2024 February Flash Fiction Challenge: Day 14
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 write a story in the second person.
We're about halfway through our challenge! How are you feeling? Energized? Fatigued? Do a check-in with yourself about what's been working for you and what hasn't been. What can you do to make the challenge easier for you?
For today's prompt, write a story in the second person.
Remember: These prompts are just starting points; you have the freedom to go wherever your flash of inspiration takes you.
(Note: If you run into any issues with posting your story, 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 a story in the second person:
Avoiding Arguments at Breakfast
You’re waking up on a Sunday morning and your partner has surprised you with cinnamon rolls. You are more of a bacon and eggs person; sugar this early sets off your anxiety, which you’re pretty sure they know.
"Try them," your partner says. "I made them just for you. I stayed up all night making perfect."
I didn’t ask you to do that, you want to say. I don’t even like cinnamon.
But you don’t want to deal with the fallout, so you eat them one by one, quick as you can, unhinging your jaw like an anaconda and swallowing bites too large for comfort, icing slipping off your fingers and sitting sticky-sweet across your cheeks. You eat until your eyes water, your stomach sits like a stone in the bowl of your gut.
"I knew you’d love them," your partner says, rosy with the high of being in charge.
And you smile and smile and smile as the sugar turns sour in the back of your mouth.
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.
