Plotting

Grant Faulkner

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A wise writer once said that “the king died, and then the queen died,” is a story, but that “the king died, and then the queen died of grief,” now that was a plot, except the king died of a heart attack while in amorous congress with the queen’s handmaiden, and the queen didn’t know what was going on because she was doddling the exchequer, the exchequer who sired the handmaiden (but had nothing to do with the handmaiden’s mother after the siring), but it was all alright because the king ruled by divine right, so neither he nor the queen really cared about plots too much, not when pleasures were at hand, and the queen was quite happy to rule over everybody with the power of God’s blessings after her poor sick king’s untimely death, that is until the exchequer poisoned her and told everyone how she’d been so terribly stricken with grief that she died of it, leaving the exchequer and the handmaiden free to abscond with a bag full of royal jewels and sail to France to live the louche life of happy libertines, proving that a libidinous nature and criminal proclivities can actually pay (although no one could explain why the exchequer disappeared without a trace soon afterward, or why the handmaiden said that her father had taught her everything she knew).

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Grant Faulkner is the co-founder of 100 Word Story, the co-host of the Write-minded podcast, and an Executive Producer on the upcoming TV show, America’s Next Great Author. He recently published The Art of Brevity: Crafting the Very Short Story. He’s also published All the Comfort Sin Can Provide; Fissures, a collection of 100-word stories; Nothing Short Of: Selected Tales from 100 Word Story; and Pep Talks for Writers: 52 Insights and Actions to Boost Your Creative Mojo. His stories have appeared in dozens of literary magazines, including Tin House, The Southwest Review, and The Gettysburg Review, and he has been anthologized in collections such as Norton’s New Micro: Exceptionally Short Fiction, Flash Fiction America, Best Small Fictions, and Best Microfiction. His essays on creativity have been published in The New York Times, Poets & Writers, Literary Hub, Writer’s Digest, and The Writer. Additionally, Grant serves on the National Writing Project’s Writer’s Council, Left Margin Lit’s Advisory Council, and Aspen Words’ Creative Council. He’s also the author of a weekly newsletter: Intimations: A Writer’s Discourse. 

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