Realism

Here’s another piece of 20 minute fiction. As usual the only changes are typo correction, punctuation changes and deletions.

Enjoy!

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Laughter drifted up from the street. Men’s voices, a woman’s; a small group. The same group every night. Outside his hotel window. He breathed out. “Keep calm,” he told himself, heart thumping.

The stupid bray again. Loud. Ignorant. The curly-headed one. He talked and talked, and then laughed. His friends joined in, fattening the sound. Every night drinking and laughing.

He went to his window, pushed the thin pane open. Stared at them with dislike. Caught another buffet of the irritating noise. Felt the taste of coffee rise. He shouldn’t drink so much this late.

The young woman sat opposite the Horse. The one with the terrible, awful laugh. She looked up, caught him. He ducked back inside the room.

The hotel was expensive, the room small. With the view of rooftops, made famous by generations of cheap postcards. But if he couldn’t sleep, he couldn’t finish his report.

Again! That maddening laugh.
Was there anything he could do?

One thing perhaps. If he dared. He pulled his shirt on, it clung to his belly. Despite the evening air it was hot.

He went to the table.
They must have seen him coming, turned. He cleared his throat.

“Excuse me, please. Signori, signora,” he said. “Could I join you?”
“Please!” The Horse jumped up, cleared his seat. Indicated he should sit.
“We wondered when you would,” said Horse.
“I was working. A report…,” said Bill. Signora smiled at him. “…it can wait,” he said.

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This one is based on a random first line prompt. I also wanted every line to have the same amount of words (7).

So this gives you a glimpse “behind the scenes.”

Most sentences are shorter as I deleted boring or irrelevant fluff, tightening the language. Even the original prompt got cut from 7 to 6 words. It originally ended with the word “…below,” which is neither interesting to end on, nor necessary as the words “up from” make it redundant.

A few sentences are longer. In a couple of cases I cut adjacent sentences to bits. It then made sense to get rid of a little bit more and make one sentence out of the remains. Insert “It’s alive! it’s alive!” film quote here.

The original prompt was “Laughter drifted up from the street below.”

Hi,

here’s another piece of 20-minute fiction. Unedited apart from typos, punctuation and deletions. The writing prompts follow after the piece, enjoy!

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She dropped the glossy magazine on the table. Her breath tasted of coffee as she sighed. It was over.
She’d tried everything to get back on the cover. Then just to get into the pages of the gossip magazine.

Nothing.

Her life was over. No one wanted to know. She wasn’t famous any more. Just a person. Cherry cried, pressing her phone to take a photo, then let it drop. It didn’t matter. She had followers but they weren’t watching her any more. If she killed herself they might glance at the photo. No more likes though.

She let the sobs judder up from her belly, shaking her, alone without anyone watching. No >HUGS< or >Luv U< to make it better.

He’d told her he’d finish her off if she left him. And he had.

She couldn’t resist checking his feed, knowing that it was another hit for his traffic. Bastard.

He looked happy. Wearing BanderaS. They’d worked on that deal together. Now he was getting the goodies, lying around in BanderaS ShortS and TeeS. Pouting at the poolside with BanderaS ShadeS. At least she didn’t have to deal with the ridiculous capitalisation. Hopefully he got arthritis from enforced use of the shift key.

He looked vulgar but pretty, like all famous people.
Like she used to. Cherry Kosimo.

Or Sarah, really. Just Sarah. She washed her face, her eyes puffy.

She still had to eat. No one looked at her on her way to the shop. Not like they should. She felt like an imposter, being herself. Her mind kept looking for ‘grammable moments but… there weren’t any. Just real life. Boring old nobody-cares reality. The air smelled of hot concrete, warm on her face. A bee buzzed around her, padding fuzzily against her fingers when she waved it away. The bakery was open. She bought a coffee, the cup warm in her hands, ate a bagel.
Cherry K, what are you doing? Carbs?!? LOL
But she was Sarah. She could do what she wanted.

A woman, lined cheeks, fawn-coloured hat and jacket was pushing at the shop door. It was too heavy and Sarah pushed it for her, holding it.
The old lady turned to Sarah. “You’re an angel, pet.”
I am, thought Sarah. I’m an angel in real life.
She lifted her sunglasses, rested them on her head. From behind their screen the supermarket, staff and customers sharpened into focus. Boring old real life. But real.

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The prompts were:

famous
effect
sigh
vulgar
cherry

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Dear Famous People,

I apologise. I needed to use the word “vulgar” and that’s just what came out. Sorry!

Regards,

Morgan

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Hello!

Here’s one of this week’s writing prompt exercises. It’s a 20-minute exercise based on the above photo and the keyword “grandparent.”

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Grandma’s slippers were huge. She went everywhere in them. They had thick rubber soles, worn at the heels and a plush sky-blue fabric she could stick her socked feet into. There were crease lines where her toes bent but much fewer than she had on her face. Fewer than on my shoes. I don’t think Grandma really bent her toes any more when she walked, she shuffled forward slowly, lifting one foot so that the rubber barely left the ground then placing it firmly back on the ground. Then the next foot. We made fun of how slowly she walked. Sometimes when she was napping upstairs we’d play Grandma Races around the kitchen table in our small flat. Ma and Da were at work so nobody shouted at us to be respectful. Grandma Races was all about coming last. We started at the hall doorway then had to walk around the table as slowly as we could. Whoever reached the hall doorway first had lost. My brother usually won. Halfway around the table I’d get bored.

The only time I won was when we were a bit older. Ben was about 13 then and had a girlfriend. He needed to leave by six. We started at about 5:30 after we’d eaten. I’ve never moved so slowly before. Halfway round he just gave up and walked to the finish line. It didn’t feel any different to win.

I was alone in the house with Grandma until 9 pm that night. She got up just after Ben left and pottered around the kitchen. I offered to make her her tea but she wanted to do it herself. It drove me mad with frustration seeing how long it took her to do everything.
She’d been through the Second World War and although she couldn’t have been wearing the slippers at the time it was somehow impossible to imagine her without them. I imagined her meeting Grandpa while wearing the slippers. Learning that her brother had lost his life in Belgium in those slippers. Listening to the news that the war was over in slippers.

We went to the park one Sunday shortly before she died. She sat on a bench while me and Ben and Da kicked a ball around. Ma talked to Grandma and on her phone. It was a late February day, the sun was out but our breath still frosted in the air. Grandma was wrapped up in a sheepskin coat and thick tights, a woolen hat which should have been red but had brownish streaks on the ribbing from her hair. We walked back through the town and as we passed a shoe shop I saw the same blue slippers that she was wearing. They were on display but decently presented in the back row of the window, not taking up room but just there if anyone wanted them. Special Offer, Everything Must Go. I looked back at Gran and for the first time saw how much she looked like Ma. More wrinkles and smaller. But a woman. Just like Ma was a woman before she became Ma. And then I was able to see her as she might have been. A little girl, a young woman. Wearing her best clothes when she went to meet Grandpa when they started stepping out. Making fun of her Granny when she was little. She looked at me and gave me her wise old woman smile. That’s what Da called it. But it wasn’t a wise old woman smile. It was just a smile. One person to another.

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If I could only make one change it would be to rearrange the line ” Learning that her brother had lost his life in Belgium in those slippers.” so that it didn’t sound like her brother was wearing the slippers. Interesting, that’s the same mistake as I made last time. I need to watch that.

Making good progress on my first draft of my novel, 65% finished as of yesterday.