I've written 50+ micro stories of 500 characters or less this month. My goal was to average 1 per day, which I've easily exceeded. Although I haven't worked on any of my other writing, I feel pretty accomplished. And for that reason I'm going to keep writing these stories -- I feel good every time I'm able to fit an idea into only 500 characters, and if I get it just right then I enjoy rereading it even weeks later. When I post, I always get a few likes from other people so I know the stories worked for them as well, and it's something that I can manage in half an hour -- unlike trying to add to my massive 200,000 word fan fiction story Nerima All-Stars, which requires me to regularly reread what I've written so I can remember all of the balls I'm trying to juggle. ^_^
I find the entire writing process fascinating and mysterious. Typically I have an idea and I write it out, and it's too many words, too many characters, and then I have to edit it down. I really enjoy this part because you're trying to figure out how to include the most detail in the fewest number of words -- it's a nice little writing puzzle.
Two days ago I had an idea for a story about a person transitioning into a new life in a new world -- just the idea of the transition itself. I wrote it out, and it was well over 650 characters long. Which meant I needed to trim a LOT.
I began with "What are the advantages?" "You'll get a new life in a new world. You get to choose who you will become." When I set about editing, I collapsed these two lines into a single statement: "The advantage is a new life in a new world. You choose who you will become." Much more compact. Likewise, I had a couple of lines about him being strapped in... to some sort of machine that facilitated the transfer to a new world. Then I had the new person stepping out into sunlight on another world.
I wanted the ending to be the surprise in not remembering who they'd been, but it was hard to fit everything into 500 characters. Finally I decided that part of the problem was trying to include being strapped into a machine and then awaking in a new world -- it took too many words. Just have them step through a portal, and into sunlight, and that was enough to convey the transfer from one world to the next. That gave me just enough room to include a bit about trying to remember the past.
"The advantage is a new life in a new world. You choose who you will become."
"And the disadvantages?"
"You leave your old life behind -- your friends, family... and memories. You won't recall who you were."
He was old, with few friends. A new start was enticing. He signed the paperwork, and stepped through the gateway... and into bright sunlight.
She froze. What had she been thinking? Memories drifted then vanished like morning mist. She could not recall.
The next day, I had an idea involving time travel. I was thinking about how tiny mistranslations in a sacred text could turn into huge holy wars in the future. I'm not just talking about the Bible -- for example, if the United States founding fathers had more carefully spelled out what they meant about the right to bear arms in the 2nd amendment, we might not have people carrying assault rifles into a Starbucks to order a latte. It's tempting to think, if you could just travel back in time, you could save a lot of lives by changing how someone wrote down a few words.
So I started by writing: Brother Ignacius studied the parchment by candlelight. This was an X, was it not?
With a flash, a stranger stood before him. Brother Ignacius fell to his knees. "An angel!" he exclaimed.
"I'm not an angel," the man replied. "I am a traveler in time. That word is not X, it's X."
Normally I try to pick names that are shorter than "Brother Ignacius" because of space considerations, but that name felt right for a Middle Ages or earlier monk. My two biggest problems were that I hadn't decided what my mistranslation would be just yet, and I wasn't exactly sure how to end the story. My first ending just had the traveler imparting his knowledge and Brother Ignacius was like, thanks for telling me, and that ending didn't have any surprise or twist to it. Then I considered having Ignacius consider telling this story to the abbot, but no, he would never believe it -- which was a slightly better ending, but not one I could fit into 500 characters.
I tried researching mistranslations, which first yielded a lot of stories about presidents and Soviet leaders giving speeches that were not translated well, then yielded pages that talked about how the Bible is full of translation errors, but didn't give specific examples. Finally I landed on the Wikipedia page for Bible errata, which deals with weird translation errors (and is the basis for some jokes in Good Omens that I was half-remembering). This lead me to the treacle bible, in which a Hebrew word that could mean balm or medicine was translated as treacle -- which at the time also could mean cure-all.
That was what I needed, because the word treacle is inherently funny and specific words always trump general ideas. I could refer to the "treacle wars of 2300, in which millions died" and you didn't really have to know the details of how a holy war turned on a mistranslated word, you'd get the general idea.
I also wrote a line along the lines of, "I understand," said Brother Ignacius, who in fact did not. And I immediately liked that idea and that line. Why should a medieval monk, even if he's convinced that this angel is really just a human, understand in any way how a simple word choice could lead to millions of lives being lost in the future? So that became part of my ending.
Brother Ignacius studied parchment by candlelight. This word meant treacle, did it not?
With a flash, a stranger stood before him. "An angel!" Ignacius exclaimed, falling to his knees.
"Not an angel," the man replied. "I am a traveler in time. Please translate that word as 'balm'. Doing so will prevent the Treacle Wars of 2300, in which millions died."
"I see," replied Ignacius, who did not. The man vanished. Ignacius shrugged. Treacle, balm - what was the difference?
I really like working out what makes the best ending, and how I can manage to fit it into 500 characters. ^_^
Here's my last story: over the past week and a half, for several days when I walked into my bathroom, I could sometimes hear someone filing on metal. It sounded like someone was slowly sawing through a steel pipe. I live on the ground floor of an apartment building, so it wasn't coming from below me (although I had visions of someone trying to break into my apartment from underneath). It was most likely coming from the apartment next door, but I never did find out what it was. It eventually stopped.
I was thinking about that this morning, and I decided to write a story around the idea. So this morning I wrote:
He heard scratching and pounding through the walls of his bathroom, as if someone were trying to break through. His house was set apart, down a lonely lane -- there could be no one on the other side. He ignored the noise.
One day he heard a faint voice calling, "Let me out!"
But he knew there was no one there, so he ignored this as well.
As you can see, I have yet to figure out what the ending should be. ^_^ The voice fades away? Something breaks through from another dimension? The police show up? I'm still trying to figure out where this one leads.
