I'm Kieren, I make videos supporting and encouraging writers to tell their stories and to have fun doing it.
Writing is hard, but you don't have to do it alone.
This is a safe place, where bigotry and bullying of any kind is not tolerated.
Here's some stuff I've done: Shortlisted for Bridport Flash Fiction Prize 2011 Longlisted for Bridport First Novel Prize 2015 Shortlisted for Fiction Factory Flash Fiction Comp' 2017 Longlisted for Fiction Factory Flash Fiction Comp' 2019 Shortlisted for Bath Novella in Flash Prize 2020 Shortlisted for Bridport Flash Fiction Prize 2020 Story 'The Reach of the Light' published by Five South 2021 Story 'Empty Backyard Pool' published by Free Flash Fiction Online 2021
Brands, you can get in touch through the contact form on my website, but please note:
I will not respond to anything related to, using, or involving AI, in any capacity. I will not respond to video editors, SEO 'professionals' or anything else. I'm not hiring.
I just found your video and decided to give it a go. What a marvelous exercise. I wrote 133 words that just seemed to flow. I will be doing this exercise again. Perhaps as a daily thing to practice writing. Thank you for sharing.
Hi Kieren, I really enjoy watching your videos. I'm actually writing a story for a competition and it's a life story. I wanted some advice on how to show feelings when you've been humiliated and you can't respond and defend because yourself the other person is in a higher position than you and you really want to cry but want to wait until you're alone and also you can't speak at that moment. Do I use a simlie suc😮h as my heart felt l like my heart had been hit by thousands of of bullets. I was been wrongly accused of something I hadn't done and my body shut down as a way of survival. Any tips or suggestions welcome. Thanks Hina
Not necessarily, I tend to try this on my drafts, but you could easily save it for editing. There’s no one method for writing, whatever works for you is the right way to do it ☺️
Thank you this is perfect timing. I have just finished my next story, but it’s only 60,000 words and it was killing me to just add in useless stuff to the word account. This is a new Avenue to explore thank you.
Tiger Soul The naked shaman wore the gathering smoke like a cloak, moving her hand across the sedated tiger as she plucked pieces of its soul to be distributed among the villagers crowded in her healing tent. The apprentice waited until the ceremony was over to quietly ask for his share, only to be told what he'd subconsciously known all along: That the sorcery was a charade to help people with their ailments. “They believe the souls of animals transform the weak and sick,” she told him, “imbuing them with all manner of strength and longevity.” She was simply acting according to their expectations. One day he'd leave this place and return to school, where they studied things like DNA and genetic engineering. I’ll find my own pieces, he thought as he watched the beast's massive frame move up and down like an otherworldly flame in a storm, impervious to wind and rain. (153 words. This was a good exercise and meditation on the economy of words.)
Great content as always, i really enjoy your videos and especially this one. Inspired by this video I decided to write and submit a 116 word conversation entitled "...and it fades to black" to Fractured Literary. This is the first time I've ever submitted anything but it will not be the last. If, in a few months, they decide to publish, I'll update this comment. Keep up the great work.
Hi Kieren, thanks for the push I needed badly, God knows how come I had not seen this video for so long , I am feeling motivated and wrote my first sentence as soon as I completed watching this.
I did to this exercise because it's been a minute since I wrote something shorter. Though it did go a bit over by 24 words, I like how it turned out 😃👍. Surprisingly will do more of this before doing work on my main project.
I really enjoyed this and will try it out. Your 100 words needs extending as I want to know what happens next, and where the RV is going, and why he needs to get out of the city 😃 Love your content and channel
Glad you enjoyed it, definitely give it a go! And thank you, I didn't think too much of that story, but I think that was mainly because it didn't go exactly where I wanted. Nothing's ever perfect though.
The way I see it, your choosing details which the characters own actions would interact with not what an onlooker would see but what the character sees
Turns out there is a reason to colour code your bookshelves! I always thought those people were psychopaths. They were micro-fiction writers all along! Who knew?
It does come in handy for this kind of exercise, but I cannot claim to be responsible for that bookshelf, the coordinated one was my wife! If it had been me, it would be ordered like library probably. It looks nice in the background though!
Loved this exercise! I'm an artist by trade, but dabble in writing, and I've found that writing microfic scratches the same itch as composing a still image for an illustration. It's the same idea of suggesting a bigger story through a single snapshot.
This was helpful, my writing goal is to write 1k a day but my writing feels flat and uninteresting so far I’ve managed 300 words on a good day but I need to go back to writing 100 words exactly.
Thank you for the encouragement. I've been writing for a few years on various stories. I'm able to stretch my storytelling to much greater lengths now and I'm nearly finished with my first novel length book. I figure writing like any muscle or skill, the more you exercise it, the better it gets.
That was great! Thank you! My piece came out to 103 words. I wrote it with one story idea, but as I read it over and exchanged some words with keywords from my inspo page, it took on an entirely different expression. Big fun!
This was amazing! I'm loving this type of videos - In my experience, the most actionable videos on writing craft!! It went to 170😬 but I need to edit it and maybe it'll get in the range. But really, loved the exercise so much - it came out so wonky and so unhinged! :No fruits for him: He was pawing at the glass windows, a little fogged up beneath his shallow breaths. He'd always liked to watch rain drops lit under the streetlights, trickling down their sedan's windshield and petting the unruly grass bed to sleep. But that monsoon, he hadn’t been watching the rain. Tonight, since the thunder started to rumble, he'd been at the glass window, looking at the coldly lit silhouette of him, laying behind him on the unvarnished dining table. Voiceless on the glass and if he tuned his hearing to the rain falling on the terracotta roof. But he could hear it, his gasps, slipping between the crevices of the bunch of bananas he had put on his face and with the weight of the mesh of grapefruits draped on his chest. He said it helped him, the weight, to feel more grounded. But he couldn't ever tell the difference, even if he'd let him close. He wouldn't let him see his face. He tuned his hearing to the drizzle once again. There were no grapefruits. There were no bananas for him. *** Please share any reviews or suggestions!
170 is okay! There's no hard limit on 100, just my suggestion. What I like about microfiction is that it often feels like one moment, almost frozen in time, a sort of hyper-focus on a few seconds of someone's life, and I think you have that feel in your story. Also rain just makes everything more atmospheric. Gotta love a bit of rain!
this ended up being a fun little exercise for me, I haven't written in quite some years, but I'm still pleased with what I ended up with so thank you :)
Excellent, I think even if you don't plan on writing microfiction all the time, or regularly, you can still benefit from it as an exercise from time to time. Glad you ended up with something you're pleased with!
I actually have a book called "Nothing short of 100" a selection of 100 stories from various authors and are 100 words long. I recommend this book alongside the others.
It went great, though I have around 15 non fiction books on my book shelf 😂 I ended up writing about an experience I had with my father around 40 years ago in 3rd person perspective. It was fun, and really helped me come up close to that moment in time once again!
That's great! It's quite amazing what you can do in 100 words I think. I'm glad it came out as something so meaningful in your case, too. That seems like the perfect kind of subject matter for microfiction.
I found this to be so helpful - thank you so much! I didn't know that I needed to hear someone else say it is okay to write even if you don't know HOW to write a story :)
Absolutely! Sometimes you just have to jump in and give it a go, but there can be loads of barriers to doing that I think, even if we don't realise it.
That subtle repeat of your affiliate code at 11:!5 caught me so off guard I actually spit out the bite of lunch I was eating while watching this. Well done Kieran! LOLOL
Other microfiction writers I'd recommend: David Gaffney ('Sawn-off Tales'), Tania Hershman ('My Mother Was an Upright Piano') and Lydia Davis. Thanks for the suggestion of Laura Besley, she's a writer I've not encountered before. 👍
I like it! Had to limit my library from 11 cases to 4 shelves in 1 due to reasons. Random number news. I used several news sites and finally my mind apparently picked up Police Vehicle. I wrote a tiny futuristic? thing about a teen being carted off to new horizons.
Stephanie’s use of imagery is impressive and I want to be just like her when I grow up.🙂 I really like your draft and I especially like the line about the kids “tucking their heads beneath their parents airborne snores” It really creates the image of these kids sneaking out and also injects some humor. And you really capture the moodiness of their adventure just by using the blue color scheme. Thanks!
I did it! It was a good exercise. I really didnt have much of an idea of what i was going to say, But ideas just kept coming to my mind and I kept writing and though it's probably nothing anyone would want to read, it still was a good exercise to do in getting that experience and learning how to just put those thoughts on paper. So thank you again. I can't wait to try your other exercises out
Wow how great was this video, thank you. I love the encouraging and motivating way you show us that writing something is possible. So refreshing. I especially loved the exercises! Yes loved them! I actually enojed them and was surprised how stuff poured out of me. I've always loved words and loved writing and I've always thought I had something inside of me that needed to be told or shared...and doing these exercises was the perfect thing for me. I think I need some more exercises 😉 if you have more? That paragraph exercise, I don't know where it came from inside if me, but I am going to continue with it because it was fun. And I think that's the point you were trying to make is that we shouldnt judge ourselves and be so hard on ourselves. Just have fun, and i did. That presure to be perfect was gone. It reminds me how I always wished I was a great painter. I can't draw a stick figure even, but I'd love to be a great painter. Well kind of like this exercise, when I sit down and just start putting that paint on the paper no matter how it comes out, it still does something wonderful inside of me. And that's how this exercise went for me. It was like finally getting that large jar of pickles open. Wow... now i can finally eat one! I'm really thankful that you gave me that push that I needed to just at least try. And it's not that I haven't tried, but I always thought I had to like ,sit down and write from the beginning to end which doesn't work. So, just having these three exercises gave me everything that I think you were trying to say and it really did work and it really did help me so I can't thank you enough. And this is the first video I've seen of yours because I've been going through so many playlists,😅 but you resonate with me and you've helped me and I will continue to watch more of your videos. Course now I'm really interested in what kind of things you write so I may have to look into that too, haha. Anyway, thank you again thank you thank you thank you!
Thanks so much for watching! I'm really glad the vide could help. I do find just jumping in can sometimes get results your weren't expecting ☺️ There's another exercise coming later today that I think is a fun one!
Agents want to control the narrative. No writer can allow this interference. Writing is an art form and must be free. Imagine telling Emily Bronte to re-write her book! Take it or leave it would have been her response. And should be.
I almost can't fathom writing a novel. I started out writing screenplays then decided to strictly write short stories. It was freeing. But writing a novel seems a daunting task.
It's definitely a big undertaking. Whenever I start a new one I feel like that too. I always come back to the old cliche 'How do you eat an elephant? - One bite at a time!'
At 2:19 Writing flash fiction and micro fiction "teaches you to identify what really matters about your story and also how to communicate that to your reader as clearly and concisely as you can. That is a skill that you can take across all fiction." For me, Kieren, this is the 🥇guidance.
