Fictions is the Latest, Greatest Thing on Medium You Haven’t Heard of Yet

Focusing on fiction in the final publication for my month of reading challenge

A well-written short story is delicious, delightful, and devilishly hard to find. They have this nasty tendency to hide amongst a pile of dreck. So I was delighted to stumble across a new publication called Fictions full of excellent little gems.

I was looking for one more publication to round out my month-long reading challenge. Each week in July, I picked a publication and read everything they posted. At the end of the week, I submitted a story to them and wrote a post about the publication highlighting some of my favorites from the week.

It’s been a fun challenge for me and I wanted to finish the month off strong with another great publication. When I stumbled across Fictions, my first thought was, “This is perfect. It’s totally different from the other three publications. It fits the goldilocks amount of stories posted for my challenge. One glance at the writers on its home page and I know it’s gonna be great.”

I started reading and I was right. It was fantastic. Unfortunately, there was no way I could use it for my challenge. Fiction writing is not in my comfort zone. Even if I tried, there was no way I could get up to the level of the writers featured.

But I couldn’t resist the desire to write about this publication and share it with all of you. I had things to say gosh darn it, and I wasn’t about to let my fear of fiction writing stop me from saying them. I decided to choose this pub to write about even if I would have to say, “I submitted but they haven’t accepted me yet. Maybe someday I’ll be good enough.”

But enough about me and my insecurities, let’s get to the good stuff.

Fictions is only two weeks old. To quote from their submission guidelines:

Fictions is a publication started by Danielle Loewen, Paul Combs, and Eric Pierce to give quality fiction a place to shine.

We are, first and foremost, lovers of the written word. We want to be bowled over by thunderous prose; catapulted into foreign lands; hoodwinked into cavorting with gods and kings and peasants.

Fiction is the purest form of storytelling. So tell us a story.

They had me at Loewen, Combs, and Pierce.

I love quality fiction. There have been few days in my entire life when I haven’t read at least a chapter or two of a good book. I adore a well-written short story. But I’ve read very little fiction on Medium. I’m not the world’s most patient reader and I don’t like being disappointed. I wasn’t sure where to find it and I’ve been so busy with everything else Medium throws my way I hadn’t gone looking.

I’m glad I found it anyway.

Choosing my favorites is tough. Do yourself a favor and read everything they publish. Fiction is highly subjective and your favorites may be totally different than mine. But if you have limited time I highly recommend the following:

I should never have listened to my mother. I’m the worst therapist in this whole wanking city.

Danielle Loewen had me hooked from her first sentence. Everything fits together perfectly in this short story which walks through a therapy session alternating between the therapist’s inner monologue and what’s being said in the room. This is truly a work of art and comedic genius.

I come from a big family, so big it would put 19th century Italian-Americans to shame. I’m also the oldest, which comes with its own baggage. If you’re a first-born son, you know what I’m talking about. All eyes on you, the combined expectations of an entire lineage, all that nonsense.

Paul Combs has a winner here. You read the opening paragraph and instantly have a solid image of the narrator in your mind. Some stories grab you and pull you through sentence after sentence and when you get to the end you have to immediately go back and read it over again to exalt in the writer’s brilliance. This is one of those stories.

To see him pass by on his bicycle, with his bookbag slung across his back, and a flat plaid cap pulled down snug on his forehead, he looked perfectly ordinary and entirely forgettable.

Another brilliant first line. Arpad Nagy is pretty much promising me here that his main character is going to be far from ordinary. He delivers on that promise. I reached the end definitely wanting to read more about Tom.

The good news is I will be able to. Fictions encourages serialized fiction as well as stand-alone pieces. This is a great option for writers to explore.

Upon awakening, the entirety of him could be summed up by two things: he had a splitting headache, made all the worse by the too-bright room and the rush and roar of the city; and he hadn’t a clue where he was — the bed foreign and the room unfamiliar and the city glimpsed through squint eyes an alien landscape. There was a third part of his awareness — indeed the most important part — which he was ignorant of until he rinsed his mouth at the pedestal sink and stood looking in the the mirror.

Who am I?

Eric Pierce takes us on an action-packed circular adventure as we follow our mystery character and try to figure out what the hell is going on and why? Riveting stuff.

I’ve woken up in bed with a stranger.

No idea why.

Have I been kidnapped? How did I end up in a London flat? For that matter, why am I so sure I’m in London?

This horror story from Simon Dillon is a longer read than the ones above but you won’t notice the time. Instead, you’ll be pulled along from beginning to end worried and wondering where it will go.

Not only is this story well written but it illustrates one of the things I love about fiction. You could write a non-fiction piece about how bullying changes lives and ruins people. You could talk about how bullies and their victims are complex multifaceted people who can’t be reduced to stereotypes. Everyone reading will nod, agree, and forget what you said within minutes.

Or you could take Dillon’s approach and write a gripping piece of fiction that lingers in your mind making you think long after you’ve finished reading.

The tag line for Fictions says it all. “When real life just isn’t enough.” I love Medium because it’s been a place I can tell my story. Everything I’ve written here has been true and pulled from my life or research into someone else’s. But sometimes to tell the true stories of humanity we need to reach into our imaginations. We need to ask what-if questions and explore other worlds.

To meet the guidelines I set for myself in my reading challenge I needed to write something specifically for Fictions. I didn’t know where to start. Then I read a story that referenced Chekhov’s gun.

Suddenly I had my first line, “The gun was there.” Those four words sat in my drafts folder for two days while I tried to figure out why. Eventually, I sorted it out and submitted the story. After some great editing from Danielle Loewen it joined the ranks of those chosen few on Fictions.

Maybe you think you aren’t a fiction reader or a writer. Give Fictions a chance. You might be surprised by what you find.

You can read more about my reading challenge and the publications I have profiled below.