2023 February Flash Fiction Challenge: Day 18
Write a piece of flash fiction each day of February with the February Flash Fiction Challenge, led by Managing Editor Moriah Richard. Each day, receive a prompt, example story, and write your own. Today’s prompt is to include a flashback in your story.
As Nancy Kress says in her article here on WD's site, "the best-written flashback carries a built-in disadvantage: It is, by definition, already over." However, they can also "make plausible a character's motives … fill in events that show how the story situation reached the exciting state it's in now. And it can present crucial information that happened so long ago—years, or even decades, earlier—that there is simply no other way to include it."
For today’s prompt, include a flashback in your story.
Remember: As mentioned yesterday, these prompts are just starting points; you have the freedom to go wherever your flash of inspiration takes you.
(Note: If you happen to run into any issues posting, please just send me an e-mail at mrichard@aimmedia.com with the subject line: Flash Fiction Challenge Commenting Issue.)
Here’s my attempt at writing including a flashback:
Fool’s Errand
She is making a wedding cake for the woman she used to be in love with.
She folds blueberries into the batter as gently as a first kiss—confident but tender. The sponge comes out light but flavor-dense, like the kind of wine that’s best when shared. The buttercream is rich, creamy, gorgeous in the way that it sits imperfectly across the rounds.
The night before the wedding, her younger sister is sitting in the bakery’s kitchen, scrolling on her phone and licking cupcake batter off a spoon.
“I think you’re putting too much time into this,” her sister says, equal parts judgment and concern.
“It’s just a job,” she replies.
That night, she dreams of being 16 and skipping school to go to the beach on the first truly hot day of the year. She’s in love with her best friend, and they spend the day splashing each other in the surf and sharing the same ratty towel, getting sand all over. Then they share an ice cream and a kiss and the sun sets and—
On the day of the wedding, the woman she used to be in love with is frazzled, curlers wilting, makeup half done. A younger part of her is begging for more than the distracted hug she gets as she presents the cake for approval. Look at me, it screams, See me and what we could be.
But that day on the beach never happened; not like that, anyway. Her friend had shown up with her boyfriend as a surprise, and they’d spent the day drinking too many wine coolers and rolling around on the towel while she sat a way away, slowly burning to the point of blisters.
Later, her friend asked why she hadn’t spoken up, and she couldn’t think of a good enough answer. Silence always seemed the most painless route.
Since obtaining her MFA in fiction, Moriah Richard has worked with over 100 authors to help them achieve their publication dreams. As the managing editor of Writer’s Digest magazine, she spearheads the world-building column Building Better Worlds, a 2023 Eddie & Ozzie Award winner. She also runs the Flash Fiction February Challenge on the WD blog, encouraging writers to pen one microstory a day over the course of the month and share their work with other participants. As a reader, Moriah is most interested in horror, fantasy, and romance, although she will read just about anything with a great hook.
Learn more about Moriah on her personal website.
