Experiments in Fiction

Ok, so it has been a very very very long time since I’ve written much of any fiction at all. Feel free to skip this post now that you know that because I promise it’s not gonna be very good. I’m mostly looking for some feedback on my drabble about truth, but any other thoughts are welcome (please be nice, I’m very sensitive about my fiction. If you hate it, at least be constructive).  So anyway, here are a few things I’ve written in the past couple of days. Let me know what you think.

 

Drabble 1: Beginnings

Blank pages always made her anxious. Some days she would scribble a line of nonsense above the whiteness, simply to feel she wasn’t staring into the void. Too much white gave her headaches. Today she opened her journal, holding her fountain pen between her teeth, and looked intently at the page. White. Black lines traversing. Instead of putting pen to paper, she gently reached her hand out and touched the page, a single finger following the straight lines across it. With a sigh, she laid her pen down and placed her palm against the page, breathing deeply as she disappeared.

 

Drabble 2: Truth

She sat down again, on her bed. It was time to begin searching, again. Things were gnawing at her, as they always did, and she would answer, again and again. She whittled herself away trying to find it, and again she could not. Without it she would not bother waking up tomorrow, she told herself again. But again she knew that was a lie. Yesterday she had not eaten, and again today she would not. She wouldn’t let herself again until she found what she was looking for. Truth evaded her when all she wanted was to have certainty again.

 

Poem: Purpose

I am a thresher

What is my purpose?

I have talents

I awaken each morning and work without fail

quickly

mowing down the tall crops

I am efficient

I work endlessly.

Do I arise each morning for this?

I have failures

I do not rest

I cannot stop

Do I sleep each night dwelling on how to improve?

My task goes on

There will be another season and another

Or is my revolution to put down my scythe and lie in the grass?

One thought on “Experiments in Fiction

  1. Barrett Vann says:

    ‘With a sigh, she laid her pen down and placed her palm against the page, breathing deeply as she disappeared.’

    *That*, my dear, is a lovely line and a wonderful, evocative image.

    Regarding the drabble on truth, if I may offer some constructive criticism, I think it could benefit from playing around with the format in such a way as to show, rather than simply tell, the concepts you’re dealing with. I would maybe use present instead of past tense, and play around with repetition.

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