How about we write some microfiction, Veeky Forums?

The velocipede clattered across the flagstones like some metal skeleton of a long ago failed and forgotten specie while the infant carried on through the air high and with wonder as though perhaps she had become a bird. Some among the number of imbibers and victual eaters of the cafe promenade had stirred from conversations and cellular telephones to notice and as there eyes stirred to the sound they caught sight of the child meet with the hardness of the flagstones and her flesh all but sundered by misadventure.

Oh okay, my thanks were sincere but didnt know how to take it, so thank you again. Drop a microfiction too if you can.

A sphere. A sphere sat right in the middle of the sky. The inhabitants came out of their homes, some of them just peeking from their windows and balconies. The sphere was so beautiful no one felt particularly distressed, everyone was marveled at its sheer perfection and smooth shape. Kids started scribbling spheres on the wall. Poems about the sphere proliferated. Oranges went way up in price. Some horrifying plastic surgeries were demanded to doctors (and performed too). One day kids scribblings started to distort, they wouldnt do perfect circles but amorphous shapes. Sphere started to get uglier day by day, hundreds of kids were impaled as a reaction by mobs of angry adults. Just before dying, one of the kids drew in his hand a perfect sphere, covered by one million spikes. As he exhaled his last breath, sun light started to get dimmer, and the remaining adults that were looking at the sky sphere covered their mouths, devoured from the inside by a particular kind of terror.

So many eyes, so little time. Come home, honey, or I'll kill the kids. Over your dead body, you say, which is exactly what I was planning anyways. Highest threat first. Oldest to youngest, I'm doing them a favor. I'm not guilty, but it is embarrassing, so I save a bullet for myself.
Is that a news van? No, it's only a cop car.

"Today is a new day," he said to himself as he wiped the dust from his sleepy eyes. He took his time in the shower, took his time brushing his teeth and getting dressed. As he did so he played through alternate realities in his head. Things he would say to beautiful women. Ways he would start his own company. How he would treat his children and the lessons he would teach them once they were born. He dreamed so much he ran late. After the 4th red light he called his boss and said he wasnt coming in. The rain never stopped for a second not until he arrived home and crept back into bed. Still wet from the disaster before him he took a double dose of sleeping pills and whispered to himself, "tomorrow is a new day."

This was me, about a night i had with a lady. Im not familiar with microfiction but i like to write and cant seem to focus enough to write anything length so this fun

The heart was to be guarded. For this purpose the man covered it with rice paper. Since rice paper is feeble, the man put the heart inside a leather case. He thought this was still a weak protection measure, so he put the encased heart into an iron coffin. Iron was good, but might be damaged so the man put then the heart inside a concrete cube of 1x1mt. Then he felt a bit more at peace, however, there was still a chance of damage, for which he took the concrete, iron, leather and paper covered heart to the bottom of the sea, where theres no light and no warmth either. He took it and put it besides a rock, just before falling asleep over the concrete cube. Numerous deep sea animals came to greet the stranger embraced to this concrete shape, staying there until his eyes dissolved back into the water.

Thomas packed his clothes into the tight binder. The coffee x2 dispenser was still plugged to the stincher, O he took some while waiting for the niglencer to prop up. He glanced through the windows lyme slicer, saw the sun setting between the two Badslaw Towers and the rush hour crisisers making the usual stuff. Coffee was kind of blue bitter but still enjoyed it.

Im fucking you as hard as i can, he said. Its not enough, she said. Im doing all i can right now, he said. I said its not enough, she said. Then lets stop im fed up with you, he said. No please never stop, she said.

Roger walked home alone. He buried all of them about 8km from his modest land. When he entered the house, they all were there: little Johnny playing with the train, Sally painting christmas postcards, Beth cooking dinner. He was doing this daily, and frankly was becoming exhausting.

I'm not gonna use today. No, I'm not--I'm not--I'm not. Has heroin made your life better? No, and don't you forget it. No, I'm not gonna--if I did, how would I do it? Stop. Grandma still has some silver in the drawer. Get a ride from Joe, hit the same pawn shop with the same wily old bastard of a broker. $45, maybe $60? Fuck, I'm not gonna use. I'm not gonna use today. Let's do it.

Sylvia had a spoon. She liked that spoon, it was a special spoon. It was one of those old cutlery spoons, heavy, had lost its old silvery sheen, but it was even more beautiful like that. It had a couple dents at the side which made her fantasize who might have done it, and also fantasize ways to torture these wrong doers.

Steve enjoyed snorting baking soda and playing pretend he was this heavy drug addict. He would go around the neighborhood kicking trash cans, speaking all loud and walking wide armed in the streets, he would also kick his houses doors and drop stuff off tables. He would do all this and more, until grandpa saw him doing his thing one day and stabbed him in the eye with a half eaten chicken leg.

Night.

These threads get worse with each iteration
Not because of the idea: it is actually quite good
No, it is because it stops being microfiction after you begin sentence number three
Condense your shit or nobody will read it
I skip any "microfiction" that takes over 10 seconds to read through and I can't be the only one seeing as the replies on them are more sparse the longer they get

And to prove it 14 of the 16 posted are too long to be micro.
The only ones which aren't are the OP and the one about being horny, and they are both still long for microfiction.
Microfiction should be a few short sentences which imply a larger or deeper story behind and causes the reader to yearn for that extended story.
If you outright give the reader that expected longer story then they will skip over it because there is nothing left wanting but the story which is too long to be micro and too short to be competent

WAS AM I
I GRUG
KNOW NOT
WHO ME WAS
ON NO DAY
FOREVER WHEN
TEN TODAY
I WENT
TO OUT
AND PLAY
GRUG NOT I
BUT I GRUG WHEN
FOR HE THEN
WENT TO FRIEND
GRUG ME NONE
NOW GRUG LOVE
GONE
FRIEND ALL DONE
GRUG LONE
DOVE
WAITING

Its a workshop. No one here does the style, everyone is trying his hand at it. Its uncommon and very difficult to pull of. With time stories should become more concise; if they keep expanding, well, better that way too. Ive seen some of those super short stories, one or two sentence stories, where the title is a sort of "clever" punchline: i hate them all. I prefer an emphasis on story than form, and a sincere deal than a half assed atempt at comedy and wit. 6 to 200 word story is a-ok here i think. Also fuck the readers.

A boy sits on a hill under Sunday night skies. He smokes a stolen cigarette, coughs, and tries to keep it together.

lacks a middle part. make me care about him.

Buump

The waters were deep. A marriage made in heaven. She swallowed all he gave her, he just enjoyed.

Thomas comes to, tucked to the chin in a half-sized bed placed at the center of a small, dimly lit room. Over his chest and between his upturned feet, a long corridor stretches yonward before him, breaking the maritimed darkwood walls of the chamber. Fully dressed all at once, beard clean and flowing grey by his chest, he leaves the bed and makes his way down the gaping hallway, right shoulder leading him in caution. All dark turns the hall as he proceeds, until it ends with a mahogany door framed by a sepian light that sounds from its edges. It swings by its hinge and Thomas brings his hands to his aching eyes as he emerges into a great goldenbright grassfield. Wincing, he waits to bear the light, and as he does, a heaving melodic hum comes to him from all around. He sees: a great choral ring at least two hundred men strong closes off his place in the field. Men, women, and children alike, they stand wallstraight and proud in lovely white dress burned gold by the warm light of the day. A great array of diverse instruments wait in their palms and at their feet, taught and brassparts gleaming: harps, trombones, hurgy-gurdies, celestes, banjos, harmonicas, cellos, flutes. Smiling at Thomas, they continue their melodic seethe in careful harmony. He proceeds forward, eyes finally adjusted, and there standing in front of him, they are. His father, looking no further than thirty years, in a pinstriped suit like a barbershop quartet, and his mother, all dressed up in an exquisite display of feathers and color, just like the Rio girls in Carnival used to be, fruited headdress towering high and brown skin glistening in the day, stand side by side before him, just as handsome and proud as Thomas remembers. He begins to totter towards them, mouth parted, and breaks into a desperate run, hands wildly reaching out. The choir's tune builds and stirs, and closer he stumbles, eyes welling up, mumbling and whimpering, and here now he's thirty feet, now twenty feet, now ten feet, and the singers all mount their instruments and the song explodes in a great bursting chorale of holy unity and play, strings shimmering and reeds revving and cymbals crashing and voices belting, and he falls in agony at his parents' feet, unable to meet their eyes, sobbing and snotting and shaking, screaming at the ground and screaming for forgiveness.

Great until "waiting for the other to scream"

Her small figure looked so delicate over the bed. The flashing lights leaked inside the room. They are taking me away, she said. Not just you, he said. She stood over the bed and shared a hug with him.

Car lights were still. Doors open. Man was reaching with his hand extended. Mute mouth. Woman was running away. Carelessly. Train settled this affair.

Scream

Stayed true. Failed miserably. But had a big tv set.

Two for it, one for me. It was Easter Sunday but neither of us were going to rise again. Sliding my back up the dumpster I lifted myself from a crouch with my legs. That dull noiseless rage seized the controls. Down the alleyway I ran towards the silhouette keeping to the side wall. It was running too, I aimed I fired, it staggered for a second then lowered further down to increase speed. The second shot missed, my vision blurred, the last thing I saw was a single cloud above me and my own blood flowing up towards it; a reversed rain.

"You wanted to be a master. You know this means you must craft your own piano from scratch." He solemnly handed back the elephant gun.

Gary was sitting doing his test. Major University, no jokes here. But he wanted to pee. Pressure just got the better of him, couldnt concentrate on anything besides his bladder fattening like a balloon ready to explode. Numbers just danced on the paper. A beautiful girl besides him just glanced, giving him some kind of smile. Ar the same time he released the flood and some of the most sonorous and chewy farts ever known to humanity.

Bumpo

I saw the Mexican again this morning. He smiled at me from the shade of the porch, yellow fangs curling out from beneath his uneven mustache.

"Amigo!" he calls out as I turn my eyes to the ground. The gold piece turns in my fingers, in the dark of my pocket, and the white eye of the sun and his gentle laughter chase me, in tandem, along the grooved path along the road.

Oh fuck, I never knew my little sister had such a big cock! What have I been missing all these years!
A year later, the man was in prison, but did not complain because he could no longer feel the rapes. He became known as Rapeman. The end.

lmao they're all fucking awful

I even burn calories sitting in class. My penes flexes to the sky and Samantha who sits beside me is impressed. Sometimes she tells the teacher to look then they send me away to show my strong penes to the principal.

Ludicrous. These words mean nothing when used so senselessly and in such close proximity. Edgy, too.

Drug use isn't compelling, either for the reader or as a character motivation. The mother's death is an expected shock that lends further insincerity.

Bad things and good things. "They were off" and a breathing city are inept cliches, but the desire to scream, pulling apart, and stillness nicely contrast the romantic first half.

Overly wrought, good prose with a poor subject. The girl's lines are interesting enough to make it an enjoyable read, but also good enough to make me not like the rest of it.

This is a good parody, if it isn't a parody then consider a new hobby.

Simple sentences make this resemble the story of a literal child. Ridiculous.

This reads like a r*ddit story. Edgy for no reason, and generic twists and shocks in place of evoking real emotion or sensory experience. Don't try so hard.

This is a takeoff on those two word horror stories that show unaware fallibility. Derivative, too aware of itself, it doesn't work. Reads as faux-autobiographical.

This reads like the one about the sphere, and has similar problems. "For this purpose" or "since" give the narrator a very direct voice, as if we're being told a story rather than reading one. It makes it flat and uninspiring.

Good imagery, created words, and sensory experience.

>oral storytelling is 'flat and uninspiring'
Literally kys

It's not an oral story, it's a story I'm being told. The syntax resembles a particularly mediocre woman describing a trip to the grocery store,

That's an oral story. Please end it now.

cant agree with half of it, but can you keep going? thank you.

Amusing, real, the "then let's stop I'm fed up with you" takes all the wind out of it. No subtlety. Short doesn't mean direct or transparent.

R*ddit story, just like the other one. Wow! He kills people but it's contrasted with an idyllic home life! Fuck off, using stock "disturbances" as a shortcut to making people feel one way, and then pairing them with average things to create disquiet is a hack move, even when it's done well.

This isn't just a critique of this story, it's something that happens again and again here and elsewhere, and it's some of the most staid trash you can find. I'm expecting at least a couple more posts, probably by different people, before I reach the end of the thread.

Is this an interior monologue? Dialogue? It's too self-aware in either case, as though the reader's the one being spoken to, or the speaker's simply being needlessly performative. Make it choppier.

LOOK. FUCKING LOOK. IT HAPPENED AGAIN.

Picaresque, I mean it. It's a better idea than it is a self-contained micro-piece though. Don't come on so hard and fast. Chicken bone takes it too far over the edge.

I'd say as long as it fits into a single post it's microfiction. If you want a hard limit, and thing under 500 words (250 to be ultra-orthodox); anything over is flash fiction.

Good story, self contained. The word "stolen" does more than others have tried to do with multiple sentences in this very thread. Adept.

This is a description, not a story. There's no narrative, no direction. If you're going to use fragments use them very deliberately instead of the casual disregard here.

Don't need a name, don't need all the description, and especially don't need all of the physical stage directions. Attempts to be revelatory end up edgy.

Don't need looked, don't need to specify "her" small figure when there are only two characters. Make them feel smaller, create a frightful intimacy.

See notes on sentence fragments. You're going for some imagist something but there's no sensory experience or even any remarkable prose.

Reads like a scene from television, or a film. Literature doesn't work that way. Avoid stage directions.

Fantastic. Change "You know..." into an order rather than a statement. Lends more impact.

This is the fourth time "beautiful" has been used in the thread. It's stock, insincere. Beauty isn't visible, it's like health. You can't see health, you see the markers of health.

Story's written as a literal joke with child-syntax.

Sure thing, bub.

>Chicken bone takes it too far over the edge.
thought the same after posting it. initially was going to be a simple fork, but i wanted some raunchyness to it. id still get the fork.

>R*ddit story, just like the other one. Wow! He kills people
actually, it was that he buried his family every day, and every day they would come back. as ghosts or something. but now that i read it, the idea just didnt come across the actual text.

Gy

thanks for the critique, I appreciate the feedback. I tend to be a very visual writer so I should be aware of how I am abusing that.
>Two for it, one for me

Told her i was paying for eternity. She said, okay, then everything was black.

John saw his mother coming through the window, so she slapped him, and this action caused him to weep and weep for hours upon hours.

The dream became a ghost, and Father too. We danced for hours, not worrying about the rising prices of soy nor the increased chance of eye-injuries-by-umbrella during rain season.

So I'm just finishing my eggs and getting ready to make a move when I hear Karen scream.
Let me tell you something. When a fellow has a two-week-old child and he hears his wife scream like that, ain't no creature gets up a set of stairs quicker'n that man.
I walk in the little bedroom and Karen is holding Lucy.
Is she OK, I ask.
Karen nods, hands me a piece of paper like it was hot.
I found this on her blanket, she says. Right on her blanket.
There's some words on the paper. Don't recognize the handwriting.

THOSE SHOES ARE NOT HERS
THEY'RE MINE

He was ready to call out the jews. Yes yes this is the day climb on a chair, clear throat... "a-user?" They will sheepishly question me ways. But i'll expose the fearful secret... And but so he went on, he was going to give a speech on the Jewish question to innocent bystanders, they'd have no other way but to become redpilled. Reality seemed to melt away before his eye, the day burst a blinding yellow as he realized fuck i'm 15 minutes late. Uhhh w-what do you mean Mr Stein? You're going to reduce my salary? O-of course that's ok.