line - a 100 word novel
Another attempt at a 100 word novel. Actually these are a bit of a cheat, I had aimed to write a 50 word novel, but couldn't manage that degree of compression.
Line - a 100 word novel
Armin collected pegs. He started because he loved to follow his mother when she hung the washing out. At first he kept them in a Christmas biscuit tin, but later clipped to strings around his room.
At college Armin was attacked in a bar. The bottle left a scar from his chin to his left ear along the jawline. He held an exhibition of photos he took of the injury from shortly after it happened. He used the red pegs from his collection to fix the photos to wires.
Armin's partner Alice left him because she could not believe him.
.
Line - a 100 word novel
Armin collected pegs. He started because he loved to follow his mother when she hung the washing out. At first he kept them in a Christmas biscuit tin, but later clipped to strings around his room.
At college Armin was attacked in a bar. The bottle left a scar from his chin to his left ear along the jawline. He held an exhibition of photos he took of the injury from shortly after it happened. He used the red pegs from his collection to fix the photos to wires.
Armin's partner Alice left him because she could not believe him.
.
Comments
Oh course, maybe i'm looking at things from far too much of a practical view point here, giving those labels too much respect :P
There's an element of character sketch there, rather than study which would take a whole lot more space. I've also tried to slot in at least one motif that's repeated at least once, again in the way you'd expect from a conventional novel.
Really apart from length the major differences between these pieces and 'proper' novels are the almost total absence of story here, the limited internal insight, and restricted sense of time and place. Which, yeah, I guess does bring them close to short stories. But I still think they have more in common with novels, if only because they don't focus on a single theme or idea in the way you'd expect of short fiction.
Anyway, it's minimalism. It wouldn't be minimal if it was short story or novel length now would it?
So there you go, minimal and incongruous.
BTW You were only 6 words short of a 100 word critique. That woulda been fun.
constraint writing is interesting in that it forces the writer into a different pen, as it were -- this is always fruitful.
at least i need to get 'round & read Exercises in Style, the #1 big-hit from Raymond Queneau,
a short revue via MadInkBeard:
Queneau review
here's my 100 word conceptual poem:
one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven eh eh eh i can't go on, i must go on oh Beckett wrote that doorknock as transcribing Wake & JamJoy o'corsa kept it cause a knock is a knock & who was there?
It would be interesting to place more constraints on myself. Both the 100 word novels so far use familiar tropes, and aren't that far from the kind of work I'd normally do.