My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This was a great read. Hot and steamy without being so focused on the erotic elements that it neglected the plot. I was pleasantly surprised at the depth and intricacy of the conflict that is so often missing in erotic romance, where hook-ups are often the whole point of the anemic storyline. Nice bit of mystery and suspense here to make the relationship that much more important and satisfying.
Well done and worth the read.
Congrats to Allison Mosier, @Slytherin_Pixie this week’s 5MinuteFiction WINNER! I love stories like this one, a new spin on a fairy tale. It’s even cooler that she was able to do so in such a short space. Love it. Congrats Allison!
Here’s her winning entry for you to enjoy!
She’d always loved lilies. But the fairy tale would remember it as an apple.
She was completely unsuspecting as she took the flower the old woman offered. Erica ran her fingertips along the petals before putting it to her nose to inhale the fragrance. That was when she knew something was wrong, when the scent wasn’t quite right. She looked down at the quickly shriveling flower before her legs gave out under her, sending her to the ground. The crone stood over her as her breath stilled, eyes went dim. She heard some sort of taunt about true love’s kiss, but what did it matter?
Who cares about true love when you’re dead?
No sentence today, just a one word prompt like we used to do all the time. I like going back to that now and again. How did you like it? In any case, you did an amazing job with it again. Fantastic entries!
Thanks again to our judge, Jessica Olin, @olinj, for tackling the difficult task of picking only five entries for our finalists. And here they are:
Allison Mosier, @Slytherin_Pixie
Congrats all! Their entries are below along with a poll for you to vote in and decide this week’s WINNER! Be back tomorrow morning at 9:00 Eastern to find out who wins!
“What is that smell?”
Margaret moved carefully through the apartment, walking like she was taught at the academy. They were the second on the scene, and it was critical that nothing be disturbed before forensics showed up. Her partner followed close behind, and she could hear him sniffing the air, trying to catch it. She was amazing he couldn’t smell it, even through the copper twinge from all the blood. It was cloying, and reminded her of Easter at her grandmother’s. Of her Aunt’s perfume, and her mother’s funeral. Her walking stopped as she hit the doorway to the bedroom, she found the source of the smell and the body. Both of which had begun to rot. The victim lay naked on her bed, arms folded across her chest. She was surrounded by a ring of white, rotting lily’s. Margaret could tell each flower was placed gently and lovingly around the dead girl. This moved the murder into a whole new light.
The puckered bud broke along it’s lines, revealing deep red anthers. It was all the old woman could see through the tiny opening. She tipped her can over the soil beneath the bud and then kissed it’s golden yellow tip.
“You are beautiful, my darling.”
“Thank you, mother!”
The woman dropped the can in alarm. She looked over her shoulder, but there was no one in the tiny house with her. Shaking cold water from her slipper, she bent to mop up the spill. Where had that voice come from? It had been high pitched, like a child’s.
As she rose, she narrowly missed hitting her head on the sill where her potted lily perched. The bloom had opened further. There, where the pistil should have been, was a tiny skinny child with three tufts of golden yellow hair, one falling to the back of her face and one to each of the two sides.
“Who are you?”
“I’m yours!”
Lilies always were her favorite. She spoke of them often, and her face would light up whenever I gave her even one as a gift. She delighted in their gently arcing petals, in the sweet smells that softly floated on any breeze that brushed them. We always had them. In the garden, on the table, they were a constant presence in our life.
Lilies always were her favorite. I still bring them to her. Every week I can find them, even just one, I bring them and lay them on the ground at the foot of her stone. There the petals look to droop in mourning. The flowers know where they are, and they weep. Their delicate fragrance is now the smell of death. It fills my car as I drive the flowers to her, the scent lingers no matter how far I open the windows.
It accuses me.
The lilies know she is dead. And they know what I did. I cannot look at them without their little heads drooping, refusing to meet my eyes. The velvety petals sting on my fingers if I brush them. And the smell lingers still.
But still I bring them. Because they were her favorite. Maybe one day they will forgive me. And maybe soon after I can forgive myself.
“Look at all of those flowers,” Jason said in a loud whisper. “Those are lilies!”
“How do you know?” Michael asked.
“My mom told me about them.”
“Big deal,” Ryan said, “just because she has flowers growing in her yard doesn’t mean she’s a witch.”
“But I heard that witches bury the remains of children under lilies. That’s why they have so many!”
“Do they really?” Michael asked, his eyes growing larger by the minute.
“That is just an old wives tale,” Ryan said.
“No it’s not!” Jason objected. “You can see the blood from the bodies because it seeps up through the roots of the flower and makes those little speckles on the top.”
“That’s stupid,” Ryan said.
“No it’s not!” Michael insisted. “I tell you I heard it from—“
“That is not stupid,” a female voice suddenly said. All three boys froze in terror as the face of Ms. Jones peered at them over the fence. “But actually, witches first burn the bodies and then spread the ashes in the flower garden. Much better way to hide the evidence.” She glanced over her shoulder as she spoke.
All three boys followed her gaze and saw that she had fire burning in an old, metal drum in her back yard.
“Would you boys like some lemonade,” she asked.
That was the last time they tried to spy on Mrs. Jones.
Allison Mosier, @Slytherin_Pixie
She’d always loved lilies. But the fairy tale would remember it as an apple.
She was completely unsuspecting as she took the flower the old woman offered. Erica ran her fingertips along the petals before putting it to her nose to inhale the fragrance. That was when she knew something was wrong, when the scent wasn’t quite right. She looked down at the quickly shriveling flower before her legs gave out under her, sending her to the ground. The crone stood over her as her breath stilled, eyes went dim. She heard some sort of taunt about true love’s kiss, but what did it matter?
Who cares about true love when you’re dead?
5MinuteFiction Week 84 - Who WINS?
Total Voters: 24
Loading ...What is 5MinuteFiction, you say? It’s an adrenaline-fueled, instant-gratification sort of writing contest. Sound fun? Great! Get in there and get dirty!
The Rules
* You get five minutes to write a piece of prose or poetry in any style or genre
* You must directly reference today’s prompt: lily (the flower, not a proper name)
(Note: The prompt is above. The picture is for decoration/inspiration.)
* Post your entry as a comment to this post.
I’ll close the contest at 12:45. That gives you 5 minutes to write and ten to accommodate the vagaries of relative time, technology, and the fickle internets. If you are confused or just want to whine, feel free to email me.
At the close of the contest, this week’s guest judge, Jessica Olin, @olinj will nominate five finalists.
I’ll put the nominees in a poll, and at 9:00 EDT tomorrow I’ll close the poll and declare the winner.
For updates, you can subscribe to my RSS Feed, “like” my Facebook Page, or follow me on twitter. Or follow us on twitter with the #5MinuteFiction hashtag.
What’s the prize? Well, nothing, obviously. But we’ll all agree to tweet and/or blog about the winner of today’s contest so their fame and fortune will be assured.
A Few Notes:
* In the interest of time and formatting, it’s best to type straight into the comment box or notepad. It’s also smart to do a quick highlight and copy before you hit “post” just in case the internets decide to eat your entry. If your entry doesn’t appear right away, email me. Sometimes comments go into the suspected spam folder and I have to dig them out.
* I reserve the right to remove hate speech or similar but I’m not too picky about the other stuff.
* This is all for fun and self-promotion. So be sure to put your twitter handle at the end of your post and a link to your blog if you have one.
Over the past two years I’ve tried to be a good little author and read things I “should” not just the things that I’d have picked as no more than a for-pleasure reader. I’m glad I’ve done this. I’ve run across some gems I would otherwise have missed, and I’ve learned things from some absolute stinkers I really wish I had missed.
One thing I’ve learned, is that some things that I simply hate in a book aren’t necessarily wrong, they’re just not my style. (Some of them I think SHOULD be wrong, but they don’t let me make the rules.) Does this happen to you? Well reviewed books that just leave you flat for a reason you can actually pin down and say ‘this is what ruined the book for me’?
Here’s one I’ve encountered in several books lately:
Internal monologue. (Just for clarification, we’re talking about third person POV here, not the internal narration of first person POV.)
Not that I think it’s always a bad thing. Clever and very, very sparing use (as in once or twice in the entire book) works really well for me. That one, brief contradictory or sardonic thought in the middle of a scene where it’s important or enlightening to know that the POV character is thinking something you can’t get from body language or that just works so much better in a quick snippet can make a whole scene.
Ex: He said what?
versus
John couldn’t believe Jim had said such a thing.
Depending on the mood, voice, character, the internal monologue there can be exactly what you need rather than the longer explanation that carries much less of an impact.
That said:
I genuinely hate, no, despise regular internal monologue, especially when it’s used for exposition. To me, it’s the worst kind of telling. For starters, it’s unrealistic. Think about it. You’re seventeen and the love of your life, who you were convinced didn’t care about you at all, just declared his love.
Is this your internal reaction:
He loves me? OMG, he loves me! How long have I been in love with him? I’ve waited so long. But I never thought he’d ever love me back. Am I dreaming? I can’t believe this!
Or is this more like it:
Speechless, random waves of shock, elation, giddiness, disbelief. Get choked up, tear up a bit. Want to say something to him but can’t seem to form a coherent thought, much less articulate it. Then:
“You do? But I thought– Really? I’m– OMG, I can’t believe– Really?”
We don’t usually think in full sentences. Of course, now that I’ve said that, you’re thinking in complete sentences. But really, day to day, just daydreaming or musing or even in conversation, you might come out with a complete sentence in replying to someone, but you didn’t craft it in its entirety before it came out of your mouth. We think a lot faster than we talk or write. In part because we’re thinking in ideas, images, feelings. NOT completely articulated thoughts.
So reading it that way in prose just drives me up the wall. It distances me from the character because I’m not experiencing this with them, I’m being told about it in dry facts and thought-out responses.
Is this a universal truth? Heck no. In fact, one of the books I read lately that prompted this post was the latest by one of THE name writers in that genre. Clearly there are talented authors and editors who think I’m totally wrong about this. But reader-Leah is convinced that she does NOT like internal monologue.
How about you?
Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it.
Richard Feynman (1918 - 1988)
January 28, 3:49 am
