My flash story “The Negotiation” emailed to Daily Science Fiction subscribers today.  Regular readers of my site know I like to write a little about the inspiration for each of my published stories, so I thought today might be a good time to do that.  Sometimes a story’s inspiration is clear and strong, and I can pinpoint it with ease.  Other times it’s not so easy.

For the “The Negotiation,” it was easy.  This story was inspired by a writing prompt through the Codex writing group.  Each year the group does a series of weekend writing prompts, where a handful of prompts are given on Friday and a finished story is submitted (anonymously) on Monday.  The submitted stories are then read and ranked by group members, and weekly “winner” is crowned (but really everyone who finishes a story is a winner).  Unfortunately I don’t write stories that quickly, so I’ve never managed to submit a weekend story.

“The Negotiation” was inspired by this weekend writing prompt: write about someone who failed in a previous profession, but now has some success in a new one.  I brainstormed possible jobs, starting much too mundane and getting progressively more interesting until I finally hit one I liked (I won’t give it away for those who have yet to read the story yet).  From there, the pieces began to fall into place: a failed bank robbery, a whimpering hostage, a tense negotiation, and the story was born.  I wrote this one in a single sitting, with a wordy first draft that came in at nearly twice its final length.  Two revisions later, I had the final story, clocking in at a fairly tight and respectable 850 words.

If you aren’t a DSF subscriber (shame on you), you’ll have wait another week to read it free online.  If you’ve read it already, I hope you enjoyed it, and will check out some of my other fiction.