Friday Fictioneers – Deception

~ neilmacdon
vintage-kitchen-tools-valerie-barrett
PHOTO PROMPT © Valerie Barrett

The chandelier resonated with marching boots on the parade ground. The salon walls shook as heavy vehicles rumbled onto the quay.

The author buried his head in his hands. “I can’t create in this din.”

“How about,” the brigadier-general suggested, “we toss a corpse into the sea, pockets stuffed with secret plans for an invasion at Calais?”

“You don’t understand fiction do you?” the author said in withering tones. “The enemy will see through that in a second. We need to misdirect them from the Normandy denouement, sprinkle-in clues so readers are forced to work out the Calais conclusion themselves.”

Friday fictioneers is a weekly challenge set by Rochelle Wisoff Fields to write a 100-word story in response to a photo prompt. This one is a belated 75th anniversary tribute, of course, to the unsung heroes of D-Day You can find other stories here

67 thoughts on “Friday Fictioneers – Deception”

  10. I attended a lecture on the ‘body in the sea’ strategy quite recently. The pains they went to in order to convince the enemy… a bit like plot construction/misdirection these days.

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      3. Really? My feeling is that creative writing skills have waned. Even writing skills have waned. Students these days seem to be more specialized. I only say this because I have to proof the writing of scientists. lol

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      5. They certainly don’t like using articles. I realize that this may not be totally relevant, but I think I read that Ian Fleming was a spy during WWII. I doubt he had anything to do with D-Day, but I thought it interesting.

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  23. What a clever take on this prompt! And it made me think of today’s American media, which is expert at dropping subtle and/or outrageous “hints’ that misdirect us to where they want us to be. Interesting.

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