Friday 1 April 2016

Litotes (or that Tom Jones song)

'Litotes' being a) one of those words I can never remember the definition of, and b) yet another of those writing processes I do without needing to know what it is called. Mark Forsyth’s ‘The Elements of Eloquence’ calls them ‘elements of rhetoric’ and devotes thirty-nine challengingly-titled chapters to describing them. I was readily familiar with only three of such terms, and found the book a fascinating read, but I’m still unable to name any more. I don’t anticipate using any of them as prompts!

This week’s winner is someone whose writing never fails in its eloquence, but it was for the impact of “Well, there be many a person with a different skin under the one we all see” that I declare Antonia’s one hundred and fortieth episode of ‘Infinity’ this week’s winner.
Thank you all for participating – even the late-arriving Rosie whose 18th episode of the Princess Pirate is hugely entertaining ­and for commenting – such a strong element of this blog.  

Words for the coming week are: absent exact, butter

Entries by midnight Thursday 7th April , new words and winners posted on Friday 8th

Usual rules: 100 words maximum (excluding title) of flash fiction or poetry using all of the three words above in the genres of horror, fantasy, science fiction or noir. Serialized fiction is, as always, welcome. All variants and use of the words and stems are fine. Feel free to post links to your stories on Twitter or Facebook or whichever social media best pleases you and, if you like, remind your friends that we are open to new and returning writers.

45 comments:

  1. THANK YOU!
    made my day.
    Gold star...
    so we had a trance evening last night, no transfiguration, that person didn't come through ill health. We sat and we had first a doctor come through, Dr Khan, who speaks on many different topics. He knew and probably still knows my beloved Daniel.
    Then we had Mickey, the Cockney boy, who spent some time talking with another sitter about the house she should buy. Then I asked if he could tell me who gave me the gold star.
    He said 'you want me to confirm what you've already been told. You know it's from him, he said he didn't do flowers, nice to look at but no good to keep.' Then he went on about Terry's fleet of cars (not quite a fleet but they were all huge, 4 X 4 and Jaguar and Motor home...) and asked if they'd all gone. I said they had apart from the motor home and he said, yes, one left to go. Then he mentioned Terry on his buggy... all the proof I needed.

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    1. So glad for you that you received what you needed.

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    2. What is the connection between Terry and the star? And did you have any inkling beforehand that Terry was the one who left it?

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    3. Almost forgot. Many congratulations on the worthy win last week, Antonia.

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    4. My congrats are below for some reason I'm having a moment with my technology.

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  2. Thanks! I really liked that episode, getting deeper into the Captain's thinking now.

    The star: the guide said that Terry sent a star as any flowers were for the other lady (his wife who has been gone over some time now) and because he never knew the names of flowers, just that they were pretty. He also wanted me to have something to keep. (he also never remembered to water living flowers and cut ones were usually ignored until they died...)
    I asked a friend in California about the star, he wrote back 'it's from Terry.' simple statement. He and I have never met but our connection is very strong and very deep.

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  3. Breeding programme Threshold [107]

    I wasn’t ashamed to admit it: O’Bedrun fucked me easy as hot toast scooped melted butter. Had Ravenscar not been determined to stay absent from my bed I might’ve resisted, but I’d’ve been the one lost out.

    Three times, and in the morning two times more. Then he exacted his price. ‘You don’t leave until you bleed. Don’t bleed, don’t leave. Alright?’
    ‘Alright, but –‘
    ‘You’ve had one. About time for another. And it won’t be his.’
    Not a question. My desperation had given me away. ‘If I don’t –?‘
    ’You’re free to go. With him, if he’ll take you.’

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    1. this serial just gets darker and nastier as it goes on. Wondering what more horrors you can find for your people.

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    2. Interesting dilemma here. Wonder what Ravenscar would make of this seduction. Are we likely to find out?

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    3. A powerful piece., from the first to the last word.

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  4. congratulations Antonia on a well deserved win with an already brilliant piece made perfect by the line “Well, there be many a person with a different skin under the one we all see”
    Now this weeks words are interesting I had a notion some time ago to write a poem titled The Butter Knife maybe it's time to do it.

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  5. Black Widow

    "Butter wouldn't melt in her mouth." Yeah, it's been said before but this dame earned the cliche. It took exactly sixty seconds to hear that her absent husband was 'missing' and she needed me to find him, and six more for me to decide that she'd done the deed herself. My job was going to be a classic wild goose chase, a nice distraction while she laid low and avoided the spotlight. She wouldn't be unhappy if I spent a month running down blind alleys. How'd I know? This was husband four, and I already chased the first three.

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    1. To which my first thought was 'hope you've the sense to charge her accordingly', but of course you have. Said it before, but I love the voice in this, and glad you've posted early enough for others to properly read it.

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    2. this is the perfect answer to those who go '100 words? you can't write a story in 100 words!' They should read this and find out that yes, you can!

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    3. As authentic as ever. A total piece with beginning, middle and end. As Antonia said "perfect answer" to those who would doubt a complete tale cannot be told in 100 words.

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    4. An excellent piece Bill. A fine example of a full story in the medium of flash fiction.

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  6. Tough Love

    You weren't exactly perfect and always absent when I needed you, but it was the infidelities that almost destroyed me.

    I declared my love, my loyalty, my devotion.

    "Buttering up," you called it.

    Regardless, you will always be a part of me.

    And even though you were never tender, I do believe my meat baster will rectify that.

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    1. Oh lord - I'm sure I shouldn't have snorted with appalled delight at this magnificent ending and then given you a round of applause, but I did. Brilliant piece this, Patricia!

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    2. Wow! I got all into the love lost and regret, then BAM! Revenge! I love it.

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  7. Kursaal (Episode Fifteen) -- "Chief Constable Twittering"

    Since the Kursaal's arrival, townsfolk disappearances had escalated. Absent evidence, the fairground's involvement was speculative. Chief Constable Twittering took it upon himself to investigate.

    Oozing charm like melting butter, Maximillan Corviday served as personal escort. Although Twittering found little untoward, something he could not exactly pinpoint appeared to be amiss. Then, he met Isabella la Gaya.

    The crystal-gazer foretold a glittering future. By the time Twittering donned his bicycle clips and was pedalling back to the police station, he was not only convinced the park was clearly above suspicion, but that he would soon benefit from a most serendipitous happenstance.

    ---------------------------------------------------------
    To read the earlier installments (a suggestion only) which led to this point in the tale, please visit:
    http://www.novareinna.com/kursaal.html
    A link to return to "The Prediction" can be found on the site. Thank you.
    ---------------------------------------------------------

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    1. I do like how you take care to use the prompts in a multitude of ways - 'absent' here is delightful - and the bicycle clips a lovely illustrative touch.

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    2. clever, how the suspicions are turned away is left for us to conjure - but it's all there, the overwhelming sense of menace.

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    3. Again you get me, I come to the end and think what prompts, can't even remember what they are. Kursaal would make an exotic screen piece, but I do so love it in flash.

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  8. Cripplegate Junction/Part 40-Oh, Mister Porter!

    Violet buttered tea cakes as the young delivery porter cautiously opened the Canteen's rear door. His presence had been forgotten but Elsie at the Dairy would have certainly noted his absence by now.

    He was reluctant to return minus dosh for the supplies. Elsie would not exactly be pleased about that and he would get the sack on his first day!

    He didn't want to remain at Cripplegate either. A protesting city gent was strapped to his confiscated trolley and he'd overheard heated exchanges about a Red Queen and a missing child.

    The entire situation was a train wreck.

    ---------------------------------------------------------
    To read the earlier installments (a suggestion only) which led to this point in the tale please visit:
    http://www.novareinna.com/cripplegate.html
    A link to return to "The Prediction" can be found on the site. Thank you.
    ---------------------------------------------------------

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    1. Hard to believe this is episode 40 already, but now you've got them all assembled I wait with baited breath to see what comes next (mouth watering at the idea of a buttered teacake).

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    2. yes, me too! So many varied and dubious characters all waiting to enchant us horror writers with their doings...

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    3. OO I'm sensing static building.

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  9. Change of focus [173]

    Shoulders displacing a cloud of yellow butterflies from an overhanging buddleia, DI Pettinger and DC Moth strode up a path narrow as the mind of the person they’d come to see.

    But the smiling face of the soft-voice woman answering their knock was unexpected. Malice apparently absent.
    Yet she, as the self-elected instigator of Project Jezebel had denounced Beverley and Melanie by name, as harlots who’d ‘deserved exactly what they got’ as though violent rape, strangulation and the dumping of their bodies in some insalubrious corner was their own fault.

    ‘They encourage men to give in to their base desires.’

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    1. oooh, nasty one! what a charming person!

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    2. Loved the imagery of this, especially once I researched "buddleia" and discovered it was a plant! There's something engaging about this "Project Jezebel" person and I shouldn't like her, but I somehow do.

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    3. I loved the imagery of this piece. This character of "Project Jezebel" took me back to a conversation I had with a nice dear old lady who turned out to be not nice or dear at all.

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  10. Infinity 141
    I be damned if I didn’t think of sommat else I crave – butter. No chance of having it on board Infinity, it would be soured in no time. When I returns to Shipton, I will load my bread with the stuff and savour it in my own time.
    Thinking on that makes me sad, I been absent from Shipton these many months and nautical miles. Can’t work out the exact amount, it doesn’t matter much, I just know at times I be homesick.
    Before I gets too morose, I’d best find more ships to board and loot to carry away.

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    1. Oh, wonderful - you've applied it perfectly straight and so very, very effectively.

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    2. Our insight into the character of the Captain just gets more informative all the time. This was a wonderfully crafted installment. The talk of bread and butter reminds me of when I was a child and used to ask my Mum for "a crusty roll with lashings of butter." Wonder if anyone uses the term "lashings" any more in that sense. Anyway, as always, the Captain is a character that comes alive every time.

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    3. A very layered character the captain, as Sandra said very effective use of the prompts.

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  11. The Adventures of Rosebud, Pirate Princess #19
    Dress Code


    I’ve been absent so long now that my uniform doesn’t fit. My skirts are two inches above my ankles, far too short for the school’s exacting standards. I loved that uniform. Only one buttered toast mishap too. I’ve lowered the hems three times already. I’ll need to make a new uniform or be back to wearing the spare one that’s always been too long and uncomfortable. Time to search out more cotton in the old storeroom that Natasha dislikes. (It’s too small for a flying yurt.) I wonder if there’s any of the white with royal blue anchors on it?

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    1. I love the string of inconsequential in this, so typical, and the lowering of the hems.

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    2. The imagery of the uniform is so very vivid that it's virtually a visual. Another word I had to look up ... "yurt." This has proved to be a rather educational week for me. I say this every time and at the risk of sounding like a broken record, this is a very unique example of tale-spinning.

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    3. Loved the reference to the Yurt and the thought of a flying yurt made this piece for me.

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  12. This is not how I imagined it would turn, Interesting how turning words in your head all week changes everything.

    The Butter Knife

    Exact and perfect, everything in it’s place.
    The only thing absent is your tender loving face.
    Since your passing I’ve tried to do my best,
    but some days are a struggle since you were laid to rest.

    Not everything is how you like it.
    Alas I know if you were here you'd likely have a fit.
    I'm afraid there's butter in the jam where it hadn’t ought to be,
    but there's no point in using two knives now there's only me.

    I ache for when together our table’s set beyond life,
    exact and perfect and we share the butter knife.

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    1. As soon a you mentioned butter knife I recalled the one my paternal grandparents had, and used - its smallness very appealing to a ~4 year-old - and they way you've used its smallness here emphasises the largeness of the loss.

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  13. Beautifully composed. I can relate to butter in the jam. On a personal level, I hate breadcrumbs in the butter. Reminds me very much of how my father must have felt after my mother died. A marriage of 50 years is not so easily dismissed. A lovely piece.

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    1. Thank you Patricia. I wrote it from the perspective of my Dad, we lost mum a couple of years ago they were married for just over 50 years. The butter knife element is me and my wife. I hate jam and butter getting mixed up to the point of obsession. It's become a bit of a joke with us.

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