Issue #20: In memoriam [writing lab]

A death notice prompt | Reminder call for ladder-story submissions

Nov 06, 2025

Howdy, tiny writers!

With Halloween behind us and Remembrance Day/Memorial Day just ahead (and many of us facing death-by-Novel-Writing-Month), today’s Writing Lab exercise is perfectly timed. I hope you enjoy it.

I’ve included a reminder about my call for submissions for stories written in response to the micro-fiction ladder exercise — scroll down to the end if you want to give it a go.

Get your butt in your writing chair, and let’s begin.

News from beyond the grave

Photo by Africa images / Canva

“I always read the obituaries first. It’s the only news that stays news.” ~ William Maxwell

Whenever I pick up an actual newspaper, I read every page, including the obituaries. I’m sure it cost someone a pretty penny to publish that seven-inch obit in the Globe & Mail, and I like to hear about how rich people live.

Plus, the obituary section is a great source for names, biographies, occupations, and interesting life paths for your characters.

But today, let’s make the obituary a key element in a piece of writing.

Here’s the prompt for today’s writing exercise:

Write about someone learning something unexpected from an obituary.

You could approach this any number of ways:

A person responsible for writing an obituary learns something new about their deceased family member.
You read an obituary about someone you know — but that someone is in the house with you, very much alive.
Surprise! That dead celebrity is actually your character’s long-lost father/mother/sibling.
An obituary goes viral for its shocking reveal.
Your character might even see their own name in an obituary as a family member — or as the deceased.

Read some real-life obituaries for ideas, and go wherever your imagination takes you.

For inspiration, below is the beginning of a story I wrote — working title “Post-script” — based on this prompt. I’m not sure if I’ll keep going with it, but there’s a thread of something there I’d like to follow.

I’d love to hear if this prompt sparked something for you! ✨

Maria

Post-script

“Who the hell is Karla?”

I know my mother heard me. Her hands stilled momentarily, the sudsy water dripping unimpeded down her wrists as she took a pause. It was not a long pause. Then back went the J-Cloth into the murky water.

“What on earth are you talking about?” she asked, a slight hitch in her voice.

I had found my mother in the kitchen, cleaning up after the memorial. The afternoon had gone as well as could be expected. No speeches, thank God. Just endless standing. bottomless coffee, and a constant parade of white-haired, stooped people I didn’t recognize, sharing expressions of sympathy.

Despite me hiding in the corner of the living room with the cats and the ancient Ficus tree, the mourners — dad’s friends and colleagues — had sought me out and disturbed my confused grief.

“Your father was so proud of you, Karoline.” “He was one of a kind. “I can’t believe he’s gone.”

My father had been a legend, by all accounts. He was a big man full of tall tales, with none taller than the ones about his own life. To hear him tell it, his story of leaving the old country, traversing the ocean, and riding the rails to land in the middle of this mountain town, with nothing but his work boots and another man’s watch, was the pinnacle of human resilience and bootstrapping. At 16, he had hounded the foreman at the mill until he got a job sweeping wood chips. He talked himself into other jobs, more responsibility, more power, until one day he was the foreman, and eventually the big boss himself.

My dad could talk himself into anything.

He talked my mother’s ear off, while she worked as his secretary. “I married him just to shut him up,” my mom used to say.

But I never heard him talk about anyone named Karla. That story, right there in black and white in today’s Daily Record, he kept quiet about.

I hadn’t seen the obituary before the service. I assumed my mom had arranged that with the paper, while I dug into photo albums and yearbooks for snapshots of my dad throughout his life. I had pasted them onto big display boards, which took forever. The smell of Elmer’s glue gave me a migraine, and I’ll forever associate it with one of the saddest periods of my life.

I had only just now seen today’s paper.

“‘Alek Volkov, survived by his wife Helen, and daughters Karoline and Karla.’” I read it aloud to my mom’s back, as she pretended to focus on the dishes. I was more confused than anything. “Did the paper make a mistake?”

“There’s no mistake,” she said. “They printed exactly what your father wanted them to print.”

“What do you mean? Who’s this Karla? Are you telling me dad has another daughter? Like, from before you met him?”

She didn’t reply, just kept scrubbing away at a stubborn pot. Then, a sudden realization had me leaning, light-headed, against the wall.

“Mom. Tell me. Did dad…have an affair?”

She made a weird sound then, a snort of laughter. But not in a “ha ha, I was just playing a joke on you” kind of way. In a “I can’t fucking believe this” kind of way.

“He’s such a bastard,” she said, throwing the J-cloth on the floor. She turned to face me. There was no hint of humour in her face. Below red-rimmed eyes, bitterness had pressed her lips into a harsh line. Her voice was small and tired. “This was not his story to tell. Not this one.”

I could only stare at her.

“Karla’s your sister. She was born well before you, and was adopted by a nice family. I’ve tried so hard to move on. I don’t know anything else about her. Although clearly your father did.”

“Are you saying he did have an affair?” My stomach roiled. The hell of the past few days, and now this? My brain caught a memory of the smell of Elmer’s glue. Wadded-up tissues in my clenched fists, and the sight of a watch on a cold, still wrist.

“No, Karo,” she said, drooping like a wet rag against the sink. “I did. Karla is my daughter.”

[MH: To be continued? Maybe.]

Reminder: Call for submissions for the micro-fiction ladder round-up

There’s still plenty of time to submit your best micro-fiction ladder stories to a round-up to be published on the Petits écrits / Tiny writings Substack. The deadline for submissions is Sunday, November 30.

Accepted submissions will be featured in a special issue of Petits écrits / Tiny writings. If your submission is accepted and you’re on Substack, you’ll receive a shout-up when the issue is published, and the issue will link to your Substack profile. The special issue will be promoted in Substack Notes and on my own social media channels.

What’s a micro-fiction ladder story? Glad you asked. Find out more and read the full guidelines here.

Thanks for reading this writing lab issue from Petits écrits / Tiny writings! I hope it prompted a productive writing session.

If you enjoyed today’s issue, please give it a like or share it with another creative writer in your life.