Flash Fiction Fishbowl Call 3 - Law and Order

General information about the Flash Fiction Fishbowl

This Fishbowl is closed for new prompts. Results will be tracked at Flash Fiction Fishbowl 3 - Law and Order

What's a Fishbowl? The very short version: You give me prompts, I'll use these as inspiration to write flash fiction.

A prompt can for example be a keyword, a phrase, a question, an image, a random real-world fact, or a what-if question. If you're familiar with my writing, you can ask for a continuation of an existing story, or more about a setting or character. Topics I won't write to are fanfiction and erotica.

I do accept general prompts, but this time I'm particularly looking for prompts to the theme "Law and Order" - making laws, breaking laws, old laws not coping with new situations, police work, morality, bureaucracy, contracts, wise laws, silly laws, natural laws, cosmic principles Order And Chaos, or whatever else comes to mind.

You can leave as many prompts as you like, you can come back and leave more in a second comment if you think of more later. Please also don't think that because I accept tips, you should not prompt without tipping - the more prompts, the merrier.

I decided on the "Law and Order" Topic for this round after Lyn Thorne-Alder requested "more of this!" after reading the following drabble from the last Fishbowl.

Lawyer Lunch

“You don’t look happy.”

“And you know why. This is big. And messy. But mostly big.”

“Your first serial killer, eh?”

“That is the question, isn’t it?”

“She killed people and ate them. No wonder you’re losing your appetite.”

“Tch. Be serious, will you? Laws on murder predate the emergence of supernaturals. My client targeted vampires exclusively. They were already dead. That meets the definition of corpse mutilation.”

“Oh. Yes. Very messy… You might end up with being a vampire being a case of interfering with one’s own funeral...”

“The hell with it. It must be cleared up some time.”

It's in the same setting as Curse Law. For more samples, you could have a look at the Fiction section of my website, or the Flash Fiction Fishbowl 2 - Horror.

The Stories

I try to write each story self-contained in 100-300 words, but they often turn out longer, occasionally shorter, and sometimes more open-ended than other times.

The result won't neccessarily be one story per person, since several prompts may combine to form one story idea, but I will do my best to use at least one prompt from each participant.

If a prompt you left plays into the creation of a story, you will get to read it right away. I'll share it with you privately, either via email, or via internal message if you leave your prompt at the Livejournal or Dreamwidth mirror.

Two stories from this Fishbowl are guaranteed to be posted publicly soon, one this Friday, and one the next. Remaining works will go into a pool from which I publish one random story each Friday. Tips will sponsor additional stories that get posted right away.

Perks

For each Link back to the prompt call I'll post about 50 words of setting notes or other background material. I may substitute drawn character sketches or the like.

Fishbowl #1 had 10 commenters, #2 had 12 - if we get at least 14 this time, I'll write an additional 1000+ words story to the Fishbowl theme.

Tips

I accept tips via Paypal.

If you tip,

• I'll send you a link to a google doc with all not-yet-published stories from this Fishbowl. You also may decide which story or stories to sponsor for public posting with your tip (but if you don't want to decide, you don't have to).
• You can pick at least one story based on a prompt you left that goes public, regardless of wordcount. (So if you tip $3, but a story I write for you is so long I'd ask for $8 to sponsor it, you can still have it go public.)
• I will write two stories based on your prompts (or one that's at least 600 words, if it works better with the prompt(s) you left). If I find myself absolutely out of ideas, I may ask for new prompts.

If you tip at least $10, I'll send you links to older not-yet-published stories, too. (At the moment 4 from the previous Fishbowl.)

In addition there are perks based on the tip total.

• $20 - I'll make a basic ebook (with a text-only cover) in epub and mobi format, and anybody who prompted or donated will receive a copy.
• $50 - The ebook gets a cover illustration.
• $80 - I'll write an additional story for everyone who left enough prompts. That's 3 stories for tippers, 2 for others.

I'll also make sure that at the end at least 400 words per $10 donated are posted publicly. (Rough timeframe by the end of the month.)

Progress of tips (and stories and linkbacks) is tracked at Flash Fiction Fishbowl 3 - Law and Order

What I'd like to know

If you prompt it would be nice if you could also include the following information:
Do you have any preference how you're credited? (which name and link)
Did you spread the link? Where? (On Twitter I can tell if you include @Anke)
If you found this through someone else spreading the link, who was it? (I'm curious, and could use some data to help with considerations about future perks)