Hello again everyone,
Here’s another example of fast fiction from my monthly writers group’s warming up exercises. For anyone interested in a full explanation, here’s a link.
A quick rundown of the rules:
Rule #1: These pieces of fast fiction were generated from a prompt chosen at random during one of my monthly writers group meetings. I will label that prompt at the top and where I use it in the prose.
Rule #2: WordPress allows me a ‘click here to read the rest of the story’ break, and that will be used before the fast fiction begins in earnest so people browsing through this blog are not overwhelmed.
Rule #3: The prose of the fast fiction shall be transcribed from my handwriting accurately: Line breaks, grammar, punctuation, spelling, what-have-you. The point of showing a 10- or 15-minute first draft is saying what you tried to do in that time, so what does editing really get me? The very rare changes I really do deem necessary shall be noted with an asterisk and an apologetic explanation at the end.
Rule #4: After the fast fiction I will include a few sentences about my first thoughts of the prompt. These entries are less about the actual prose and more about the exercise as a whole. Post-gaming that exercise will be a big part of the end result.
And that’s it. Here we go.
Prompt:
“I didn’t do it! Oh, God, I can’t stand this waiting!”
Jim was an old-fashioned sort of man. He’d been upfront about that since the beginning. He shaved with a straight edge. He wore a tie to work and carried a briefcase. He did not want to be in the maternity room when his wife delivered.
“Are you sure?” Jane asked him, but he was adamant.
“Are you sure?” His friends asked him, but he rebuffed all their insights into the modern man’s place, begowned and masked in the same room as a screaming woman giving birth to a child.
His father never asked Jim if he was sure. His father had regaled young Jim with the story of his own delivery. Jim’s father had held court in the waiting room, a suit jacket’s breast pocket bulging with ready cigars, a Scotch and soda in a dixie cup in one hand, a roll of dimes in the other at the ready to call all the family.
That was Jim’s idea of new fatherhood. He’d cherished that story all his life, and when Jane gave him the Happy News that they were to become parents, his first conscious decision was to announce he would hold court in the waiting room just as his old man had done.
The admitting nurse asked if he was sure. Jim was sure.
The doctor who took Jane away asked if he was sure. Jim was sure.
Then as hour after hour dragged on, Jim became less and less sure. The waiting room was populated by people worried about their loved ones. All the would-be fathers were with the would-be mothers. Jim was surrounded by stressed, frightened people. There were no jokes, no laughter. No one wanted a Scotch and soda. And as the hours dragged on, Jim started to worry he might have left the stove on. He’d been cooking dinner when Jane’s water broke. Was his house even now burning down?
“I didn’t do it! Oh, God, I can’t stand this waiting!” Jim cried.
—
Note: So this one doesn’t feel quite right, does it? I will not swear to it, but I suspect for whatever reason we had less than the usual amount of time. It feels both rushed and a little thin on the ground.
I do enjoy the repetition of ‘Are you sure?’ […] ‘Are you sure?’ […] ‘asked if he was sure. Jim was sure.’ […] ‘asked if he was sure. Jim was sure.’ Followed by, ‘Then as hour after hour dragged on, Jim became less and less sure.’
That to me is the meat of the rather meatless thing, and I’m pleased with how that came together. With more time I would have liked to do more in the waiting room contrasting Jim’s expectations with reality and the rising sense of dread welling up inside of him. Again, I think I didn’t get there for lack of time. I do like that I ended on the prompt. That’s a tough one to stick the landing on sometimes, and here it works because the story —such as it is— is about waiting for him to crack, not about what’s really happening with Jane and the baby.
Worth saying my own father split the difference and was present for portions of my own very long delivery while enjoying free cigarettes and cigars downstairs in the hospital waiting room while working the payphones to give friends and family updates. Crazy to think how much the world has changed since my birth.
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