You promise to leave the table alone. Tomorrow you’ll just throw it again. I touch you, searching for a remainder of the fervent affection you once exuded. You swear. Conversation has been absent of late. I talk to the walls instead.
You have stained my wedding dress red, mutilated the memories beyond recognition. I got married on felicity’s death bed, vowed to cherish without God as my witness. If this is his antidote to loneliness, I advise others to turn elsewhere.
Our bands of gold grow cold in the night. We fall asleep to the never-ending thrum of forever’s false tune.
You have stained my wedding dress red, mutilated the memories beyond recognition. I got married on felicity’s death bed, vowed to cherish without God as my witness. If this is his antidote to loneliness, I advise others to turn elsewhere.
Our bands of gold grow cold in the night. We fall asleep to the never-ending thrum of forever’s false tune.
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. There’s some strong writing in Growing Cold, but I think it needs a greater sense of change (the initial situation, of an unhappy, destructive relationship, doesn’t really develop) if it’s going to truly capture the reader’s attention.
Structurally, though, it is a strong opening: a seemingly simple declarative that leaves nine-tenths of meaning hidden below the surface (what’s ‘you’ been doing to the table? If it’s throwing it, does this mean the relationship is an abusive one? Is the table a symbol of upset domesticity?). After these first two lines, your control slips, as I can’t visualise ‘fervent affection you once exuded’. Even in 101 words, you can dramatise this far more effectively, with some schema like ‘You used to [insert metaphor/simile here] just from being around me. I touch you. You swear.’ That’s off the top of my head, as you can no doubt tell, but can you see how that kind of phrasing would be more effective? The underwritten ‘absent of late’ is resigned, showing how worn-down the narrator is. However, ‘I talk to the walls instead’ should be ringing all your cliché alarms.
In the next paragraph, ‘you have stained my wedding dress red’ was, for me, overwrought. ‘Mutilated the memories’ and ‘I got married on felicity’s death bed’ come close to this, too, but the images are intelligent, poetic, and do work to (slightly) expand on the initial scenario. I wasn’t sure about ‘his antidote to loneliness’, though, as your referent isn’t clear – is ‘his’ God, or ‘his’ the narrator’s husband?
Your final paragraph is just beautiful, though. It steps back from the portentousness of the preceding paragraph, and is suffused with a gorgeously underplayed sadness. ‘Our bands of gold grow cold in the night’ is a vivid visual image and a pertinent metaphor, and the modulation of the syntax and repetition of the long ‘oh’ sound is pure poetry. The final sentence steps off lightly, leaving the reader with an impression of a marriage that’s almost imperceptibly soured. Excellent.
This is a nice little vignette: if you favour dramatisation over exposition, cut some of the hyperbolic imagery/ideas, and have more of a development across the piece, it could be a great piece of flash fiction.
This is very poetic.
ReplyDeleteUnlike Sarah, I don't think dialogue is essential - especially in such a short piece. So I'm fine with it not having any.
However, I do very much agree with Sarah that conflict and a sense of change in that conflict (even if it isn't resolution) is the core of a story. And this story seems to lack a change. This is very hard to do in such a short space, but it is still possible. As Sarah said, the restriction in the number of words makes this an extremely difficult task.
I've noticed that you've used the second person narrative before in your work. This is a very difficult POV to master, and it's sometimes tricky as it often comes across as very clichéd. Unfortunately, the most clichéd way the second person perspective is used is when the narrator is directing it towards a lover - which is what you have done here. Though in one of your previous pieces you used the second person POV to great effect, I don't think it works as strongly here. I would like to see you experiment a bit more with different point of views.
As I mentioned, you definitely have an ear for elegant and poetic language, but be carful not to overwrite ('fervent affection you once exuded' stood out to me, too) and to not fall to clichés either.
I thought the latter half of the story was the strongest part. The insight into the protagonist's views of religion interested me, and this in relation to her marriage, for me, became the heart of the story - it felt like there was more to be explored on that topic, and that's the sign of a good short-short story: something that hints at something bigger, without leaving the reader feel dissatisfied.
So in all, I think you're nearly there with this one, but it just needs a stronger sense of change.
Hey eternity.forever
ReplyDeleteI really liked your piece. I recently wrote a piece that was one hundred and one words long, and it was very difficult. I understand the point of this story and I think it is beautiful, but like Sophie and Sarah I don’t feel this story has a narrative. There is no change, or conflict that is obvious, and I find that sometimes your beautiful poetic language and metaphors cloud any sort of story.
The present tense confuses the situation, and I think make the story static. You’ve written some intriguing sentences, although don’t satisfy us with an answer. Why did they promise to leave the table alone? What do you mean by throw it? I assume this is a story about domestic abuse, and while you’ve managed to avoid talking about it, a devise that would suit a longer piece, I think that for this short structure I feel maybe being a bit more obvious.
This is a beautiful piece of writing, and would work maybe as a longer section, with more substance and more narrative.
Kat
Hi, eternity_forever,
ReplyDeleteSorry to have disappeared for ages. It's good to read your work again. I think you've worked well within the constraints of this task - making it a play of language and not worrying too much about where we are in a particular moment. It's a monologue, and that's great - it works fine without introducing dialogue of giving it a conventional story arc.
It's unavoidable that you lose some tension by representing what is essentially one extended thought on the constraints of this narrator's life, but there's a real poetry to what you've rendered, and it makes for a very readable piece.
For me, the only line that stood against this was the one about the antidote for lonliness - it grows kind of cold when you say you'd 'advise' - prior to this it's more of a glimpse into your narrator's thoughts, but this line's more rhetorical, and suggests awareness for this being a fictional piece.
Glad you're still writing great stuff. Take care,
Andy
Dear Sarah, Sophie, Kat and Andy,
ReplyDeletePlease accept a huge apology from me regarding the ridiculous amount of time that it’s taken me to reply to all of your detailed comments. Exams either always make characters like me really excited or really tired and lazy, and I’m afraid this winter my bad habits have caused me to suffer from the latter set of symptoms.
Task 44 will hopefully reflect all of the advice that you’ve all given to me, and should help to show that I’ve taken everything on board. :) I fear that my fingers will fall off if I reply to every comment individually because they’re so long and constructive, which just shows how wonderful you all are to me.
Thank you,
E.