Two Short Story Sales
I've finally found homes for two of my StoryADay 2018 tales: "Monochromatic Mandate" will be published by Factor Four Magazine this summer, and "Absolute Magnitude" will be available to read at the end of the week, courtesy of Theme of Absence.
"Monochromatic Mandate" is a satirical look at politics and social media in the near future while "Absolute Magnitude" is my attempt at doing what you're never supposed to do in flash fiction: cram a novel's worth of story into four pages. So maybe it's anti-flash fiction...
Besides being extra-short, what qualifies as flash? It tells a story with a beginning, middle, and end; there is some sort of character development; every word counts; and the focus is on one scene. To make things interesting, I usually try to keep my flash-sized stories at exactly 1,000 words, adding and cutting as necessary.
It's a great exercise for writers, and as an added bonus, flash fiction is an engaging way to capture the imagination of new readers. Who doesn't have four minutes to spare?