Yeah Write #90: Butterfly and the Flycatcher ( #amwriting #microstory )
“Come be eaten. Your hue fools me not.”
“Let’s wager, Flycatcher,” Butterfly challenged. “If I make it to the yarrow you won’t catch me.”
Flycatcher puffed her crest and attacked. Butterfly could not fly straight with injured wings. She zigged, zagged, fluttered, and flittered. In the frenzy, Flycatcher didn’t see Hawk.
Moral: The winding path is always a worthy one.
27 comments on “Yeah Write #90: Butterfly and the Flycatcher ( #amwriting #microstory )”
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Laissez Faire 
I love your moral! But I worry about the butterfly’s injured wing.
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Well, that’s why to this day all butterflies flutter and don’t fly straight. 😉
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A fable and an origin tale in one!
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LOVED the moral here. And the way you told it too!
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The twist ending was perfect, and I loved the moral. This is nit picky, but I wish you would say, “for she had injured wings” instead of “with her broken wings” because I didn’t know they were injured until then. Really great fable.
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Tara, this is fantastic. I love the twist in the end. Great moral too!
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Thanks 🙂 it came out better that I expected after I worried over the moral. That was tough. That word count was a killer, too!
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I was worried about the butterfly. Thanks for keeping it alive.
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If I had been able to change the butterfly into a skyshark predator, I would’ve. Lol
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Phew, lucky butterfly! How fortunate that hawk happened to be hanging around.
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It would have been good to indicate to the reader that butterfly had been aware of hawk’s presence, and had purposely delayed their path so flycatcher would be attacked. It gives a greater sense of intention/design to the butterfly’s actions, and strengthens the connection to the moral.
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Thanks asha. I tried to indicate intimate knowledge with the word choice of a very specific location…yarrow. After offering a wager that seems to have no promise, and the dialogue word choice…you /won’t/ catch me. I tried to put on clues. I think I am often too subtle. Le sigh. Thanks for commenting and if I expand this I will work on more linking details. 🙂
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Ah see, that’s my lack of US flora knowledge showing. I wouldn’t know where and when yarrows grow if my life depended on it (though I’m going to go google now!).
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I used to have some growing in my garden at our old house. I think they are striking plants. They are medicinal, too. I was trying to think of a bold plant that grows in summer in full sun on the edge of a forest or sparse part of a forest where a Hawk could hide but swoop down at distracted prey. LOL Again, I am toooooooo subtle. I got to work on that.
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Hahaha or maybe I just need to google more!
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I liked this but was distracted by the injured wings. I know the word count is tight, but was there a way to change the story to explain the injury? Looking at previous comments, it sounds like you connected this to an origin story(which is wickedly cool). Making that clear would strengthen this even more.
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It had been aanothet bird-pecking injury, but It was always over word count and so couldn’t get it to round right in the story beat. I decided to leave it up to assumption that butterfly must be clever to still be alive and focused in favor of a nonpoisonous butterfly’s clever way of avoiding predation…color mimicry and erratic flight.
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I really liked this!
It might be interesting, now that microprose is over, to spin this into a 100-150 word fable/origin story. To add in details about butterfly’s intent and her injury.
I loved your use of language to solidify the fable feel. Good work!
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I probably could blow this up into a 1000 word short with my worditis. Lol
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dooooo iiiiit!!!
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I like the way you described the butterfly’s path. It gave me an immediate visual. I struggled with a connection to the moral of the story though. It feels like the butterfly needs to do something deliberately in order to make that work, and instead it appears to be making a desperate bid to get away from the flycatcher that works because of luck – the broken wing and appearance of the hawk. As a story, though, it’s fun and bright.
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I guess it was too subtle clues that got me. I tried to imply that the butterfly had broken wings already and knew she couldn’t fly straight. She offered a wager with apparently no promise but to get to a very specific flower to show she had a point in mind. I thought “you won’t catch me” was kind of cheeky for a broken butterfly to declare so self assured 🙂 glad you liked it though despite things not coming across as I liked.
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Too subtle clues are my kryptonite. But yeah, I see what you’re saying now, and it totally works!
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There’s always a bigger fish!
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“Flycatcher didn’t see the Hawk” – and I didn’t see that ending! I also liked the verbs you used to describe the Butterfly’s path.
Like some others mentioned, I didn’t get all the connections & subtleties of the Butterfly’s intentions until the second or third read, but I’m really glad you wrote this story, even if it was a challenge to squeeze into the word count!
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Ooh this is really good. I love that you leave Flycatcher’s fate unstated but obvious. I will agree with some of the other comments that Butterfly’s erratic flight could be on purpose, rather than because of an injury – I don’t think of butterflies having a particularly linear flight path to begin with. Regardless, go Butterfly!
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oh ya! Love it:)
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