“Requiem for Piano”

On June 12, 2013November 23, 2013 By nancystohlmanIn Uncategorized3 Comments

Flash fiction by Nancy Stohlman

She’d been slipping away from him slowly, as the things that hurt most do. He woke one morning and nuzzled his arm into the swooping curve of her waist only to find it cold, with a hardened glossy varnish that could only mean to keep him out. He tried to fit his body into the new curve but it was stiff and unforgiving.

Her long ballerina arms and legs were next. They, too, hardened and reached for the floor, anchoring her growing weight until she became too heavy to move. Her ribs cracked open and widened into a wooden soundboard, the strands of her long curly hair stiffened and elongated until he could no longer run his fingers through them. Pulled taut, they vibrated and wept if touched, crying the last of the unshed tears that now landed like dampened hammers on strings.

It was happening but he couldn’t stop it, could only awaken each morning to what remained of his beloved and take frightened inventory: her toes reduced to golden pedals, her polished satin black skin, her long spine a lacquered lid that reflected his bewilderment.

Her face went last. On that final morning her smile stretched into 88 white ivories, feathered with the sharps and flats of dark lashes. In the soft morning light he played a requiem on her still-warm keys, propping the lid to listen to her heart.

Originally published in Literary Orphans. Read original here.

Ask A Flash Fiction Editor: Endings

On May 29, 2013May 29, 2013 By nancystohlmanIn Uncategorized1 Comment

A brilliant ending should make you go whoa. And reread. And go whoa again.

Whoa can mean a lot of things: whoa—how messed up, or whoa—how poignant, or whoa—how surprising, or whoa—how perfect. But regardless it should punch you in the heart or the gut or the head or maybe several at once. And even if it’s just a little pinch it should still leave a mark.

I’d like to thank Brenda Morisse for allowing us to use her piece-in-progress, “Mixed Up With Jesus” (full text below) to talk about endings in general and flash fiction endings in particular. Beginnings and endings are like bookends—all the care taken to hook a reader into a story must be utilized in the same way to cast them out—shaken and forever changed. And this is especially true in flash fiction, where a reader is going from beginning to ending in one sitting.

Your ending is the final ringing note of your entire story.

Many writers, even those who begin beautifully, underestimate the importance of endings. How many of us were taught in school that a “conclusion” was just a wrapping up, a clever regurgitation of everything already said? Brilliant endings, if they were discussed at all, were held at a distance like sorcery, admired but not imitated.

Endings used to be a huge struggle for me. I would conceive, craft and execute a compelling story, but once I’d said everything I wanted to, I’d just tack on a “bow” at the end. In graduate school, Danielle Dutton had us separately examine our beginnings, middles, and endings. We first examined our openings, where and how we began. Then we examined our middles, how we kept the tension always pulsing. And then, just as we were getting ready to examine our endings, she threw a wrench in the whole plan and made this suggestion: What if the middle IS the end?

With great discomfort, we turned back to our stories: What if this juicy middle thing I just wrote while under the auspices that I still had more time to “tie it all up” is really the end? What if there is no need for that clever bow, that concluding paragraph…what if it’s just…done?

Because that’s how it happens in real life anyway, isn’t it?

Most writers either over or underwrite their endings. If you are overwriting your ending, then chances are the true final ringing note of your story is actually buried in the territory of what you are now calling the middle. If you are underwriting your ending, it probably means that the most crucial part of the story arc still hasn’t happened yet—the story isn’t done. In that case it’s about turning the knife just one more time and seeing what else happens.

So with all that in mind, Brenda, let’s talk about your work and particularly the ending of your story, “Mixed Up With Jesus.”

But before we talk about the ending, let’s talk about everything else. Everything else is so fun! I believe there is so much “real” in the surreal, and I love reading stories that are able to create the duality of subtext underneath a story that on the surface seems absurd. And I love what you’ve done with the figure of Jesus, putting someone so symbolic and archetypal into the unpleasantry and awkwardness of modern relationships. Did you know that Burroughs claimed 40% of his material came from dreams. Free inspiration, all night long!

But let’s look at your ending, which is still a bit shy of the mark. Let’s consider cutting it back, seeing if your ending is really in your middle. To do that, I looked for what felt like a final ringing moment within the middle of the story, and I landed in this paragraph:

Finally He breaks the silence. “Remember when you wanted to marry me and live in a convent and wear the holy face all day? Remember how you balanced on that slippery rock that glistened under a waterfall in Tannersville, naked? And that time behind the bushes in a park, when the stranger moaned you’ll remember this forever. And you said, I will?”

My hunch is your ending might be hovering around here—there’s something about this moment in the exchange that feels the most rich with opportunity. The characters are heading into some potential final knife twist—maybe you haven’t nailed the exact wording yet, but it feels like it’s just a phrase or two away from the “whoa”. Because here’s the problem with humor—as soon as we “get” it, we’re over it. Comedy—like drama—consists of an ever growing escalation of surprises. In this story, we love the novelty and parody of Jesus in such a non-Jesus situation. But the humor needs to continually change or else it will be like the same joke is stretched too far. So maybe in these final moments the story goes into another level of weird. Or maybe it stops and becomes incredibly poignant. Or maybe it gets outrageous. Perhaps in these final moments one last thing is revealed. Or perhaps it happens in the silences.

What currently follows—the spot on the dress and the idea of singing karaoke—that’s funny, you can keep it if you choose—but rearrange it to come earlier rather than leaving it in the privileged final slot.

The good news about endings is the work is often just excavating and shaping—and realizing that the perfect ending may already be there, fully formed, right in front of your eyes.

Happy Writing!

~Nancy Stohlman

Thanks again to Brenda Morisse and to all the writers who have shared their work-in-progress so far, including: Peter Cowlam, Diane Klammer, Cath Barton, M, Rosemary Royston, Nicholas Michael Ravnikar and Ellen Orleans. I believe the difference between an amateur and a professional is the professional writer’s willingness to always be a beginner, and each of these writers has been incredibly generous with their process—thank you.

(Do you have a flash fiction piece in progress you’d like to submit for a future conversation? Email me at nancystohman@gmail.com or find me on Facebook.)

Mixed Up with Jesus

By Brenda Morisse

There’s been no dancing since the flood because the earth is still starved and quick to tug at my tango. So when Jesus waltzes into my dream, I try not to worry, even though death seems to follow my callers and suffering through another Good Friday waiting on God’s travel arrangements is more than I can bear.

I nonchalantly check for stigmata, offer cocktails. “Make yourself at home, at least take off your gloves,” I say. He shakes His head no, but after reading my mind, He shrugs. “Believe what you want to believe, I know who I am and I like to dance, too.” Before I can demand references or a parlour trick to raise my dog, Tallulah, from the dead, He asks if I can Hustle.

“The Hustle? I didn’t do the Hustle when I did the Hustle. You should know that!” I scold. I roll my eyes at Him and then He rolls His eyes, and I roll my eyes back. “You’re funny.” He laughs. “I’ve always known you’d look like Anthony Quinn,” I whisper. He tells me that I’ve never learned how to let things die.

“You would have given the canary mouth to mouth and what if you had swallowed its head? Even the soap. Look at how you tape all the other last breath slivers together. And your new habit of spitting on old words.”

“True, but you’re the one who won’t die.”

“Relax your grip,” He says. I inch my vintage opera gloves up over my arms. “Lovely.” We small talk until dinnertime when He snoops around in the kitchen for a snack. “Sorry I haven’t cooked since the disaster,” I say.

“Want to grab a bite?”

I ask, “Like on a date?” And He says, “Sure. How about the Dominican restaurant across the street?” We’re seated at the darkened table in the corner with first date awkwardness crowded between us, so I glance up and notice that the patrons and waiters are staring at us. I look at Him and He’s glowing, and then check my reflection. I’m glowing too. So there we sit, glowing face to face into each other’s eyes.

We only pick at the fish dinner but we drink wine until we’re tipsy and the wineglass tips. I ask Him to clean the spot on my dress. He says, “Just because a god rises from the dead doesn’t mean He’s at your beck and call Him when you need the laundry done.” I change the subject with a sigh and then read the sign at the bar, aloud. Karaoke esta noche.

“Do you know the words to it?” He asks.

“Yes! Do it. Do the hustle. Ooh. Do the hustle.”

“My Boyfriend Lives In The Tree In Front of My House”

On May 10, 2013November 23, 2013 By nancystohlmanIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Flash fiction by Nancy Stohlman
And sometimes I bring him Cheetos or popsicles or trashy gossip mags and sometimes I crawl up there on the lower branches and we let our legs dangle, have a treebranch cocktail, make fun of the guy walking two Chihuahuas or the Vietnam vet on the corner with his platoon of American flags, and then I go back home, which is just a few steps away. We see each other on Friday evenings and every other Sunday, because life is complicated after all.

It started before he was my boyfriend, when he hid in the tree to “see the look on my face” when I opened the birthday present he’d left on my front porch. It was an admittedly lovely tree, and moving into the tree seemed the next logical step. Some nights he sleeps with me in my bed, and some nights we retire to our own spaces, me to my room and him to his branch, and apart we both masturbate to the thought of how mature we are. We’ve talked about building something more permanent, even a few 2 x 4s for him to properly sit on, but haven’t, yet. On the nights we’re Not Supposed To See Each Other, he’ll sometimes text me anyway and I’ll run out with smuggled tacos from dinner and we’ll meet on the grass and eat by the light of the antique-inspired lampposts that automatically turn on at 6 pm each night.

Most of the time I commend myself on how great we are about everything, taking space, not rushing in too fast—because lord knows we’ve both had our share, and we agree that love should be approached like a cobra. I congratulate us for staying calm and level headed and maintaining all those emotions we don’t how to control. This is better. It’s better like this.

But there is one thing that my boyfriend in a tree doesn’t know. Sometimes when I’m supposed to be in bed, I stand at the darkened front window and watch the tiny light from his keychain moving behind all the foliage, and in those quiet moments I secretly wish that he would just climb down and come inside.

Originally published in Metazen--read original here.

Ask A Flash Fiction Editor: Why Literary Bondage Is Good For Your Writing

On May 7, 2013May 7, 2013 By nancystohlmanIn Uncategorized1 Comment

The first thing Ellen Orleans said about her flash piece in progress, “How to Write The Name of God”, was: “It’s 1170 words—too long for flash?” The answer is technically yes (though I’ve seen flash defined as long as 1200 or even 1500, as a general rule it’s 1000).

Writers new to flash often find the constraint arbitrary and infuriating: Why such a stickler on the wordcount? So what if it’s a few words over? But having worked in this form for so long, I can say with confidence that the magic of flash fiction happens because of the constraints. Interesting things bulge against boundaries. From sonnets to writing prompts—even deadlines—many writers find they produce some of their best work when pushing against the wall of a constraint: you can only paint with the color green, you must finish a film in 48 hours, you have to write a story without using the letter E. The famous Oulipo movement in Paris in the 1960s was made up of writers and mathematicians who suggested that using constraints created a new kind of writing.

Embracing the constraint is the true gift of flash fiction.

Working with flash will make you a very different—and I would say better—writer no matter what you write. You will cultivate a sharper eye to what is truly necessary in your work. So if you find yourself battling against the constraint, trying to make your story fit into flash fiction…relax. You’re going about it all wrong. Because once you “see” your story through the lens of the constraint, it ceases to become a battle and instead becomes about “freeing” the flash story from the longer work. As Michelangelo said about his sculpture David, “I saw the angel in the marble and I carved until I set him free.”

So Ellen, let’s look at your story, “How to Write the Name of God” and make it fit the constraint.

First of all, I love this story. I love the sweetness of the character, how well I’m able to relate to her struggle, and how as children we all try so hard to make sense of a world that doesn’t always make sense. A child’s struggle is always a glimpse into ourselves, and I love your character’s honesty and transparency. Her dilemma is so pure.

There are two ways of shrinking a story: chipping or chopping. The trick to writing flash fiction is learning to chop rather than chip, looking at the story in sections rather than trying nitpick. When we are picking at the story, checking the word count every 10 seconds to see “if it’s under 1000” yet (yes, we are all guilty), the final result feels moth eaten and thin.

When chopping, it’s important to pay less attention to what is being eliminated and more on what is going to be left. You are trying to figure out how to remove the excess so that what is left becomes more prominent. My instinct on your story is to take a healthy swipe at the beginning, landing us inside the classroom as soon as possible. Imagine your story begins like this:

How to Write the Name of God

If you are an 11-year-old at Temple Beth Shalom Hebrew School, you write it G-d or G*d, or maybe just Gd, but never all the way, God.

With this chop you would now drop us right into your story and also tie your title to your first sentence (I also changed “spell” to “write”). You would suck us into the narrative and cut 241 words—enough to land you in flash territory in one swipe.

To clarify: does this mean I don’t like your current opening with all the names? Actually, I do, and I think you should put some of that into the story later, as the character is trying to figure out what to put into the box. And frankly if your story were only 500 words, you might just leave it.

But again the beauty of constraints is that they force us to look at our work with a more discerning and sometimes brutal eye—and for most of us that is actually a good thing. And something mysterious happens when we kill our darlings: Like a faint pencil mark that can’t be completely erased, those phantom darlings are still there, still delivering their messages in the spaces we’ve cleared away.

Thanks, Ellen, and Happy Writing!

~Nancy Stohlman

(Feel free to join in on this or any other conversation, and if you have a flash piece in progress please find me on Facebook or message me at nancystohlman@gmail.com)

How to Write the Name of God

By Ellen Orleans

God, we learn, has many names, including Elohim, Ha Shem, and Adonai. Elohim means Mighty Ones, which is no surprise except that it’s plural. (The Rabbi says this multiplies God’s power.) Adonai doesn’t have even an English translation. It just means God, my Hebrew School teacher says, tired of my questions. Ha Shem means The Name which is confusing but also kind of cool. His name is The Name. There’s also El Olam: “the world,” “the universe” or even infinity or eternity. “Very trippy,” as my sister would say.

Another name is El Echad which means The One. “One with a hundred names,” I think, “How ironic.” I am eleven and nothing is more clever than irony.

In English, God’s names are Almighty, Master, Highest, Father, Lord, Ruler, and King. Also, Most Powerful One. If God is so great, I think, why is he so insecure?

Years later, in a congregation led by a female rabbi, infused with liberals and sprinkled with queers like me, I will hear new names for God:Creator, Spirit, Beloved, Shekhina. But by then it will be too late—the white-haired, scowling judge man will be seared into my imagination.

Anyway Creator, Spirit, and Beloved are years off. Now it’s 1971 and the biggest question here in fifth grade is not who is God, what is God, or even “Can God create a rock so big that even he cannot push it?” but “How Do Spell God?”

If you are an 11-year-old at Temple Beth Shalom Hebrew School, you spell it G-d or G*d, or maybe just Gd, but never all the way, God. Because if you write down God, then that piece of paper, like all the prayer books with God printed out—all its letters, no dash, no asterisk, no missing “o”—that paper cannot not be thrown away. It is sacred.

Which is exactly the point when Baruch Benson, who’s Bobby Benson in real life at Burnet Hill Elementary school where he sits two rows behind me making armpit noises, whose Hebrew name means Blessed One even though that’s the last thing Bobby is, when Baruch Benson in the final minutes of Monday afternoon Hebrew School, writes GOD, all caps, all three letters, on a piece of notebook paper and shoves it into Kenny Graulich’s back pocket.

“Have to keep it forever,” he sing-songs as the bell clatters, our high-pitched punishment before freedom.

In the hall, Kenny yells “Glenn! You’re it!” and slaps the God-paper into Glenn’s hand, where it stays until Glenn passes it to Shimon, who’s always off in dreamland anyway until Cheryl, thinking it’s something else, grabs it, giggles, and pushes it off onto Debbie. By now we’re in the parking lot, waiting for, looking for, our carpools home. Before running into the sea of parents, station wagons and sedans, Debbie passes the damp folded-unfolded-refolded note to Lynn Becker, who rolls her eyes and gives it to Nurit, who’s new and from Israel and doesn’t get the game. That’s when I take it because, unlike Lynn, Debbie, Cheryl, Glenn and Kenny, I know want to do with the name of God.

You bury the name of God.

If I had liked Glenn or if he’d written God’s name in fancy calligraphy, I might have kept it, at least for a while. But GOD was just three awkward letters, smudged pencil on creased paper.

Still, it was God.

That night, in the back of my dresser, I found the white box that had held the velvet case that had held the gold Chai my grandmother gave me when she returned from Israel two years ago. The box, I decided, was good enough for God. I covered the bottom with Kleenex, neatly refolded the paper and put it inside. Tomorrow, I’d bury it in the back yard. Ashes to ashes. Dust to Dust. It was a good plan.

I turned off my bedside reading light.

It was a good plan…except.

Would God get lonely there in the dirt? I thought of the box, the tissue, The Name, underground for years and years, long after I grew up and moved away. And after that. And after that. Eternity for Eternity. All Alone for The One.

What could keep God company? What was mighty enough for The Mighty One, what could befriend The Universe? More to the point, what would fit in the box?

In bed, in the darkness, I considered the tiniest occupants of my room. The glass cat with the chipped glass ear. The dollhouse tea kettle. The miniature ceramic mouse, looking up, about to pounce. My Grandma Moses postage stamp, cancelled. My Apollo 8 postage stamp, uncancelled. Nothing seemed like the right match or maybe I didn’t want to give any of them up. Not even for God.

For the next three days, I scrutinized the world for the perfect thing to put in the box with God. A flower petal would shrivel up. An inch worm would die. Pine needles? Too much like a Christmas tree. A yarmulke wouldn’t fit and a loose thread from a Temple tallis, well, there weren’t any loose threads. I tugged at one and nothing came off. I could spill a drop wine on it, like my father spilled wine in the Passover Seder, a tradition from his father and grandfather, but that seemed more like a stain than a friend.

Half a Hanukkah candle? A clove from the spice box? Crumbs from last week’s challah? (Crumbs next to God? Definitely ironic.)

Ashes? Dust?

Walking home on Friday, thinking of God’s names, I remembered Elochim. Mighty Ones. Plural.

God needs God.

At home, on my best stationary with my best pen in my best handwriting I wrote

God God God

and folded it into fourths. I lay my Gods on top of Baruch’s God and taped the box shut.

As I walked behind our house—gardening trowel in one hand, the box in the other—I could smell our Friday night chicken baking. We would be lighting the Sabbath candles soon. I hurried past the swing set to the garden bed where early violets and lilies-of-the-valley shared the soil with mossy rocks. The soil was damp and easy.

There are Hebrew blessings to recite when you hear thunder, feel an earthquake, or see lighting or a comet or a rainbow. There’s a Hebrew blessing for when you see the ocean or lofty mountains or exceptionally beautiful people. There’s even a blessing for strange-looking animals.

But what do you say when you bury God’s name between violets and lilies? When you cover God with a blanket of dirt?

What you say, I realized, is Psalm 91, the Bedtime Prayer. Or at least, what you can remember of it. I knelt in the garden bed, wet earth seeping into the knees of my jeans.

With my wing, I cover you.

Under my wings take refuge.

For you yearn for me, I shall rescue you.

Fortify you, because you know my name.

A former columnist and essayist, Ellen Orleans is the author of five books of queer humor, including the Lambda Literary Award winner The Butches of Madison County. She co-edited Boulder Voices, an anthology published in response to Colorado’s Amendment 2, an anti-gay referendum later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. Her story “Outreach” won the 2007 Gertrude Press Chapbook Competition for Fiction. Her writing has appeared in the anthologies Primal Picnics, Milk and Honey, The Incredible Shrinking Story and, forthcoming, A Poetic Inventory of Rocky Mountain National Park. Excerpts of her book, Inside, the World is Orange have been published in The Denver Quarterly; Palimpsest; wigleaf; and Eccolingistics and performed as part of a Stories on Stage/Buntport Theater production. Other work has appeared in Trickhouse, Blithe House Quarterly, The Washington Post, Rain Taxi, and the Lambda Book Review. The former curator of Boulder’s Yellow Pine Reading Series, Ellen now leads story hours for toddlers and builds cigar box art in her garage in north Boulder.