Weathering Youth: “Charming, Not Useful” and “Flora, Alone”
Because Weathering Youth is my biggest collection to date, I’m grouping the short stories and flash fiction stories in pairs for my posts, based on the way they fall in the collection. This lets me look at the connections between the stories and how I decided to arrange specific stories in the collection!
“Charming, Not Useful” and “Flora, Alone” are both fantasy flash fiction pieces that I wrote in 2023. Though both of them could, ostensibly, be secondary world fantasy, they both have some elements that might make them seem slightly more contemporary.
“Charming, Not Useful” is told from the perspective of an unnamed prince in search of someone he might marry. It’s told in a very tongue-in-cheek tone, poking fun at fairy tale tropes. The title was inspired by a line from Into the Woods: “I was raised to be charming, not sincere.” In this case, however, the prince is quite sincere, just not all that useful!
“Flora, Alone” is a bit of a commentary on trends in fashion that also touches on the fact that while knitting can be accomplished by mass-production means, crochet cannot. It also reflects a bit of my own struggle with learning to crochet more than 20 years ago, when a friend’s mom gave me quick instruction and then left me to my own devices. I wound up having to re-learn how to crochet on my own six months later, when I realized I’d missed a crucial step in the process.
Both of these stories are exclusive to Weathering Youth! You can read them, along with other stories featuring young protagonists in a variety of settings, in print and ebook formats!
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