Living the Fictional Dream

Good morning, world!

It’s an especially good morning today, because my flash piece, “A Million Faces,” is the story-of-the-day over at Every Day Fiction. If you haven’t read that story yet this morning, I suggest that you go read it before you read the rest of this blog entry — especially if you don’t like spoilers (and with flash, how much is there to spoil?).

This story was inspired by a single sentence. If you’ve read the story, you’ll understand how crucial this sentence is to the main character’s big problem. How many secret identities does one girl need?

That sentence spoke to me of the story of a girl who could have any face she wants, but who has been living as other people for so many years that she’s lost her true face. It spoke to me of a girl who used her power for what she thought she wanted, and lost so much more in the process. It also spoke to me of a shape-shifter who uses her ability to reel in the criminals.

All those themes ended up in the story; sadly, that actual sentence, did not. Somehow, in the final version, that sentence didn’t actually fit.

That happens more often than not, I think. There’s that phrase, “cut your darlings.” It’s those scenes, exchanges, sentences that you really love that you have to be willing to cut — and it seems you end up cutting them more often than not.

The story ending up going in a slightly different direction than originally conceived. First it was going to be more of an action story, as she used her ability to catch criminals, but the story changed a bit on me. Got more serious, more angsty. The best stories do that.

I won’t spoil the ending of this story here. This story has gotten a lot of comments, from readers and from the EDF acceptance letter, saying that people enjoyed the twist at the end. Since twist endings aren’t always my forte, I don’t want to give it away here. You should read it for yourself. And then vote on the story and, if you really want to, leave a comment there.

Happy reading, all! And once you’ve done that, go out and enjoy this lovely fall morning!