Where did day two go? I don’t know. But here are my submissions for yesterday and today.

I provided the first drafts over 50 words. It is a challenge to write in fifty words. What do you take out? What do you leave in. What is necessary to the story? Look over my entries for today and let me know if I succeeded with my edits. This is fun. Please try it.

Anne (1st version 107 words)

I never knew her. She died before I was born. I don’t know when she died or why. Her hair was red like my father’s. At least I think so. The only photo I ever saw of her was black and white with the color added by father. He gave her red hair and pale blue socks. They called her mongoloid because Down’s syndrome was not classified until way after her death. Did she laugh? Or live at home? Did my father love her? I don’t know. All I know is that she died at nineteen with red hair and pale blue socks to keep her warm.

Anne (2nd version 50 words)

She died at nineteen. She was called a mongoloid because the shape of her eyes defined her that way. Did she laugh? Was she loved?
There was one old photo of her with color added by my father. He gave her red hair, like his, and warm pale blue socks.

Dancing with the Stars (1st version 119)

The street was wet and slippery from a midnight mist that covered everything. The cobblestones took on the moisture and seemed to emit on fine film of oil over their smooth round surface. Joseph was drunk. There had been Guinness and shots of whiskey bought by his friends. He was twenty-one today. He kept to the wall along the dark alley. The wall kept him from slipping. He could hear the music. Was it in his head or real? Joseph drunk and young couldn’t help but leave the wall and do a jig down the alley. He swore the angels danced with him because they kept the cobblestones from landing him on his back staring at the stars.

Dancing with the Stars (2nd version 50)

Joseph was drunk from Guinness and shots of whiskey bought by friends. Joseph kept to the wall along the dark alley avoiding the slippery cobblestones, until he heard music. Was it in his head or real? Doing an impromptu jig down the alley, he swore the angels danced with him.

Writing a mini-saga of anything with just fifty words requires a certain economy of words.

Here is post by Dean Riek at Copyblogger – 11 Smart Tips for Brilliant Writing

Daniel Pink’s wonderful book, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future, is full of creative ideas. In part two of the book he introduces the six senses; design, story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning. After each sense he gives us a portfolio of resources. I am not doing the book justice at all so please go out and pick it up.

For our purposes this week I am picking one resource in the story portfolio section- Write a Mini-Saga.

Mini-saga’s are just fifty words long and like all stories they should have a beginning, a middle and an ending. In 1999 the Telegraph ran a mini-saga contest, here are the guidelines that they outlined:

How to write a mini-saga

Your Mini-saga must be exactly 50 words long. (Hyphenated words can be counted as one word or two, at your discretion.) In addition it must carry a title of no more than 15 words, which will, ideally, set the scene and illuminate or counterpoint the text.

Most important, your story must have a beginning, a middle and an end. Something must happen, preferably something which will keep the reader thinking. Fifty dazzlingly deployed words of description or reflection will not do

As a note the contest is not currently running but the guidelines are helpful for our purposes here. Also I am not running a contest but using this to excercise our creative muscle.

For this week try and write a mini-saga a day. Remember it is just fifty words. Give it a try.

Here is my first mini-saga to start us off-

Aces

Lettie had just one leg, a good one nonetheless.

She lost the lousy left one in a card game, after cheating on the last hand causing an irate player to brandish his machete. Some people called it a tragedy, but, Lettie said it was lucky after losing her right shoe.

Did I say it had to be great? This is a first try. Play with the form. Like haiku’s the mini-saga makes you pare down your words and get concise.

Here are some topics you could use to write your mini-saga’s:

Loss, Anger, family, past, present time, polictics, transitions, aging, death, work, childhood.

Or just sit down and see what shows up when you put pen to paper or fingers to the keyboard.

If you want to – send me your sagas and I’ll post them at the end of the week. Fifty words, go!

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