Untitled Flash fiction excersise. Please comment.

Grievous

All feedback welcome.

Mary had been gone for 2 years now. Tommy reflected.

Every now and then he would still get chills thinking about how scary she was and how controlling and abusive she had been to him all them years that they were together.

Their relationship had come to an abrupt end after that crazy incident. That left Tommy hospitalised for weeks.
The psychotic and violent Mary had finally snapped one day and came at Tommy with an ashtray. Full of rotten cigarette butts and balls of dried chewing gum. She always told him if she caught him cheating on her again she would finish him off.

She had knocked him out with one strike.

That was the end of their relationship and the end of Mary. As Tommy stumbled and tripped over an out of place yellow pages book on the floor and fell through the sitting room window the last thing that he remembered was Mary’s shrieking voice and the stench of her cheap perfume that she bought at the market every few weeks. Lucky for Tom, His next-door neighbour was out mowing the lawn. His neighbour promptly called an ambulance and then the police.

Both were taken away. Tommy went to the hospital for intensive care. Mary was dragged off to the police station. Then court for trial and finally jail! They both had equally busy weeks.

Two years later Tommy is sitting in his house on his own watching the TV and hears a sound in the house and dismisses it as something falling over or maybe it came from next door? While flicking through the TV channels he comes across a breaking news announcement. 3 prisoners have escaped from the women’s prison in the city last night.

The names of the escapees have not been named yet. But deep down, Tommy knows that one of these escapees is Mary. She was coming back to finish him off once and for all. He hires the volume on the TV to pay more attention to the breaking news. He gets a whiff of stale cigarette smoke breathing hotly down his neck and back.

He turns and grimaces as Mary reaches her sharp nails straight through his eyes and tears them out. She then sticks one of his meat carving knifes in him several times and kills him.

“I told you I would get you” Mary whispers.

The end.

pickarooney

There are two sizeable problems with this piece and I think it would be best if you were to address them and rewrite it first.

The first is one that comes up regularly with your writing and one you are aware of - punctuation and how to use it. I don't know what steps you've taken to try and improve this, but it needs a lot more work. The full stop is a particular issue and you seem very unsure of when to use it. Simply put, take each sentence you've written (i.e. everything terminated by a full stop) and read it out loud on its own. You'll find a lot of sentences sound incomplete.

The question mark and exclamation mark seem really out of place.

The second is one that's explained in detail in the thread Sweet Madness (somewhere on page 2 of the forum) - telling versus showing. In many places, you're both telling and showing the same thing. For example, you don't need to tell us that Mary was violent and psychotic when you're about to tell us she attacked him with an ashtray.

You tell us that Tommy gets chills when he thinks about how scary she was - we can deduce that she was scary by the fact Tommy shows fear.

You tell us twice that their relationship ended as a result of the incident described in between the two mentions of the fact. You mention the two-year gap a couple of times also. You tell us the 'names have not been named yet'.

There are a few mistakes such as 'hires' for 'turns up' (I know there is a colloquial expression 'higher' meaning to raise and used as an opposite for 'lower' but it isn't really suitable for a narrative piece.

Smoke doesn't breathe, people (or animals) do.

The ending is too matter-of-fact.
"She kills him" - thsi can easily be deduced from the rest of the text.

Overall, it's a bit short. There's not enough time to build up a proper sense of suspense. Basically she was mad, she's gone, she's back, he's dead. Try do more to build up the tension. In fact it might be better if she did not (explicitly) reappear; the fear that she might should be enough.

Grievous

Sound advice Pick.

Truth be told. This is a short piece I wrote weeks before we had the discussion about my weak punctuality. I am working on it now :-).

I was aiming for 300 words in 10 minutes. I ended up with 400 words and lots of mistakes. I still think I could mold it into a decent short story.

dublinario

Grievous wrote: »

I was aiming for 300 words in 10 minutes.

Why?

Grievous

dublinario wrote: »

Why?

It's just a standard limit to work in for flash fiction.

Ps. Pick. I sent you a PM. There is nothing in my sent items so I presume the PM function does not work anymore?. Can I mail you? Thanks.

dublinario

Grievous wrote: »

It's just a standard limit to work in for flash fiction.

Seriously mate, you're talking sh*te. Flash fiction refers to the length of the piece, not the length of time spent writing it. Even Wikipedia knows that...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_fiction

Writing is about iterating through drafts over and over, constantly refining a work until it is polished. Have you ever heard the saying "writing is re-writing"? It is emblazoned as a slogan on the BBC's 'Writers Room' website.

I have no idea why anybody would want to set themselves an artificial time limit in which to scribble some sloppy draft, which presumably you regard as the final article? For the reasons described above, I would regard this as anti-writing. It is the exact opposite of how writing actually takes place.

Grievous

dublinario wrote: »

Seriously mate, you're talking sh*te. Flash fiction refers to the length of the piece, not the length of time spent writing it.

Have you got an ax to grind? Maybe you have the wrong person.:)

I wasn't referring to the time limit. I thought you asked why the word limit? I honestly don't know why I set a time limit--other than having a bit of fun with it. I never said that draft was the final draft? It's the first.

I don't need a wiki link. I know what flash fiction is.

dublinario

Grievous wrote: »

I wasn't referring to the time limit. I thought you asked why the word limit?

In fairness, why would I be confused about a targeted word count? The unusualness of your post was the self-imposed time limit. I'd have thought it was fairly obvious that's what I was referring to when I asked 'why?'

Grievous wrote: »

I never said that draft was the final draft? It's the first.

Again, you're the one who said there was a time limit, which implies a cut-off point. If you're going to spend time on further drafts, then what was the point of the original time limit?

Grievous wrote: »

I don't need a wiki link. I know what flash fiction is.

Fair enough. Apologies if my tone is sharp, but this time-limit notion just strikes me as being contrary to the principles of writing.

Grievous

I hear you. I do. It's not something I apply to every piece I write.

Some classes and courses do little excersises like this and there can be a time limit.

I would say I learned a lesson here. But this is not something I do on every piece and I was surprised someone would view it as odd.

Consider me scalded

pickarooney

dublinario wrote: »

I have no idea why anybody would want to set themselves an artificial time limit in which to scribble some sloppy draft, which presumably you regard as the final article? For the reasons described above, I would regard this as anti-writing. It is the exact opposite of how writing actually takes place.

I'm no great fan of the idea myself but the NaNoWriMo (see sticky) is very popular and the goal is exactly that.