Writing I'm Proud Of

I wrote this short scene for a writing contest a few months ago. It didn't win and never got published on the site, but I'm pretty proud of it regardless. It's my first real foray into fiction writing. I decided to publish it here, in celebration of the effort. It's a little dark, almost too dark for a blog devoted to the positive, but understand that the content is unimportant. It's the accomplishment that's being given a nod. My accomplishment, writing a meaningful bit of fiction for the first time. Maybe one day I'll be able to write something a tad longer.

The assignment was to write about a mirror, in 300 words or less. The mirror should be integral to the development of a character in some way. Beyond that the space was wide open. This was my entry.



His Dark Reflection

Donald’s unblinking gaze fixed itself firmly on the shabby reflection staring back from the truckstop restroom mirror. This one was behaving exactly like the last, which is to say, not properly. The inky black pupils stationed inside the smeary glass held his own in a dark conversation he could not withdraw from. Instead of reflecting his outward appearance, this mirror, like the terrifying portal in his hall closet, was reflecting his inner life. A grey-scale representation of everything he wished he wasn’t, illuminated in the flickering fluorescence of rest stop squalor. Had he not felt so insignificant next to the presence he felt through the glass he may have known that it was he alone controlling the situation.

But then Donald often forgot which side of the mirror he was on when he didn’t take his medication.

He regretted the backslide, but the emotion was lost amidst the torrent of self-loathing bursting violently from his glassy oppressor. Donald clawed at his eyes, dry discs baked by the unrepentant glare from the mirror. He pulled at the lids, struggling to shut out the gaze that reduced him to a silly lampoon of himself. The depth of his depravity, so coldly laid bare for he and all the patrons of Sonny's Truckstop Emporium stood in judgment, inches from his face and light years beyond any sense of reason.

He screamed, but more from compulsion than terror, as if the outburst were written into some tragic script he never had the benefit of reading. Whatever remaining sense of will Donald retained was slowly seeping over the threshold before him. He no longer cared about his predicament. He was simply a puppet. He peered at himself with curious detachment from inside the mirror. Why did he look so perplexed?

Kurt Vonnegut's Eight Rules of Writing Fiction

I discovered these yesterday, through a random tweet from someone I don't know. Vonnegut was one of the greatest writers of the last half decade. Although I haven't read them all yet, I own at least one copy of every one of his novels. Breakfast of Champions is so far my favorite, though a few of his short stories are in close competition. So I was pretty jazzed when I found these, Kurt's Eight Rules for Writing Fiction.

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things — reveal character or advance the action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. Now matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them — in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

I have to admit that some of these are fairly counter-intuitive for me. And some I don't really understand. Number five falls into that category. Is that telling you to establish a short, shallow story arc? I can't imagine that. It does seem to pair with number eight. If you're giving your readers as much information as possible up front, your essentially rolling out the ending before you get there. Which seems counter-intuitive. To heck with suspense? I always thought suspense was one of the main avenues for tension development. I suppose it aligns with what I've read of Vonnegut. Character studies to the core. His writing is all about the internal life of his characters. The story arc exists primarily as a substrate for Vonnegut to flesh out his players. Numbers two, three, four and six all support this view of writing. I guess there's no harm in giving up the map when it's the mapmakers you're concerned with.

Or is this some sort of devious misdirection?

I need more time to think about this. I'd really like to find an online discussion and read how other people interpret these maxims, especially other professional writers. I might share more when I find it.