Micro Fiction

Expressing myself in a concise manner has never been one of my skills. Often friends suffer my long-winded rambles about whatever I’m going through on any given day. My hands will move about for emphasis, or my voice may go up higher in pitch and if I’m really excited, I will throw in some jumping up and down or pacing back and forth. Not that I’m an extrovert but being verbose at least with my closest friends prompted them to suggest that I blog. The bottom line is that it’s difficult for me to get to the point succinctly.

So what was I thinking when I signed up for Twitter? Twitter is all about micro messages that convey a lot with a few words. Can I do this? The only way to find out is to try it, which I did. I’ve only posted a few messages because I find it very difficult to say anything with the allotted 140 characters. 140 characters – really? That includes spaces and punctuation!

I read some of the micro-fiction that writers post to Twitter and found them fascinating. They use the same 140-character max to create their mini-stories. I’m just amazed that they can do this so I want to try to do it too. Okay, here we go:

First Draft

“Henry, a gnome broke into the house!” He opened bleary eyes “It’s your turn. I took care of it last time.” Alice reached for the cleaver she kept under the bed. (164 characters – this isn’t good. It’s 24 characters over the max.)

Second Draft

“Henry, a gnome broke into the house! He opened bleary eyes “It’s your turn.” He went back to sleep. “Fine” she said and reached for the cleaver that was under the bed. (168 characters – this is worse. It’s 28 characters over the max. I have to do better.)

Third Draft

“Henry, a gnome broke into the house!” He opened bleary eyes “I took care of it last time.” “Fine,” she said “I’ll kill it – you cook it.” (138 characters - Yay!)

I struggled with this because I kept trying to expand instead of condense the story. Wow, micro-fiction is hard but I had fun with it.

Mini-Scenes Keep Popping In My Head

Sometimes when I’m going about my day, mini-scenes pop into my head. My Muse is having a lot of fun with me lately. Anyway it happened again today so I decided to share. She feigned sleep, her hand under the pillow as he laid next to her. “I love you” he said “And I you” he kissed her, she plunged the knife into his heart. I’m thinking that he cheated or abused her in some way, and this was payback. Or she’s an evil black widow that married him for his money and was now set for the kill. He picked up the phone on the first ring; “Hello” he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. “Who is she?” demanded the anguished voice of his wife. He turned perplexed to see his wife asleep beside him. This one has the feel of the paranormal. How could his wife have called him when she’s sleeping next to him? The voices spoke to her, she knew what to do. The dagger lay heavy in her bag. He let her in; she felt the cut, her head fell to the floor. The paranormal strikes again. Obviously, the voices were telling her to kill him but he killed her first. I wonder if it was the same voices that were speaking to the both of them. This one is about 140 characters.