My Usual: The Snow Micro Challenge

First up: My Musings

My main hope, as always, is that the entries that place hit the brief.

Microfiction is hard. I'm doing it every day, and I still think that several of those efforts probably don't hold up to a strict definition of microfiction. I think they do (of course, that's why I posted them), but I am biased aren't I? I'm too close. I'm probably wrong at least some of the time. I might be wrong about some of my challenge entries as well.

A fiction story needs to have certain features. Things like beginning, middle, and end twist. Sure, you can cut corners and shave bits off. Microfiction is all about paring it down wherever possible. Squeezing every word, and making it do the maximum amount of heavy lifting. Hinting at things, letting the reader fill in some gaps.

But like a lot of rules in writing, there's some wiggle room. You can bend the rules, if you do it well. For example, you can cut off the beginning (in media res).

I don't think an explicit ending is completely necessary either. For example, when the camera pans away from the couple kissing in the hotel room, and maybe there's a shot of waves rolling in and out on the beach below, we know what that is. We didn't need it in explicit 4K detail and dolby surround for the story to be complete. Some of you pervs and Game of Thrones fans (hi!) might prefer the in-your-face option, but it's a stylistic choice, isn't it? The story is still whole either way.

You can chop the heck out of it, but when you're done, it still needs to be a story. Not a set up, not a scene. There needs to be change. Conflict, success, death, escape.

Not to put too fine a point on it, something has to happen.

My Entries

There were over 600 entries in this challenge, if I've counted right. Eight of them were mine. Here they are, oldest to newest. Buckle up!

The Snowman

Joy at the Top of the Hill

Blood on Snow

Snow Angel

Revenge of the Snowman

Snow Golem

Cragfast

Panthera Uncia

I don't want to give you a synopsis for these individually, because it will just be a spoiler-fest.

The Snowman, Revenge of the Snowman, and Snow Golem all work together, but also (I think) work as stand-alone stories. The first two being two parts of the same story, and the third being from a different perspective.

"Joy" is based on a true story, but not something I saw first-hand.

Cragfast is just a spectacular word, and I wanted to make a story around it.

Shout-outs

Here are a few of my favourite entries. It's not an exhaustive list by any stretch. I would be very happy if you would go and show them some love 😁

Lynx Crossing by Lana V Lynx

Telltale crimson trail by Raymond G. Taylor

Fresh Eyes, First Snow by The Dani Writer

Winter Walk by Laura Lann

Please Find Me by Mohammed Darasi

Hunted by Sian N. Clutton

Into the Snow by Rachel Deeming

Unicorn and the Village by JBaz

Jack Rollins by Kenny Penn

Previous Challenges

I did the same for previous challenges. Here are the last two:

The Abecedarian Challenge

The Misplaced Challenge:

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Thank you for reading! If you entered this challenge, GOOD LUCK!

I've done my best to read as many as possible, but I know I have missed some. If I haven't seen your submission, please link to it in the comments for me, or link to someone else's that you think is especially good.