Here’s a piece of 20 minute, writing prompt fiction. Normally I don’t edit except for typos and punctuation mistakes. This time I deleted an entire paragraph for clarity. Unfortunately that means I lost one of the key words.
The key words are below the piece. Under that is the original beginning, including the confusing second paragraph for comparison.
I wanted to set the scene but all the pronouns and directions just made it confusing.
I’m more pleased with my attempt to engage the senses. As well as vision, there’s smell and touch. But I missed taste even though the story is set at a barbecue. I need to work on this.
Love needed cold paper plates. The meat on the barbecue smelled burnt. The charcoal spat as fat dripped over it, smoke whipped across his smarting eyes.
“Darling?” He turned and waved his barbecue fork at her. She was leaning in to Cathy, telling her something funny, around her all the couples were spellbound. Their smiles were half-delighted, half-shocked. Robin excelled at gossip. Love wondered which poor sap was getting it today. The single mother in the end house had been having ‘numerous visitors’ recently. Maybe it was her. Robin saw Love waving and her smile dimmed. He mimed a plate and she waved a hand to indicate they were in the kitchen.
He sighed and turned down the heat, moved the sausages and steakettes to the top row so they wouldn’t char too much. There wasn’t much space and the Davids were vegetarians. He rebuilt the top row of meat, stacking it to the left so that there was room on the right for the slices of tofu and onion and feta parcels, wrapped in aluminium. He pulled the apron off over his head and stomped towards the house. The wind had picked up and he appeared out of the smoke of the barbecue like the last survivor on a battlefield.
“Everything good, honey?” Robin broke off her story to look up at him and took his hand, rubbing his forearm.
“I needed some plates,” he said.
“Doesn’t he smell good?” She asked the others.
“Jesus, Love! You smell like you were on the barbecue.”
He nodded and went into the kitchen. It was coooler in there. He dug the paper plates, still in their wrapping, out of the cupboard, took a beer out of the fridge and sipped it leaning against the sink. The salads were lined up on the kitchen’s island in front of him. Greek salad with halved cherry tomatoes, caesar salad with juicy white strips of chicken mingled with golden croutons of bread fried in butter. Rocket salad with gorgonzola and pear. All covered in plastic. Like his petite and charming wife. Cool and quiet in the cellar. Wrapped in plastic. What was left of her.
If they couldn’t produce a body then there was no crime, wasn’t that how it worked?
Barbecues for the rest of the month.
Then maybe sandwiches for Robin.
The key words are:
loss
numerous
cherry
produce
petite
Originally the piece ran as follows:
Love needed cold paper plates. The meat on the barbecue smelled burnt. The charcoal spat as fat dripped over it, smoke whipped across his smarting eyes.
“Darling?” She was sitting at the table near the house. He’d been banished to the bottom of the garden to cook. Bill had come down to say hi but they hadn’t much to talk about. He’d waved vaguely with his glinting brown beer bottle and ambled back up to the table where the real party was. Their loss.
“Darling?” He turned and waved his barbecue fork at her. She was leaning in to Cathy, telling her something funny, around her all the couples were spellbound…
I deleted it because there were too many directions leading to confusion rather than clarity.
