For those of you who don’t know flash fiction is a term to describe a short piece of writing with a set word count. I know writing this somebody is going to contradict me, but that’s what I think it means. In my writing group last month, we were each asked to write a piece of flash fiction of exactly 100 words. My initial reaction was I’m not going to do this; it has never really appealed to me mainly because writing flash fiction isn’t a skill I have.
A few week later I had travelled with a couple of friends to some foreign part of the country to go to a friend’s wedding. Before heading back the next day we went in to a charity shop to look at vinyl, I have some very odd friends. I was absentmindedly looking at books while they dribbled over old records I didn’t like the first time around, I spotted a book on mythical paintings. On the ride back I was looking over the book and came across the painting of Bronzino Allegory of Love and Time. I noticed how pale their skin was it gave me an idea for a story, well a book which I will probably never get around to. I thought rather than just add the idea to my ever-growing list of book ideas I would use it for the flash fiction. Here is a link to the painting. I would add it to the blog but don’t want to fall foul of copyright laws.
Here is the flash fiction, remember it had to be exactly 100 words.
Love and time
She stood and admired Bronzino Allegory of love and time. The audio guide droned on. “The pale skins have led to accusations about the models being vampires, Brpnzino became one of their victims. Complete nonsense of course. In five hundred years the pigment has just faded.” She looked harder at the almost grey skins of Venues and Cupid. The eyes had a hungry dead look. A youth with blond curly hair walked up and stood next to her. He scowled at the painting. “I’ll never forgive Bronzion for making my bum look so big.” He walked off shaking his head.
I never got to read it to my writing group, I missed the next meeting as I had such a busy week at work I couldn’t face getting dressed and heading in to town to talk to people on Saturday, but that’s another story.
Feel free to comment and tell what you thought. Constructive criticism is always appreciated even if I will probably never write flash fiction again.
Eric's blog 
Everything should be tried once – and you did a lovely job of it, too 👍
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Thank you, you are very kind
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I’m ALSO awful at flash fiction. Saying a lot with very few words isn’t an Epic Fantasy writer’s main asset.
This is such an interesting idea! Looking at the painting, I get where the idea came from. I’m not sure I’d buy the “faded pigments” excuse; other figures in the painting have a much truer skin tone.
You make an interesting choice by contrasting the creepy vibes describing the figures with the laugh at the end. It pulls the reader back out and allows them to see the absurdity of the idea.
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Opps so sorry I had to replied to your comment, how rude of me!
I’m glad you liked it. It might turn it into a book one day.
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Oh that’s simply delicious!!
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I’ve entered a writing challenge a couple of times where we spent the entire day writing and reach our goal of 2500 words. Not exactly flash writing but the definition sounds similar with a longer word count. I enjoyed it and wrote a couple of short stories.
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That’s impressive. I don’t think I could write under pressure like that.
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