May 2024 Furious Fiction
Every month, the Furious Fiction Flash contest challenges writers worldwide to write a 500-word flash story in roughly 55 hours.
May 2024 prompt’s criteria:
Your story must take place on an IMPORTANT DATE from the past 50 years – i.e. from May 1974 onwards. (See below for more details.)
Your story must include a character who builds something.
Your story must include the words ENOUGH, CHASE and MISTAKE.
I like a lot of things about this contest. For starters, it’s free and recurring. Second, it’s fast — five hundred words over a weekend. Third, the contest attracts 600+ entries from people worldwide, so it’s fun to see what people come up with. And fourth, I longlisted in January 2024, which makes me only want to try that much harder.
Once the winners are announced, I’ll post more! Stay tuned!
It’s May 29, 2024. My story, Drowning Under a Summer Sun, didn’t place in the contest, but I still had a good time writing it.
The story takes us back to August 30, 2005, in New Orleans, the day after Katrina hit and when the levees broke. Flood water pushed people out of their homes or drowned those who were trapped within them.
The central character in my story is a young man, Malik. He suffers from a gunshot wound received after looting a local grocer. He’s contracted an infection and is dying. In his last moments, he remembers his sister.
I think it’s a good story, and I’ll try using it elsewhere.
Onward and upward!
R
