I lie alone. Emptiness surrounds my room. He is gone, and so is my heart. I could never understand why he left me that day, why his words pained me so.It was a different start to the morning, I had longed for a day of peace not an eternity.
Work was rather odd, he not working by my side, sharing jokes bursting with laughter it was happiness alright, but now it has all perished.
His laughter, his smile, his anger all perished and there was nothing I could do about it.
Just me. Alone. Helpless.
Now he is gone forever.
Mr. Savage was right – this really has been one of the hardest tasks yet! From re-reading the guidelines, it seems that one of the main aims of this task was for the story to be a ‘narrative distillation’ with a ‘tight structure’. However, many respondents have not picked up on the importance of this: their submissions are summaries of stories, not stories in themselves, vignettes without narrative conflict.
ReplyDeleteAs a side-note, I was shocked when I scanned through this month’s entries and saw that no one has included any dialogue! This is one of the essential story-telling tools, as it is inherently dramatic. (For an absolutely killer example of the short short story, look no further than Jeffrey Whitmore’s rightly famous Bedtime Story.)
In any narrative (and this even applies to the maddest, most experimental texts I can currently think of) there is, at heart, a conflict that is developed across the work; a situation or idea which, though it may not be resolved, does go through some kind of change. Does Perish have this structure? The reader immediately learns that the narrator’s partner has ‘gone’, and that she is devastated about it. But over the following paragraphs this situation is hardly expanded upon – at the end the narrator is still alone, still devastated, and we don’t know much new about the situation. However, the one key bit of information you so carefully drip-feed the reader – that the relationship was a destructive one (‘I had longed for a day of peace’, the mention of ‘his anger’) – is absolutely fantastically deployed, and suggests there is some real potential here. Next time, you can push this further, thinking more about developing a situation or conflict over the course of a story, which will “hook” the reader.
As I said, those hints at the darkness of the relationship are great, and what kept me reading. Aside from that, though, the writing is a little flat: ‘He is gone, and so is my heart’, ‘Now he is gone forever’… any reader will have heard these phrases before; they’ve been emptied of meaning. Don’t use hollow language. Next time, try experimenting more with imagery. Also look out for “weak” phrases like ‘Work was rather odd’ – you’ve set it up that the narrator’s world has utterly fallen apart, so work would surely be more than ‘rather odd’.
You’ve quite clearly taken the time to proofread this piece properly, and it really shows: they are no spelling or major grammar mistakes, so wonderful work! :) The only thing left to look out for now is punctuation. I’ve marked up the areas you need to take care over:
‘I lie alone. Emptiness surrounds my room. He is gone, and so is my heart. I could never understand why he left me that day, why his words pained me so. – Up to here, it’s all fine!
It was a different start to the morning, I had longed for a day of peace not an eternity. – Here, you need a full stop or semi-colon, not a comma. A comma links an independent and a dependent clause, but these two clauses are both dependent (that is, if you take one clause away, the other still makes grammatical sense by itself)
Work was rather odd, he not working by my side, sharing jokes bursting with laughter it was happiness alright, but now it has all perished. – You need a comma after ‘sharing jokes’, and a full stop after ‘bursting with laughter’.
His laughter, his smile, his anger all perished and there was nothing I could do about it.
Just me. Alone. Helpless. – This is a really effective use of non-standard punctuation, as the fragments create emphasis, and suggest the literal fragmenting of the narrator’s life and state of mind.
Now he is gone forever.’
I hope this is helpful! A good effort – I look forwards to reading your next submission.
This is a nice little tight piece- it's true that keeping within a small word count makes it so much harder to be emotive- you've definately captured a lot of feeling here.
ReplyDeleteThere's a very definitive style and voice which I like, it's almost classic, with phrases like 'pained me so'.
Do be careful with using 'perished' twice so close together- when you say the happiness has perished, that's fine, but when you mention all the other things of his that have perished, it's as if he's died. So be careful with repetition.
I really liked the idea that your narrator had wanted a day of peace and got an eternity of it, she takes on some of the blame- also the fact that they worked together gives nice little detail of their life. A way (for future writing) to add to that would have been to focus on some object in their house, or something like that, as love, anger etc are all very conceptual and it would be nice to have some imagery in there.
Also, be aware that writing as a woman who's lost love, it's very easy to stray into cliche and melodrama, for example 'now he is gone forever'- you could have twisted that round and made it into a question.
All in all, great little piece, looking forward to your next piece of writing!
I can only agree with the comments made above. Sarah has picked out the improvements I would have suggested. I can only emphasise that I felt this piece needed some *change* in it to make it a story, and that much of the content seemed to be a little cliched. I did, however, like that you hinted that the relationship may have been slightly abusive (saying that his anger had gone too). Perhaps you could have expanded upon this, and the change of the piece could have been her emotional change: that at first she was devistated, but part of her was also relieved that she didn't have to face his anger any more, too. I also liked the idea that she wanted a day of peace and got an eternity (as Andy pointed out).
ReplyDeleteThis story has the bones of something good, but it needs a little more fine tuning.
Hi!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this piece. I felt it was concise enough for the 101 words, but still gave a lot away. I think after three people telling you what changes you can make, I don't have much to add. I agree with Andi that you've managed to capture a lot of emotion here, and I think you've left it fairly open. Has the man left or has the man died? I like the ambiguity here.
I think you may need to check your punctuation a bit. Try reading it out loud and seeing where the pauses may naturally occur, and where you think sentences seem too long. Also I agree with Sarah, you need to look at your full stops and commas
I love the penultimate line. The full stops add emphasis and create a strong end. Maybe you could use this technique again in the piece. I know it's difficult to write exactly 101 words, but don't feel you have to add words because you haven't made up the 101. It’s better to add another sentence than make existing sentences overly long.
Can't wait to see more,
Kat