March of Microanalysis Day 17
Microfiction Entry Day X:
“You’re not my real parents!” the child screamed. “You finally caught on?” Daddy grinned, showing the knife.
Talk about family drama. I bet the kid has a trump card though. Possibly he drugged Daddy’s liquor before the big reveal.
Rereading this a month later, editor me is now irked with writer me. "Showing" is such a weak word. Revealing, brandishing… maybe sharpening. This is why I try to put most of what I write on a shelf for a while. Distance is a writer's friend.
Getting to the upper teens of word count has certainly given me leeway in conveying not only bare-bones plot, but also in giving the stories some tone. The tone of this one is yeesh, but it does have a little style, especially with Daddy getting a sarcastic line in. In shorter microfiction, knife-wielding Daddy would only have a non-speaking role.
It’s amazing the difference only a few words can make. In microfiction, of course, adding five or ten words can double your total count, so it doesn’t take much to have a dramatic impact. But even longer works are made up of shorter units like sentences. What if you had to pay for your reading by word? What if it was expensive to do so?
As a writer, what if you made a pact that no sentence would be over ten words? Aside from the risk of sounding like Hemingway, I would guess that a restriction like that would vastly improve your writing, if only because words would start to become precious, to be spent with care and great deliberation.
Through March, I'm posting a breakdown/analysis of the microfiction I posted on the corresponding day in February. This is probably only interesting to you if you care about the mechanics of writing, or if you handle special orders at a bookstore.