Lacy Yang Strikes Again

ACT I

She stands like a halfling, walks like a giant

Forget the kid shit, ‘cause she’s self-reliant

Learned capoeira from the masters of old

Spin-kicking heads until bodies turn cold

Practice on scarecrows, theory on the dance floor

Helicopter kicks and through the air she soars

But no matter how many bones she breaks

There’s always some jerk-ass who calls her a fake

ACT II

Her name is Lacy Yang, but they call her baby girl

And a bunch of other sweet names to make her hurl

She ain’t tall enough to ride the rollercoaster

They say she’s just small enough to fit inside a toaster

As she sipped her hot tea at the capoeira café

She tried to push these thoughts so far away

Until a forty-something with white in his hair

Drunkenly tried to get inside her underwear

ACT III

He’s got Reese’s Pieces and Peanut Butter Cups

A van full of toys and a ranch full of puppy-dups

Lacy Yang told this pervert to fuck off

Two middle fingers for the incel suck-wad

A slap across her face, a prelude to a spanking

Easily forgetting her martial arts ranking

She tied up her dreadlocks in a giant knot

“Come on, you pedo, show me what you’ve got!”

ACT IV

Cartwheeled out of the way of a punch

Flipped off the table, landed with a feather’s touch

He went for a kick, didn’t protect his dick

Lacy threw a crescent heel, sent him spinning like a wheel

Some kangaroo stomps for his bits and pieces

Dragon uppercut to unleash his loose feces

Head butt to the jaw for breaking molestation laws

Knocked the fuck out, the winner wasn’t in doubt

CONCLUSION

David and Goliath is one hell of a legend

Lacy Yang’s story is worth more than a mention

Let this be a lesson to the wicked and dangerous

May you get your ass kicked from Earth to Uranus

Relatable Characters

I was surfing DeviantART’s daily deviation section one day and I found a gem in the form of a critique of typical internet stories. The premise was that every story he came across on the internet had the same basic plotline: the main character was a victim and every bad thing imaginable was happening to him or her. He went on to say that bad happenings were not enough to get the reader to give a damn about the main character. Harsh tone aside, the guy who wrote this editorial actually made a good point there. The question now is, how does an author make likable characters? To my understanding, a main character, no matter what the alignment, should NOT be perfect in every way and should have qualities that the reader would find interesting such as witty dialogue, an indomitable will, or even a sweet disposition. Suppose you had a big beefy barbarian who had a special place in his heart for puppies. That would make him more interesting. What if you had a super villain who made dark jokes that actually tickled funny bones more often than offended people. That might also be a reason to care. But in order to have these things in a main character, there has to be enough narration in the prose to develop him beyond the guy who has a lot of bad shit happen to him. Short stories, particularly in the flash fiction genre, don’t always allow the space for such development. So then what, Mr. Snappy Pants? Do short story authors just fuck off from the face of the internet? Bzzt! Wrong! They do what UFC commentator Joe Rogan likes to call “fighting in a phone booth”, which means make the most of the space you’re granted. Perhaps that would mean expanding a short story beyond the 2000 or 5000 word limit. But you could get the job done. Your sanity depends on it. Judging from the aggression in the daily deviation author’s voice, you can’t afford to make huge mistakes. In that case, do as much horrible shit to your main character as possible. It may be your only chance despite going against Mr. Drill Instructor’s advice. If you need help editing your story afterwards, seek the council of someone with the disposition of a baby bunny. I’ll bet you anything that the editor you seek out will give you a set of questions to answer within the space of your prose and once you have those questions emphatically answered, everything will work out right and you may get published. While this may not have been the most entertaining blog post I’ve done, I hope it was one of the more helpful ones. In the end, that’s pretty much all that counts.

　

***MOVIE QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“You get me slapped with a fine, you argue with the customers and I have to patch everything up, you get us thrown out of a funeral home for violating a corpse, and to top it all off, you ruin my relationship! What is your encore?! Do you anally rape my mother while pouring sugar in my gas tank?!”

-Dante Hicks from “Clerks”-

Flash Fiction

In the same way that writing doorstoppers doesn’t necessarily mean that the author has a gigantic penis, writing flash fiction doesn’t necessarily mean the author has a small penis either. In fact, it just might be the other way around. If you don’t know what flash fiction is, here’s the deal. It’s just like any other story, but the general consensus is that it can be anywhere from 400 words to 1000. It’s not a hard and fast rule, but it’s enough to get the inspirational dynamo going. No matter what word limit is imposed on the author, the whole point of flash fiction is that it’s extremely short. To be able to pop off a fully functional story in such a tight space takes a lot of talent. There are so many things you have to remember while writing a story and with flash fiction you have to work within a tight focus. The rule of “show, don’t tell” still applies, characters going through personal transformations by the story’s end still carries water, and the ending has to stay within the story’s universe (in other words, Deus Ex Machina is still a no-no). Doing all of this in 400 words or less should be worthy of publication. In fact, I’m hoping that somewhere in the bibliosphere (I know, it’s a made up word), someone has published an entire anthology of flash fiction stories. I can’t imagine any doorstopper material coming from such an anthology, but that’s only because flash fiction is a highly underappreciated form of art. The only forums I know of that ask for such submissions are literary magazines and DeviantART. I could be limited in my scope of where flash fiction is published and if I am, I’d be grateful if someone showed me where the remaining sources are. I know of one other source which has a great amount of appreciation: newspapers and internet articles. It’s basically flash nonfiction because each article is only supposed to be 400 words or less, with as little elaboration on minor details as possible. Every Wednesday I volunteer my time at the Kitsap Historical Society and so far I’ve submitted two flash nonfiction articles to their newsletter. I hope they get accepted, because that would be a huge feather in the cap of someone who wants to write for a living but has limited outlets for doing so. In a way, these blog entries are like flash nonfiction since they’re only one page long. I’m hoping that this blog gets enough views so that I can start earning revenue for advertising banners. Now that I think about it, maybe flash fiction isn’t as undervalued as I previously thought. Hey, we all have to start somewhere, right?

　

***COMEDIC QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“For a corporate sponsor, you get one of those companies that loves to smear its logo feces all over the landscape. Budweiser will jump at this shit in half a minute.”

-George Carlin-