Want in a blog post a couple of weeks ago. Then it was under the title Lie For Me. That’s changed because, as so often happens, the character veered off in a direction I wasn’t expecting. It hasn’t changed substantially, but enough that the title no longer made sense.
It’s a mother talking to her daughter about something that happened at school. On the surface she’s trying to be supportive, but she let’s her own shortcomings get in the way. It deals with themes of love, family and cycles of abuse. It is 690 words long.
The other short is called The Searcher, and it’s about a man who vows never to spend a birthday alone after his fiftieth turns out to be a bust. This was an experimental piece for me, writing in a very literary, pared back version of my style.
One of my favourite books is The Life of a Stupid Man by Ryunosuke Akutagawa. It’s incredible how much he does with so little. The Searcher is in that vein, 800 words split across eight different sections. The shortest – and one of the most important – is just 55 words long.
I’ll do a proper breakdown of this one once it’s published, and it’s something I’ll continue experimenting with. That includes in shorts for Leak.
Both The Searcher and What We Want are in the pipeline, so hopefully I’ll be able to share them very soon.