Make me care about a character in 50 words or less.
Notice I've not written one. That's because I don't think I can. I'm interested in learning how you guys do it.
I gave her everything except pain. All of it, she took, she absorbed, she cherished and demanded -- a precious stone that needed polishing every single day. After all that, one day the pain struck, broke her in half, sunk her, and she never came back up again.
That was 47 words, and I have no idea if I made you care.
I'll give it a whirl, I s'pose. 50 words exactly.
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She has kind of motherly hair; gray curls peppered against black locks. Each crease in her face is a story about sleepless nights with crying babies, doctor visits and missing child support checks. When she asks if I want a dance, I say, no, but I’ll pay for one anyway.
She looked out the window for him every few minutes, as she’d done for the last twenty years. Like always she waited to see the glow of his head lights circle the corner, and like always they failed to appear.
Waiting at the Arrivals gate, fake tears in her eyes, she spent her days off waiting for a lover who didn't really exist. She'd run to the bathroom with the throes of women who'd been holding it in since Boston, lock herself in a stall and snort some chemical happiness.
Seven years we were married. Six O'clock she left for work. Five News said there had been an accident. Four times I called her phone. Three Hail Mary's. Two policemen came to the door. One is the loneliest number.
She had bought flowers for a girl and now she felt foolish just for thinking anything at all.
To change the mood:
He's not distinguished. You can't say he's handsome -- not even in a ruggedy way. His gut holds more beer than a party keg. His ideas lead nowhere, and he loses things. But he may very well change the world one day, because no one believes in him enough to stop him.
The tone of his voice turned every remark into a joke, and his breath always smelled like whiskey. His face was handsome, the way you imagine a cowboy’s face to be handsome. He didn’t love me, but he didn’t love anyone else either. And sometimes it was enough.
Every day he came to school with fear in his heart, knowing they would be waiting for him and his last black eye had barely healed. He could ignore the words but not their fists. Halfway through math class, he decided he was going to kill himself.
The lights above him burn and hum white noise. His eyes scream as they fry in the sockets. Goosebumps erect tiny hairs on his naked body under the trench coat. The gun is heavy in his boot. He savors the sting of the grain alcohol. His eye twitches and relaxes.
Two men sat, a young boy under foot. One pushed back his Stetson.
Took three tries to stand. A painting. A dark headed woman wearing white.
“Can’t believe she’s gone.” The boy teetered over, grabbed his overalls.
A woman wearing black. “Ready, Dad?”
“Yeah.” The boy reached up. He couldn’t.
I lit a cigarette, looking from the hilltop onto the park. I pictured her face, along with her hair and dress blowing in the wind. She is the vision you have of the most beautiful girl, maybe even more. I miss her more than I could anything in this world.
A man's worst nightmare:
Joel wished he hadn't lost his penis in the war. A beautiful woman walked by and he had a phantom erection.
A woman's worst nightmare:
He used to be the most handsome man in the world. Five years after marriage all he did was fart, scratch himself and grew hair on his back. Then she learned she was pregnant.
Description sets scene
Dialogue takes you closer to character than anything else
Action adds flow.
-Now be quick about it! -
computer locked up - ignore
computer spit it out yet again.
Alien: then, the most handsome guy she'd ever seen asked her: "are you single?"
50.
He’s the bum that actually needs the nickle for the greyhound, needs to get back to the home he hasn’t seen in five years. No ID, five cents short, and winter is coming, again. Next person that tells him no? Is Dead. Is his own son, grown, looking for him.
He was never going to enjoy the game with that pebble in his shoe. The only way he could get that pebble out of his shoe was to take it off. The only way he would take off his shoe at Yankee Stadium was if nobody was looking. Home run.
He bought a dog. He cried when he brought it home because his daughter was away, too old, and married to a Catholic.
Catholics hate dogs. Rough.
Anna stared at the empty baby carriage and began to sob.
He issued challenges to others, but he never tried them himself.
Utah wrote the story about the post traumatic stress syndrome war guy. I think he's good at making a reader feel empathy, maybe not in 50 words or less but in a story. You can do it, Utah, just try it.
"You remember when we got married and you said you'd follow me anywhere?"
He nodded, his hand on the bare skin of her head. "Yeah."
She grabbed his hand. Kissed his palm and pressed it to her hollow cheek. "Please don't."
He didn't cry. That would be for later.
^ I hate you because that was really sad.
Well. You told me to put my money where my mouth was. Funny enough, I didn't realize you wrote yours about a real person and that that person was me until like the third read-through. First couple of times I just thought, "Hmm. Pithy."
Well, I did write a real one first. But way to rise to the occasion there.
Also "Hmm. Pithy." is what I'd like on my tombstone.
Sorry, didn't mean to spiral into digression. (or I did, but I'm over it now)
Mother’s sat in the corner with her head down. She’s holding her own hand, toying with the gold on her finger. A kiss to her drying cheek brings her eyes to mine in increments. ‘Your father’s in the dining room,’ she says.
Blink ink is a magazine of 50 words or less stories. Submit there.
Wow. When I started this thread I had no idea we could pimp this stuff out. Jay, you kick ass.
"Your eyes are all wrong," she said.
He stood in the opposite corner, tight-lipped.
"You forget the lemonade violence. It's fucking ballpoint, straight down."
She was aggravated now, picking at scabs on her arms with a sewing needle.
He sighed, wishing her mother wasn't dead so someone else would come.
Piggy John puts the apple in his mouth and pulls the trigger.
He can't do anything right, the small caliber bullet ends nothing,
begins that memory of the happy birthday party, strawberry fudge cake, Mom smiling.
Friends.
He wakes up choking on apple seed.
Chocking back vomit at the site of him, we shook hands. He grinned over capped teeth, the one lock of hair forever hanging charmingly out of place over his perfectly tanned forehead. Like some idealized version of suburban wasp he looked at me, without judgment or fear. I hated him.
I can't find this Blink Ink magazine you speak of, link?
That is strange. I made a submission this morning and now I can't find the link either...
I used to hang with a sketchy crowd, now I just sketch the rivers and mountains. The morning sun rising over the Berkshires, slashing the landscape like the scars under my flannel sleeves. Drawing helps relieve the urge for a bit. The relief map under my shirt like a timeline.
Now might not be the best time to tell you this, but I just love cats and there's a gun to my head.
It was growing, and no one could stop it. They gathered in small groups, staring, whispering, for any loud voice would have been blasphemy. The mother held her child, forgetting it had been dead for hours. She also stared, whispered. It was growing.
When I was younger, I always thought those big round hay bales looked like Frosted Mini Wheats when it snowed like this. But now they only look like hay with snow on top. Sometimes I’d give anything to see them as cereal again.
@Avery, when I was a kid, I was convinced that cows hibernated in the winter, and when they did they would roll themselves into hay bales.
Sometimes I’d give anything to see them as cereal again.
Do you have the money? But for serious, that is where it's at. We're not getting any younger so it's rewarding seeing the nostalgia and beauty of nature, even if it is in a mild altering perception. And if thats not your thing, well than I say where's the imagination.
Uh, oh. When I get the munchies I start to get all liberal.
