The Torture of the Craft

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So today, over on Flashy Fiction, Suzanne (author of The Naughty List which shall soon be destroying YA bestseller lists near you) posted the awesome prompt, "It's you." What a great sentence. Brief, to the point, and loaded with possibilities. There is no question that Heather is the reigning Flashy Fiction master of getting a punchy, on-the-mark story in as few words as possible. I have no intention of even trying to challenge her supremacy.

That said, I did go into today intending to try my hand at it. Heather had already posted, and it was brevity=wit as usual, and with two such posts, the theme for the day was established.

I was not at all satisfied with mine, however.

Here's the text:

***

BRRRRRRRRING

BRRRRRRRRING

BRRRRRRRRING

"Hello?"

Hello.

"Oh my gosh, it's you."

***

All well and good I'm sure and a bit interesting, but in retrospect, it didn't capture what was in my mind at all. I think minimalism can be quite powerful, but you risk losing tone and mood. In my mind's ear, this was a pretty neat bit. On paper as words, it's meh.

Too vague. Too open to possibilities. Minimalist writing is inherently open to interpretation, but a good writer needs to take care to push that interpretation in the right direction, and I completely did not do that.

Nor am I sure yet how to push it where I intended without just adding to it. Now, it's true that even in minimalist writing you sometimes need to add in more text because there is honestly such a thing as just not enough words. My blue cat. Well, that's minimal alright, but it doesn't tell a story. It suggests some possiblities, but it's not a story. Needs more words.

So I guess I should be okay with adding more words, but I'd sure like to still accomplsih what I intended to -- to imply the circumstance rather than to spell them out.

I'll give it a go -- let me know if it helped any!

***

BRRRRRRRRING

BRRRRRRRRING

BRRRRRRRRING

"Hello?"

Hello.

" . . . "

Hello.

"Dear God, it can't be . . . it's you . . ."

***