Origin Story: "What's Left Over"

Notes on the origin of this short story collection

Short and simple are two concepts that I would never use to describe the majority of my writing. I like tales that are multi-faceted, threaded, with ideas that intertwine and build to a crescendo. This is hard as a newer writer, since asking folks to read a 700-page novel by a first-time, unpublished author they have never heard of is a tough sell. I secretly long to be the writers’ version of the Kinks, composing two of the greatest rock songs of all time “I Need You” and “You Really Got Me” with what is essentially a couple chords and a few lines of lyrics. Instead (keeping within the parlance of classic rock bands I like) I’m more of a Captain Beefheart or ELO: over the top, dramatic, weird at times...a bit silly? This doesn’t bode well for brevity, when I am desperate to create some. But maybe a girl just needs a little practice, right?

What better practice than doing a complete 180 and trying to write some flash fiction. This was the first thing on my writing to-do list for 2023, although none of the ideas I had in my little idea stash would work for that kind of thing. So I decided—like I often do—to adapt a concept I had for an art piece into a writing project. I originally had an idea to make assemblages of found objects and write a sentence-long title that told their story. This was a project for a particular art show that has been back-burnered and I may still do this at some point, but for now I decided to take that idea in a slightly different direction.

My partner is an artist who does photography, and one of his favorite things to photograph is trash. Being someone who also works at a place that deals in donated trash, his photos spoke to me...mostly because they are awesome...but also as objects that had once belonged somewhere, to someone with a story. While I could never know their true origins, I realized I could use them as inspiration and tell their stories for them.

And so, my collection of six stories, titled What’s Left Behind, was born. I didn’t manage to keep most of them short enough to be considered flash fiction, but they are still the quickest and briefest of anything I’ve written up until this point. All are intentionally written in the first person (except Just Bodies which I felt needed omniscient input from both characters) and are tied together by depicting moments of transition amid hostility that takes many forms.

I could say more, but for the sake of keeping this explainer flash-length—hope you have fun reading them. ♥