Tag: powderburnflash

Production errors all over – story in CrimeSpree

~ Sean Monaghan ~ 2 Comments

My story “The Boxer” appeared in CrimeSpree 41, April/March this year (link goes to Amazon, Kindle edition $2.99 – non-affiliate link). It turns out there was a production error in the printing, with part of the story missing. And so the story appears in full on the CrimeSpree Website. Hope you like it.

Funny thing – I had my own little production error with the story. “The Boxer” was a kind of working title, but it quickly got changed to the final title – “Take the Fall” – which makes more sense. Somehow when I submitted it, I put the old title back on, and that’s how it’s stuck. To add to the irony, there’s a boxer (professional?) with my name too, so if you do an internet search for Sean Monaghan The Boxer, you’re going to find that guy way ahead of finding my story.

BTW “The Boxer” (“Take the Fall”) is an interlinked story with some others – “While He Lay Crumpled” published in The New Flesh, “Join The Band” published in PowderBurnFlash and “Breathe In published in Flashes In The Dark. Read in any order.

The issue of CrimeSpree also includes an interview with Don Winslow. I recently read his book The Dawn Patrol – very different kind of crime-thriller. Interesting guy.

Bathroom Break – flash fiction in PowderBurn Flash

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

My second publication for the year – Bathroom Break – is now up at PowderBurnFlash.

Feeling a little bored with having seen yet another movie where the kidnapper lets the victim go to the bathroom and she escapes through the window, I wondered if there was a way to write around that cliche and still have a satisfying, entertaining story, without that “groan” factor. I hope I’ve succeeded. Let me know what you think.

Join the Band, out now on PowderBurnFlash

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

My story Join the Band is out now on the crime writing site PowderBurnFlash. This is a quirky and compressed story, and some readers might notice links between it and an earlier piece – While He Lay Crumpled published last August in The New Flesh. Yes, there’s a bigger story at play here, which also involves (though it’s not obvious yet) Breathe In from Flashes in the Dark, and two other stories in late draft stage which will be looking for publishers in the next couple of months.

Flash Fiction challenge story published

~ Sean Monaghan ~ Leave a comment

Powder Burn Flash posed and interesting challenge: write a story that involves a wedding cake in the middle of the road – however you pursue that idea. It’s both invigourating and challenging to write with a distinct and especially weird constraint, and I really wanted to make the challenge idea critical to the story, rather than just adjunct (say by shoe-horning the wedding cake into an existing story).

I’m pleased with my story – Crossing County Lines – it’s very stripped back with lots for the reader to fill in, but I do think that the wedding cake in the middle of the road remains integral to the piece. If it was taken out, would the story work?