Love this, both the story and the exegesis. Brevity--and suggesting a far larger story within a few sentences--is always a challenge for me. Funny, though: I dropped a wins-his-wife-in-a-card-game tale into an essay in TriQuarterly once, though not nearly as economically told as yours. Nonfiction piece--a cop ex-con in Russia's Far North, whom we hired as a bodyguard in a reporting trip to a gulag-era gold mine, claimed he'd hit the jackpot in a night of gambling.
Love the microstory form you carry off so well. Your approach reminds me of some choice haiku advice a friend recently conveyed from Cor van den Heuvel, taking the already condensed form a step further (or back): "Write 1/2 the poem."
Nowick, Interesting advice. I would translate it as "Write the whole story in 2% of the space." It's a curious trick, really. You have to give the illusion that there is NOTHING more to be said, there are no bits left out. This contrasts, say, with the aesthetic of something like cinematic realism (an aesthetic I see invading the world of literary writing) where you detail every inch of narrative progression. "Wade Marsh sat at the card table, sweating over his hand, his wife leaning nervously over his shoulder, biting her lips...."
Love this, both the story and the exegesis. Brevity--and suggesting a far larger story within a few sentences--is always a challenge for me. Funny, though: I dropped a wins-his-wife-in-a-card-game tale into an essay in TriQuarterly once, though not nearly as economically told as yours. Nonfiction piece--a cop ex-con in Russia's Far North, whom we hired as a bodyguard in a reporting trip to a gulag-era gold mine, claimed he'd hit the jackpot in a night of gambling.
Love the microstory form you carry off so well. Your approach reminds me of some choice haiku advice a friend recently conveyed from Cor van den Heuvel, taking the already condensed form a step further (or back): "Write 1/2 the poem."
Nowick, Interesting advice. I would translate it as "Write the whole story in 2% of the space." It's a curious trick, really. You have to give the illusion that there is NOTHING more to be said, there are no bits left out. This contrasts, say, with the aesthetic of something like cinematic realism (an aesthetic I see invading the world of literary writing) where you detail every inch of narrative progression. "Wade Marsh sat at the card table, sweating over his hand, his wife leaning nervously over his shoulder, biting her lips...."
Good points to be aware of, thx.
Ah, Wade Marsh... another great, resonant name! ;)