Jeffrey Whitmore has provided an example of 55-word stories that is an amazing example of all the right things to do in writing. At this abbreviated length, prose becomes poetry, where every word counts, packs a punch, and together, they bespeak a past, a present, a future, build characters, interpersonal relationships, love, lust, betrayal, jealousy, hubris, and a delightful twist. How many aspiring writers, and even professionals, ever approach this paragon of penmanship? I dare say far too few... I've cursorily scoured the web for other examples in this genre, and while they are plentiful, they are mostly dismal failures. So go ahead, punk. Try it...
Bedtime Story
"Careful, honey, it's loaded," he said, reentering the bedroom.
Her back rested against the headboard. "This for your wife?"
"No. Too chancy. I'm hiring a professional."
"How about me?"
He smirked. "Cute. But who'd be dumb enough to hire a lady hit man?"
She wet her lips, sighting along the barrel.
"Your wife."
¡ª Jeffrey Whitmore
From "The World's Shortest Stories"
- Re: What makes powerful poetry, prose?posted on 01/13/2010
thanks, yoni...
great story...but my problems is not that, i have problem to elaborate the details, and i am most frustrated with dialogue... - posted on 01/14/2010
The key to powerful writing, I am told, is this: Do not tell. Show.
Examine the short story dialog: the characters reveal truths in their dialog. They require no further elaboration, as the reader is smart enough to infer the past and future, the quality of the relationships, the tensions, the characters' goals and intensions, plans for the future, interrelationships with each other,
all from the dialog. Additionally, a few key words describing the SETTING also tell volumes. He RE-ENTERS the BEDROOM. SHE sits against the headboard. She mentions his wife.
From three short phrases, the reader now knows the whole history leading up to this moment, filling in all the details themselves. To every reader, those details will differ somewhat, but you the writer don't have to spell them out, to tell them. In fact, the more you demand your readers fill in the details themselves, the more vividly they will imagine the story, and the more real it will become for them, the more exciting they will find it. It is much like the stories we tell ourselves about a new love interest we know little about, even without realizing we are doing it. We know just a little about them and our minds fill in all the blanks from our own imaginations and wishes and desires based on just the few clues we have been given. It is extremely common that as soon as we learn the real details, that the person becomes much less interesting, less exciting to us. It is always more engaging to image what the details might be from a few clues, than to be beaten into submission by the author giving too many. This is similar to the appeal of the mystery genre...
Oh, one more thing. In dialog, never use adverbs.... She said hesitantly, he said importantly... yechh! - posted on 01/14/2010
In swimming, the novice chops the water with too many inefficient strokes. They may need 30 or 40 armpull strokes to get across the pool. As they refine their technique, they find that with care and attention, each stroke becomes more effective, and by using strokes carefully, they begin to get more swim for each stroke. Eventually they are using maybe a dozen or so strokes to traverse the pool. They have better flow, and are much easier to watch as well.
In writing, the novice chops the story with too many inefficient words. Consider poetry, whose goal, in good poetry, is to only takes a handful of strokes to traverse the pool. Every single word is painstakingly chosen for its power, its effectiveness, its ability in one breath to evoke a past, set a stage, build imagery, to tell a story in the reader's mind. One word can do all that, and the context, the sequence of such words directs the story, setting, imagery - one effects the next. Carefully stringing such words together evokes emotional responses as well, hopefully powerful ones. It is no trivial task to find and use such words, which is why good poetry is so highly revered, and why bad poetry is so ubiquitous. Really good prose models the same paragon of power, an economy of words that instead of copious in quantity, are copious in quality.
An exercise given to swimmers striving to improve, is to count their strokes across the pool. Then traverse again with one fewer stroke. Then to traverse again with yet another fewer stroke. And so on, 'till they just cannot reduce the strokes further and finish the length. Try the same exercise in writing: pen a paragraph, and then accomplish the same effect, the same story, with one fewer word per sentence, for example. Try to tell the same story with one fewer sentence. Continue to pare, to cull, to replace four ineffective words with a single more powerful one, to replace whole sentences with a single short phrase. Use the 55 story as your comparative paragon, your metric.
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