Top in Fiction Week #12

Week of Sep 21 - Sep 27 | Vol. 1 Iss. 12

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POETRY

These Hands - 9/21/24 [Free Verse]

Ginger

of Ginger’s Collection

typewriter confessions - 9/22/24 [Free Verse]

Words in Bloom

of Words in Bloom Stories and Poems

MICRO/FLASH FICTION

The Itching Hand - 9/27/24 [Horror]

Irshaad

of Frantic Writing

Dear John - 9/24/24 [Epistolary]

Feasts and Fables

of Just Write, Right

SHORT STORY

Lady Bug - 9/22/24 [Sci-Fi]

Claudia Befu

of Story Voyager

Avery - 9/24/24 [Existential]

Oscar Ruto Chemelil

of Oscar Ruto

Omens of the Great Spring - 9/23/24 [Fantasy]

Nick Winney

of The Why & the Why Not

A Slap in the Face - 9/24/24 [Literary Fiction]

Thomas Foydel

of False Choices

Echoes of the Vanished - 9/21/24 [Mystery]

Simone D. Casadei Bernardi

of The Clueless Writer’s Chronicles

No Rest for the Wicked - 9/21/24 [Literary Fiction]

Kerry Sutherland

of Thinking in Capitals

SERIAL

Dark Device of the Great Chasm [Windtracer Tales, Ch. 23] - 9/25/24 [Fantasy]

Kummer Wolfe

of Worlds of Kummer Wolfe

Looped [Tale of 2 Cities, Ep. 33] - 9/24/24 [Fantasy]

Natalie Phillips

of Plotted Out

Cable-Tied [Necromance in the Air, Ch. 3] - 9/24/24 [Magical Realism]

Ross Young

of Beware of the Mindsquid!

Bonus: In the beginning - 9/27/24 [Sci-Fi]

Simon K Jones

of Write More with Simon K Jones

Who Needs Enemies? - 9/21/24 [Fantasy]

Robin George

of Tales of the Godswood

HONORABLE MENTIONS

RUOK? [A Horror Story in Texts, Ep. 1] - 9/27/24 [Horror]

Andy Futuro

of Andy Futuro [Short Serial]

A Star Reborn - 9/24/24 [Sci-Fi]

Johnathan Reid

of ReiditWrite [Flash Fiction]

Edgewood - 9/24/24 [Literary Fiction]

Virginia Neely

of Scribbles [Short Story]

Swallow - 9/23/24 [Literary Fiction]

Smriti Iyer

of Smriti’s Substack [Short Story]

Let's Be Friends [Opt-In, Ep. 2] - 9/24/24 [Horror]

S.L. Stallings

of Feed Your Head [Serial]

Read the comments section for even MORE stories we just couldn’t fit in this issue.

I thought I’d spend some time discussing how the TiF Monthly Recaps are put together. I like to be as meticulous and organized with every aspect of TiF because I feel I can’t afford not to be. Wrangling dozens of weekly options to choose from is not easy! And my time is limited. Going back over a 4-week time span to uncover new stories that haven’t been featured for the Monthly Recap just isn’t possible. Not unless TiF becomes my 9 to 5 paying job!

So, I have a bit of a formula that I implement to put these Monthly Recap issues together, and it goes a little something like this:

1 Weekly + 1 Weekly Honorable Mention x 4 + 8 Brand New = 16 featured stories

What does this formula all mean?

• The Monthly Recaps, regardless of date, happens every 4th issue. Not all months in the calendar are 4 weeks exactly, but it helps me to keep it this way for uniformity sake. So, as this is issue #12, the 3rd Monthly Recap is approaching.

• The Monthly Recaps are delivered on the Wednesday after every 4th issue. Meaning, Monthly Recap #3 is just two days away!

• 1 Weekly + 1 Weekly Honorable Mention simply put, means that I randomly select ONE story that was featured AND 1 Honorable Mention to make a second appearance, if you will, in the Monthly Recap. My way of harkening back to previous issues. This also is my way of providing a medallion for the one lucky Honorable Mention, since they don’t receive any like the featured ones do.

• “x 4” just means I’m doing this for all 4 issues (aka 4 weeks) that the Monthly Recap covers.

• 8 Brand New means I will introduce 8 new stories from the previous 4 weeks that were not featured at all! This makes the Monthly Recaps, I hope (?), more desirable to subscribers to read, and affords me the opportunity to feature those I may have been forced to leave out or missed from previous weeks.

• All of this culminates in the creation of 12 (4 Honorable Mentions + 8 Brand New) medallions for the Monthly Recaps.

I’m torn about which issues I enjoy crafting the most; Weekly or Monthly. They are both equally as fascinating for me. I get to uncover hidden gems that I’m always on the lookout for. I silently make note of ReStacks in Notes every single day. I see an image or title or name I don’t recognize and I’m right there to investigate. Notes is a place where I try to get a sizable percentage of the featured stories (~5%). With the majority coming from the comments section of our Friday-Saturday meet-ups.

And, because sometimes I can’t hold a surprise back, in 2025 the Monthly Recaps will receive their own PDFs just like the Weekly issues! I’m excited to bring this in the coming year. That means 12 Monthly Recap + 52 Weekly Issue PDFs. Hmm…I wonder what can be made of that?

— Your Most Trusted Fiction Overlord 😈

TiF EXTRAS

[FEATURED WRITERS: DOWNLOAD YOUR MEDALLION HERE]

TiF - Vol 1 Iss 12

235KB ∙ PDF file

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Clickable links contained in the PDF.

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We’ll be back next Monday for another amazing list of fiction stories worth reading! And if you enjoyed any of these stories, please consider sharing this post everywhere: