Colleen Ryckert Cook

Shorter than flash fiction, longer than six words, Hint Fiction is what it sounds like: 25 words that reveal a story and hint at a more complex tale.

A contest at http://www.robertswartwood.com/?page_id=8 is looking for the best hint fiction to be included in a W.W. Norton anthology, tentatively scheduled for Fall 2010. Here’s what they’re looking for:

It’s possible to write a complete story in 25 words or less — a beginning, middle, end — but that’s not Hint Fiction. The very best Hint Fiction stories can be read many different ways. We want stories we can read again and again and never tire of. Stories that don’t pull any punches. Stories that make us think, that evoke some kind of emotional response.

Check it out! Winners get $25, too!

L to R: Cheryl Klein, the first ever Morris Award, Elizabeth C. Bunce

unabashedly stolen from this place

Remember when you were 12 years old and you became convinced you knew everything? That probably ended sometime around 30, when you realized how very little about the world you actually understood.

Now that I’m 42 and the mother of a 12-year-old boy, I have to say I did know something very important way back then, something I’d forgotten as I grew older: 

12-year-old boys are weird. And they stink. A lot.

Take 20 minutes out of your day to watch this. You won’t regret it.

Come visit me at kidlit central, where I try to pace myself with character development. Here’s a teaser for you:

What do you do when someone reads your first five or ten pages and says, "I want to know more about this character." Even though they might say, "Where does this person live?" or "What does this person look like?" it really isn’t about "rank and file" info: name, age, location, heritage, eye color, height, weight, favorite color. What they really are saying is "I’m not getting enough to get a sense of who this person is."

Terms like "sensory details" "voice" "action verbs" get tossed around a lot, but what is the magical combination of all these elements that begats  the perfect word choice, the perfect pace for revelation?