Aaron's Story Recommendation of the Week :: Write What You Want by Eric James Stone

My Story Recommendation of the Week goes to Write What You Want by Eric James Stone, from the September 2012 issue of InterGalactic Medicine Show. This is Eric's second SROTW. His previous recommended story, "That Leviathan, Whom Thou Hast Made," went on to be a Hugo nominee and Nebula Award winner, so the bar is set high for "Write What You Want."

The narrator of "Write What You Want" owns a magic shop, which is visited by a troubled young girl:

From the haunted look on her face, I don't think she's an aspiring magician interested in tricks. She's here for the real magic. . . . I hold up a hand and say, "Don't tell me. You're here because you want something so much it hurts."

To work this magic, the shop owner has the girl write down on a slip of paper what it is she wants so much. Interspersed through the story are the notes written down by previous visitors to the shop. The shopkeeper's magic really works, but not for everyone . . .

This is a very short piece, only slightly over 1000 words, but it succeeds on multiple levels. The key to flash fiction is to distill the story down to its essence. Eric James Stone does that effectively by telling us almost nothing about his characters except what they most want. He conveys what the young girl wants and needs in powerful fashion. He includes snippets that amount to microfiction stories about previous visitors to the shop: "I want the cancer to be gone so I don't die." / "I want to be thinner and prettier than Jasmine Rawlings." / "I want to be straight." And he ends with the narrator. All we know about her (or him) is her dearest, unselfish desire, a desire she tragically cannot always have.

"Write What You Want" is a beautifully written story, well worth the subscription price to IGMS.

As an aside, posting this today makes me eligible for Eric James Stone's contest to win his old Kindle. So yes, you can bribe me for a Story Recommendation of the Week, but only if you can write a kick-ass story like "Write What You Want."

Aaron's Story Recommendation of the Week :: The Hanged Poet by Jeffrey Lyman

My story recommendation of the week is for "The Hanged Poet" from the June 2011 issue of Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show. I am deeply biased on this one, since Jeff Lyman was one of my fellow winners of this year's Writers of the Future Contest, but this story is far too good for me not to recommend. Anyway, it's most appropriate for Jeff to get a recommendation from a fellow WOTF winner, since the entire June issue of IGMS is made up of stories by former WOTF winners.

The protagonist of "The Hanged Poet" is General Veritas, a military leader who helped build an empire, but now has been unwillingly retired by the emperor. As he travels alone to the nearly-forgotten homeland of his youth, he comes across the body of a hanged woman:

She was a young woman, small, pale-skinned as all northlanders were, and long dead. A weathered shift of gray wool hung down from her shoulders. Her hands had been bound behind her back, and her bare feet dangled at the height of his chest. The toes the dogs had not worried over were black with frost. . . .

She swung slowly after the dogs' last attentions, and her rope creaked. He would cut her down to keep the noise from bothering him while he slept.

"May I share your tree tonight?" he said, then joked, "Maybe later I'll hang myself beside you."

Her eyes snapped open, eyes washed-out blue like the winter sky. Veritas leapt back, stumbling on a branch beneath the snow.

"I wouldn't mind some company," she said in a dry voice, like leaves skirling across cobblestones. "But I don't think you want to rest up here. It's going to get cold when the sun sets."

The hanged woman is a long-dead poet, in a world where poems can effect powerful changes. General Veritas has already had poetry greatly change his life, and the hanged poet promises at least one more alteration to come.

The tale is told mostly through dialogue between the two characters, exquisitely written dialogue that gradually reveals the characters' fascinating and cleverly interrelated backstories. This is a story in which almost nothing happens onstage, and yet Lyman manages to make it all feel dramatic and satisfying. Outstanding work!