Writing Process: "His Wounds Green"

The flash fiction story "His Wounds Green" was written in the "Pantser" method, one of the 3 ways to develop an idea into a story. That is: by the seat of my pants, using no outline, making it up as I went along. 

The story was inspired by this Reedsy.com writing prompt:

Write a story that includes the line “I think someone’s listening/watching".

https://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts 

I used an "Idea Catcher", a single piece of paper where I wrote down the initial germ of the idea and a few other elements, as they came to me. 

Of course, there are **spoilers**, so if you haven't read the story yet, do that first (flash fiction = a very fast read), using the link in the first sentence of this post.

IDEA CATCHER

Here is the Idea Catcher for this story:

Note that only some of these notes were written down initially, the rest emerged as part of the writing.

Let's look at the elements, in the order they emerged as I wrote the story.

IDEA

The idea  was the quote by Francis Bacon that appears near the top of the Idea Catcher sheet:

"A man that studies revenge keeps his own wounds green."
                                                                              - Francis Bacon

I circled the word "revenge". That was it. The concept was a story about revenge and some person who was essentially hurting himself (keeping "his own wounds green") by continuing to focus on ("studying") revenge.

TITLE

I started with the title as "His Own Wounds Green" but it felt clunky with the "own" in the title, so I shortened it to "His Wounds Green".

NAMES

Of course, it is fine to start writing in the true "Pantser" way without having any character names and let them emerge through the writing, but for me, this is the one thing I need, some names both for inspiration and because names give the characters a solid reality that I can work with.

I used a random name generator to come up with five names, knowing that for flash fiction it is typically best to limit the characters to 2-3, because of the ultra-short format of the story  (less than 1,000 words in my definition). 

I settled on Windsor Maxwell, Ulva Hepinstall, and Court Carpenter. The latter was a combination of two of the five names, shortening "Courtney" into "Court" and flipping the gender. So I had two male names, one female name.

OPENING LINE

I selected an opening line in my list of interesting opening lines: "The hardest thing I ever did was the easy way out."  You can see that written at the bottom of the idea catcher, but at the time I wrote it, I did not yet have the "easy way out" circled with the word "suicide" next to it. That came later, as the twist of the story emerged in the writing.

WRITING THE STORY

And with that, I sat down, using the Drafts application because I wanted a very clean, uncluttered container that also gave me immediate feedback on word count, since I tend to get wordy and I wanted to make sure I stuck to the "less than 1,000 words" convention for flash fiction.

I wrote the opening line, which at the time was "The hardest thing I ever did was the easy way out", and decided to make it dialog spoken by Ulva to Court. 

Where are they? Ah, yes, they are in bed together. 

Who are they? Ulva is the wife of Windsor. Court is Windsor's best friend.

Windsor is watching them. (He is the one that is "studies revenge", keeping "his wounds green").

From where is Windsor watching, and how is he watching them? Through a camera. Installed in the ceiling fan. (I wrote this image down on the Idea Catcher).

And from there, the story flowed naturally, until I had the concept that the "easy way out" means that Windsor committed suicide and that he is actually dead, not watching them through a camera after all.

At this point, the original opening line felt clunky and not right for the story, so (using the Hemingway trick of cutting everything before the "first true sentence"), I axed it.

A little bit of polishing, and there it was, the story: "His Wounds Green".

Resources

Here are some other resources that will be helpful as you write your stories.

MY FAVORITE ALL-PURPOSE RESOURCE

The Writer's Treasure Chest - everything in one place, curated, organized, this is a great reference for all things writing craft, with tons of prompts, plot/character generators and other tools to inspire you to write great stories.

RELATED ARTICLES

Here are some articles that will be helpful as you work on all the aspects of the writing craft and your writing process: 

• Write Fiction Faster! — How to Speed Up Your Story Writing 
  
  
• Need a Great Idea for Your Next Story? Try the Story IDEA Formula
  
  
• From Idea to Story: 3 Methods to Develop Your Story Idea 
  
  
• How to Write Characters Who Stick in the Reader's Mind 
  
  
• What Makes a Good Story? — Great Scenes! Here's How to Write Them
  
  
• Make Your Story Sing — Write Great Dialogue!
  
  
• Flash Fiction: How To Use It To Supercharge Your Writing 
  
  
• Blast Through Writer's Block: How to Get Unstuck 

FREE COURSE, GUIDE AND WORKBOOK

Do you want to write fiction faster, while practicing your craft and your writing process to consistently get better? Check out this link to the "Write Fiction Faster ... and better" guide and workbook, which comes with a companion course with 23 bite-sized video lessons and 4 worksheets.