Small Fiction Questions (3/8/2016)

What is your favorite small fiction so far? Why? Why does this story stay with you?

My favorite small fiction is still "The third time my father tried to kill me". The reason for this is the questions it makes me ask, not just about the story itself but about the characters of the story. It makes me question their motivations, their pasts, their decisions. It makes me wonder what exactly makes them tick? What makes them stay together as a unit? Because through all this drama ti just makes me think that they're staying together almost out of obligation. It takes place in Ireland. A catholic mecca of history (at least when I think of it). I think of the vows you make when it comes to marriage. I think of the disgrace one brings with divorce. Because no sane woman would stay with a man that beats their son half to death. Then I think about the more some more. Why isn't she more protective of her boy? Why doesn't she take him away from all this danger... But then I think of the son. The one telling the story. Recounting the number of time his father has placed his life in danger. In my thought process, there's no point in staying with or admiring this man. There's no point interacting with or bothering him. So when I see the main character antagonizing his father it honestly confuses me. I wonder why the son done this. He knows his father's passions and opinions on certain things pertaining to the IRA. He has to. He's old enough to know that his opinion in that bar matters. That the wrong words can get you killed. To just say them haphazardly... Does he want to feel pain? Does he want his father to beat him? Why? It's that confusion that brings me back to this story constantly. It's the character's action and lack-thereof. 


Have you attempted to steal any techniques that you've read here? (Fiction writers can, in fact, should, steal. Stealing a technique is not plagiarism.)

I want (as discussed by the 1st question) to leave my audience/readers asking questions about the characters  I create. I want them to wonder about their motivations, their thought processes in the moment. I want them to place themselves in my characters shoes and act out the scenario in their heads over and over. I want them to figure out why some characters act certain ways. Why they won't act against the grain or the norm. I want my audience to be think about my characters, not just words on a page, but as people, actual living, breathing people. Maybe even relate them to people that they may know, maybe even see a bit of themselves in my character. It's scary to think that someone could possible write you into a story.