Below is, as the post title suggests, a short piece I wrote on my lunch break at work (because I'm so cool and have loads to do at lunch time). I've tried to capture the idea of isolation and bleakness while also putting some effort into a couple of tricks to make the narrative a little interesting despite the heavy feeling I want it to carry. Importantly, it is untitled and I just sat down and wrote it without worrying where it was going - I did this to show it can be done, and that writing doesn't have to be a crystalline, perfect creation from concept through to closing the concluding cover. I don't know where this is going, or what the character names are, or even where it is set, but I wrote it and I feel it is definitely strong enough for me to build on at a later date for another project, or to modify so I can add it into another project.
Untitled.
It was close to the middle of the day. The sun scorched the scorched the street and the man who stood in it, sheltering in what sparse shade escaped the heat. It was too hot to work at this time and most were inside, cowering in the hot boxes their houses had become. This one man chose not to cower, instead braving the midday glare of the sun to be outside. His skin was dry and rough, cracked across his hands like the ground further out from the town; he rarely chose to hide inside when the world might offer something. Today had only offered heat and silence until the figure had appeared on the horizon. The man in the street had watched him from the shade for nearly an hour now. The figure revealed itself to be a man in yellow clothing on a horse. It was not the yellow of sun and sand staining but a bold and bright colour, nearly golden in its richness. The man watched as the rider approached, head unbowed by the height of the sun's heat. It appeared today did have something to offer, the man in the street thought, as he stepped out of the shade's safety to greet the man in yellow.
Bam! Two hundred ish words of pure creativity! Not quite creative genius, and certainly not up to what I like to think of my normal standard; I noticed at least a dozen improvements which could be made as I typed it up. I left it as it was though, as a true and fair representation of what I could manage in twenty minutes without time to edit or review.
I've tried to make the two characters have similarities and differences, such that I could in a section as short as this. They are both meant to exude a certain amount of pride and/or determination, perhaps defiance even, in their description but I wanted to make the man in the street disdainful compared to the aura of mystery I wanted to enshroud the rider in yellow. This grew from the decision to write in two characters, which I made very early on; I thought I'd have a little more time, and swiftly after creating the first I realized my plan for him would make him pretty unlikable if I didn't have another to counterpoint the views I wanted him to have. As it was, I did not actually get to the stage in the narrative where dialogue could happen and so you, as the reader, have yet to appreciate this.
I point it out now because I've always found that if there is only viewpoint in any piece it creates an immediate potential barrier between the text and the reader - if the reader doesn't agree with the viewpoint, no matter how justified you might think it is or have written it to be, then they won't get on with the character or story. Hence I try to have at least two characters, if not three, so that they can each exhibit strong personality traits which differ from one another. By doing this I hope that at least one of them will appeal to the reader and so spread my net wide as far as catching and retaining interest is concerned. In fact, taking the net analogy a little further, if you make one out of rope tied in just one way you won't catch much and often smaller prey (readers newer to your genre of choice or with less time/interest for/in reading) will escape. If you bind the sides of your net with a second you will retain far more, and a third set of knots give extra security to it. More rope than that becomes clutter and clumsy, making your net difficult to use.
Yes, that's the best I can manage write now. I appreciate this is a short post but I wanted to get something up; it's a busy week and as I have tried to keep clear thus far in my writing some words are far better than no words.
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