Monday, February 6, 2012
Snowball
They hold hands on the branch under the magnolia flowers, each one grasping a snowball. Hers is Wedding Cake his is Granny Smith. His lips turn monster-green as he slobbers and drools all over his crisp yellow shirt. Summer is in full swing for them. Her long blonde curls dip themselves into her cup making her arms sticky. Bees soon swarm around her tickling her arms with their antennas. Letting out a shriek of fear she shoos them away causing the whole brach to shake. Witnessing the unforeseen attack, he makes a gallant slap just in front of her arm. Granny Smiths fall all over her legs, searing her skin with cold. He falls.
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I like this because it contains so much action for such a small piece. It's as if the words are all in motion at once, making the most of their space. One thing I noticed is some redundancy in language, like saying "slobbers and drools;" it would make such a strong image to pick one of these verbs--slobbers or drools--I feel like for the sake of keeping this to it's bare bones as well as aiding in what is otherwise just energetic and straightforward prose, perhaps it can be cut further still.
ReplyDeleteThis story is sharp and sweet--literally. You've got the snowballs and the summer and the monster-green lips and the beestings. You really have a strength for vivid language, and I love it. I've seen it in all of the things I've read from you so far (which, granted, isn't a lot--but still). Wonderful prose.
ReplyDeleteThis piece has a lot of great details and really nice concrete descriptions. You do a very good job of creating an atmosphere with such an economic use of words.
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