Story A Day Challenge – Day 20 – Flowers

Today’s prompt challenged us to write outside our normal genre. The problem for me is with short fiction I write in most genres. I’ve written zombie stories, ghost tales, fantasy, middle grade fantasy, a little sci-fi, literary, horror, humor, contemporary, etc. So I decided to go with a different tone.

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Brian awoke suddenly. Flowers! He hadn’t bought Maggie flowers in a week. Guilt hit him as he dressed. How could he have forgotten? He rushed out and bought a bouquet of her favorite lilies. He hoped she wouldn’t feel forgotten as he laid the flowers on her gravestone.

The ghost of Maggie felt sadness wash over her as she watched her husband place the flowers. She’d believed when he didn’t buy them for a week that he was finally ready to let her go. She hoped he wouldn’t feel sad forever. If only he would smile she could move on.

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The Prompt

Write a story in a genre that you wouldn’t normally write. If you’re a squeamish sort of person, try writing a gory horror story. Or if you hate everything mushy and lovey-dovey, try a tender romance. If you don’t normally write within a genre, pick one and try it out! 

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I tried to come up with a ‘mushy, lovey-dovey’ romantic story but it just wasn’t in me. I also tried to do something on the erotica scale but sometimes my mother and children read this blog so I couldn’t even force an idea out let alone post something like that! So I stuck with sad. Most of my stories are either silly, funny, gross or have magic and dragons and such. I don’t like sad, I avoid it as much as possible. This was more out of my comfort zone than romance could ever be.

Rough draft 100 words