March of Microanalysis: Day 7
Microfiction Entry Day 7:
Looked under the bed. Monster looked back.
Mmmm, I messed up. Looking back, I should have gone with my draft version, which was “Looked under the bed. Eyes looked back.” That would have been better. Mea culpa, readers. Okay, reader. (Thank you, one person!)
What was I thinking, using monster? Maybe that it was more punchy, more direct. Seven words, after all, still isn’t a lot. I must have wanted to be obvious, because I apparently didn’t trust you, one reader, to understand that eyes looking back at you from under a bed is Bad News. Obvious is not a good thing for a writer to be. Direct, sure. Clear, certainly. But not obvious. Obvious is a three-syllable way to say boring.
Still, there’s a lesson here. Stories can be scarier by being shorter. Too much information can suck the suspense right up, like when you see the zipper in the zombie costume. But by merely setting up a common fear, and then leaving the conclusion open, the reader can get as freaked out as he might care to be.
What don’t you want to see looking back at you? And what happens when you turn your back on the thing that couldn’t possibly be under the bed, because those things don’t exist? They don’t. Right?
Through March, I'm posting a breakdown of the microfiction I posted on the corresponding day in February (with the date determining the length of the story). This is probably only interesting to you if you care about the mechanics of writing, or if you know me personally.