The Final Cut

If anyone ever told you that writing is easy, that anyone can do it, you can thank them for falsely encouraging creativity without elaborating on such a claim.

Yes, anyone literate can write their thoughts down on paper and successfully convey a message or create compelling narratives driven by sense of purpose. But is it really compelling? The word in itself is subjective, requiring multiple interpretations before a general consensus can be made.

I don't consider everything I write to be compelling. As much as I would like for every one of my pieces to strike a chord with readers, the reality is something different: My style is not for everyone. I'm all over the place and no one can pinpoint exactly what type of writer I am. This, in itself is a creative risk.

"Is Lamar showing a different side?"

"Is this what we can expect from now on?"

"I wish he would stick to what he knows"

"I'm not sure I understand this angle."

Perhaps this is what flows through the mind of a reader after they've read something I consider finished. I'm not insecure about what I write, it's normal to wonder if I made the right decisions, if I made a solid connection with the reader.

On the flipside, I love the opportunity to read different genres from the same author, deciding if it worked for me or not. Especially on Vocal.

The one thing this site does effectively is forcing us out of our comfort zone, our wheelhouse or any other place we hide from expanding our creativity...

***

I had a wakeup call last year when I Joined the Summer Nano-fiction, Writing Battle.

I also took a huge risk with what I wanted to write...

Trying to stand out, I decided to do my entry in 2nd person, hoping it would set me apart from the hundreds, perhaps thousands of entries I was up against.

It set me apart alright, just not exactly in the way I wanted.

The story turned out okay. I received some very encouraging comments. But my lack of experience with 2nd person became apparent. What I thought was compelling, was full of mistakes, including a couple rookie ones.

At first glance, the story reads ok. But when you have judgmental eyes geared at picking it apart, dissecting its very bones, it becomes obvious I should have done more research and read more examples...

The following nano fiction was published in the competition exactly the way it is posted here.

Athenaeum

You loathed every second of being behind those cold, steel bars more than the many rejections you received from shameless publishers. You blamed them for not recognizing your brilliance. Who were they to you but a bunch of pretentious critics who knew a thing or two about words…

Resentment was a dangerous place for you to linger. It allowed your thoughts to incubate and blister until revenge was the only verb you cared about. You may have gotten away with it if you stopped at the death of your sixth victim. Lucky number seven survived to tell the tale of how you, the lonely librarian, went off the rails.

But you were clever, more creative than the society of bad people you were locked up with. The day your cellmate showed you the stolen chisel they would use to slowly file breaks in the bars of that narrow window, you knew they were pathetic. Days on end you listened to the cringy sound of that chisel. You used the time to recall intriguing stories of mystery you were addicted to reading. One of those memories struck you as feasible…

A vile and noxious ride in the receptor of a garbage truck to a landfill, was how you escaped and disappeared. You, a mastermind? Perhaps.

If I were a publisher, knowing you are out there, I would be extra careful of what I reject…

Tell me, librarian, was it worth going mad pursuing a dream? You murdered that too.

Well, there you have it! 248 words with the limit being 250. Even now, as I read it, I want to change so many things.

I think the general idea of a serial killer was established. I believe the prompts were used correctly and the overall delivery was satisfactory.

But it's painfully clear why it didn't do well. First, and the most embarrassing, was my reference to 'revenge' as being a verb when it's clearly used in the sentence as a noun. I didn't catch it until it was too late. I knew it would be the focus of some of the comments as it should have been and was. I was too caught up on how great it sounded to describe the festering thoughts of the librarian and how those thoughts eventually led to a mental breakdown, initiating the murders.

Next, one commenter pointed out that 'the method of escape was too short, almost an afterthought'. Fair enough, considering the genre was Jailbreak.

I focused on making it more of a reveal than incorporating detailed steps involved in the escape. I accepted the feedback and thanked them for pointing it out.

Consistency was an issue. One commenter questioned if the grammar of this sentence was correct: "The day your cellmate showed you the stolen chisel they would use to slowly file breaks in the bars of that narrow window, you knew they were pathetic." This is where second person gets tricky for me. I'm positive I rewrote this line several times. Reason being, 2nd person is geared towards giving the reader a different experience, a more personal experience, allowing them to feel like they are part of the story. Therefore, for this short piece, I made sure not to hint at the gender of the librarian, leaving it ambiguous. As soon as the reader knows the gender of the cellmate, they will assume what the gender of the MC is because men and women prisoners are housed separately. I decided to use 'they' at the end of the sentence instead of he or she because, for example, once a female reader knows the gender of the MC is male, she will feel less connected to the character. At least that's what made sense to me.

The final critique is a personal one. After reading my entry more than a dozen times after it was published, I realized I used the word "you" too often. You this, you that, you you you! I prayed that just this one time, I could gain mental telepathy to coax the algorithm into replacing 20% of the 'yous'. A pathetic pipe dream.

Honestly, the repetition messes with the overall flow. After I realized this, I knew it had zero chance of moving forward.

I decided to never edit in the changes Athenaeum is begging for. It needs to serve as a reminder of a time I barely knew what I was doing. It needs to remain a reference point to gage improvements. It needs to stay exactly how I released it. The competition is over. I didn't place. I wasn't surprised. I'm over it. I don't plan to use this story elsewhere. It is what it is.

***

Writing can be a seamless outpouring of thoughts for those of us with plenty to say, allowing others to get a glimpse inside the mind of a writer. But there is so much more to it. I appreciate the art form more than I can express here. Manipulating words into fictional worlds is something I plan to do for a long time...