Writing Process: "Kill The Messenger"

The flash fiction story "Kill The Messenger" 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. 

Of course, there are **spoilers**, so if you haven't read the story yet, do that first, using the link in the first sentence of this article.

CHALLENGE

Writing Prompt: Three prompts from from "5,000 Writing Prompts" by Bryn Donovan.

•  #1 "The arrival of a letter, email, or package."

• #10. "The beginning or the middle of a disaster. It could be a bombing, a plane crash, a tornado."

• #50 "A birthday party."

Select any one or combination of the prompts. 

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

Write about someone stuck in an endless cycle who finally manages to break free.

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

Method: Pantser

CONCEPT 

Based on the combination of the prompts, I came up with the inciting incident of the main character's wife blown up by a birthday gift from a character I originally called "Aunt Lena".

Since I was "pantsing" it, that's all I knew when i started writing.

PLOT TWIST

My definition of Flash Fiction is a Short, Sharp, Shocking Story.

• Short - less than 1,000 words
• Sharp - cut to the bone, no wasted words, few characters, few scenes
• Shocking - strong images, surprise twists, ending that resonates
• Story - complete plot in miniature, not just a fragment 

So, although I was "pantsing" it, I wanted to have an idea of the "Shocking" part of the definition. How could I create a plot twist and an ending that resonates?

I brainstormed Plot Twist ideas, then selected the one that seemed to have the most potential. This is the original "Twist-List" (see Step #5 in the 7 Steps to Create a Great Plot Twist). My top choice (the one I went with for the story) is sorted as #1 and bolded, but you can see the other things I considered:

1) He thinks he has discovered that the killer is his own handler ("Aunt Lena" -- who is a man, by the way, in spite of the female name) but when he tracks him down and kills him, he finds a video of himself confessing to the killing. He wants to be his own handler. (existentialism: -- Nietzsche's God is Dead, now what)?

2) The husband is just fantasizing about his secret life as an assassin - his wife is not dead, he's having a psychotic break

3) He tracks down his handler ("Aunt Lena"), who is -- his wife! Who faked her own death (how, when it's a bomb? Maybe she doesn't blow up in front of him, but taking a package into another room.)

4) The intended victim was actually his wife -- she was also an agent

5) The intended victim was actually his wife -- she was an assassin who had now received an assignment to kill her own husband

6) The husband is just fantasizing about his secret life as an assassin - he killed his wife in a delusive fit

7) The husband is just fantasizing about his secret life as an assassin - and he doesn't have a wife

The idea I chose is an example of the "Transform" type (a combination of narrator transformation and character role transformation), one of the 4 Types of MAGIC Plot Twists.

You may be able to spot that I was inspired by a combination of plot twists from two movies. Can you tell which movies? I don't want to spoil the twists in those films, so I will just give you the hints that one of them starred Guy Pearce, the other starred Arnold Schwarzenegger. If you've seen the movies and know the twists, that will hopefully trigger your recollection. If you don't know what I'm talking about that's fine. Maybe one day you'll watch either or both of those movies and make the connection.

GENRE

• Crime (mystery, thriller)
• Philosophical

CHARACTERS

The original "Aunt Lena" name needed some work. I brainstormed some names and settled on "Aunt Salomé" because it sounded exotic and unusual (and because of the hint at the Biblical story, the girl who demanded John the Baptist's head on a plate, an assassination order.)

 "Aunt Salomé" is just a code name, so we don't actually get to know the real names of any of the characters — the narrator, the narrator's wife, the actress who was hired to portray "Aunt Salomé", and the handler.

THEME

Part of the inspiration for the twist that the narrator is actually assigning himself assassination targets (through the "Aunt Salomé" middleman) was Nietzsche's "God is dead" statement, which is really about the existentialist crisis and the collapse of morality that is the inevitable outcome of the loss of faith in God.

"When one gives up the Christian faith, one pulls the right to Christian morality out from under one's feet.. [...] By breaking one main concept out of Christianity, the faith in God, one breaks the whole: nothing necessary remains in one's hands."

"What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? [...]  Must we ourselves not become gods ...?"

- Friedrich Nietzsche

So the story is about a completely amoral man (a psychopath killer) who — although he is self-aware enough to call himself a psychopath — is not yet ready to accept his own utter amorality and has invented a "god" (the "Zarathustra" outfit) that gives him the commandments to kill, when in reality the killings have been his own choice all along.   

STORY TITLE

The working title was "BOOM" because all I had was the initial image of the bomb at the birthday party.

Using the tools of Story-Mining and Title-Storming, as the theme emerged, I toyed with a title that was connected to it. 

The "Leader of Zarathustra" (i.e. the narrator himself speaking from the video), says: "The sacred game is at an end, the festivals of atonement are over." This is a reference to the quote by Nietzsche about the need to invent "festivals of atonements" and "sacred games" when you don't have faith in God, but still cling to morality.

So I played with titles such as "The Sacred Game" and "Aunt Salomés Sacred Game", but these seemed too esoteric.

One of the 5 Rules for a Great Story Title is to give "Genre Clues" because you want your title to draw the reader that is looking for the type of story you have written.

Since this story is in the Crime Fiction genre, "Kill The Messenger" is both what the story is about ultimately, and it includes the word "Kill" which is a genre clue. 

WRITING THE STORY

I used 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.

Since this was the Pantser method, I wrote the birthday party scene and found the narrator's voice, then paused to brainstorm the plot twist. Once I had the twist, the story wrote itself. 

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.