The Journey - 300 Word Flash-Fiction piece. Time limit including editing 30 minutes.
I dearly wish I had more free-time to practice and improve my fiction but alas that is not the plan life has for me right now.
However I occasionally have a little time to write and so I devised a clever little hack to aid my improvement and give me the chance to post some fiction at-least in order to gain a little critique. I choose a word count based on how much time I have and I stick to it strictly and edit in the allotted time-frame.
For this piece I allowed myself 30 minutes, to choose a theme, write and edit. Whatever I am able to produce in this restrictive time-frame may be a little rough but it helps me to hone the neccesary skills and focus that I must harness to write fiction on a time-shoestring...
If you have ever fancied trying your hand at writing, why not try this structured writing exercise when you have a little time. If you have less time, decrease the word-count, don't edit, whatever it takes to find the time. After all, one of my favourite types of writing on the blockchain is 50 word stories, the challenge to fit enough action, story, emotion in to so few words is a fun challenge.
So here goes...
The Journey.
His back burned from the straps of the backpack rubbing against the blisters that covered it. He raised a hand to shield his eyes from the intensity of the midday sun as he scanned the distance between he and the encampment. He thought of his Daughter Safira, now almost certainly dead and a lump came to his parched, swollen throat, he fought back tears and focussed on the task at hand. He knew he could not let emotion in right now, there would be time to grieve later. He knew he mustn't cloud his senses with anything other than sheer hatred right now, hatred for those who had destroyed his family, his village, his world.
An image of his beautiful wife Khannah and his new born Son Joro skinned alive and hung unceremoniously from the wall of the outpost at Kempak 4 flashed across his vision, he quelled the image, buried it, biting deep into his lip. The Preskin warlords would pay with their lives, retribution would be less swift than they would hope.
"I will make you beg for death you bastards!"
He knew that his anguished blood-curdling threat was all too loud but he didn't care, let them hear me, he thought, tears unashamedly streaming down his filthy cheeks. The only thought in his head now was to deliver the virus. He would commit genocide, he would be the destroyer of an ancient species and he was glad. Although he was once a healer a man of science, that knowledge would now be used for something far removed from healing, something unspeakable that would be abhorrent to the man he once was. He'd make them pay, he'd make them all pay, men, women, children.
For the first time he realised that something deep within him had died
Crossposted.
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This is a very beautiful piece of writing. Overall, I really felt the intensity of his hatred and his pain, as well as his sadness, so like I said above it's very beautiful.
Excellent work on building the emotion, but you may want to fit in a few words of movement. This man is dead set on vengeance, even if he's in that reminiscing mindset, you tell us that he's going forward, but it's not put into action. If he that determined, he will walk toward his goal, run or sneak somewhere to get closer to his goal no matter what state his body is in. Add just a few words of those movements, so that the reader can feel his determination is not just words, it's action. It will reinforce the feel of determination!
Just a presentation tip: for the image, you could use < center > (without spaces before and after center) and <\ center > (again without the spaces) around your image, so that it is centered.
To end up with a story no matter what your time is, you could take just once the time you allocate to your writing to make a rough barebone skeleton, and thus orient your daily writing at doing a part of the overall story, which would, in the end allow you to write an entire story.
Hope this was helpful,
@djennyfloro