WEEK seven
Drabble:
He trembles.
There’s a clench in his stomach rising in his lungs, and there’s a lump forming in his throat faster than he can comprehend. It hurts, almost, to subdue this fierce ache as much as he currently is, but he bears with it. Hands clench at his sides, he draws breaths deeper than the last, and turns his head away from inquisitive eyes.
He takes one step, another. Then stops.
A hand rests on his forearm. The warmth of it halts his escape, makes stiff his motions, and he gasps once before silencing.
He pretends he is not crying.
Reflection:
Flow of narrative/does it make sense?
I believe it makes sense. It starts with someone clearly struggling with emotion before it finally spills out just from a touch. However, the person actually weeping doesn’t quite acknowledge it in the correct way. It’s really ambiguous as to why and who comes in at the end but with the way the drabble is structured, it was meant to be up to the reader’s interpretation.
Visual/emotional impact:
I don’t think there’s too much emotional impact with this one. Maybe in the ambiguous way there’s some realization of the emotion becoming too much for the character, especially when a mere touch has them unravelling. This is mostly conveyed with the more visual aspects of the drabble which was the prompt focus; the sensation of choking down a sob is hopefully communicated with a hand on the arm to unleash that. Overall it doesn’t quite have as much impact as I want.
Was the original intent conveyed/changed in any way?
It was changed somewhat, mostly because I had the idea of a child clutching at this person’s arm and looking up at them but I didn’t have enough words to communicate it. Instead, I tried to focus on him getting away from the feeling overall before the physical gesture at the end. The last line was to reiterate his attempts to deny the feeling altogether but I believe it was implied easily that he didn’t quite manage that.
What was different about the second draft process compared to the first?
I think this one was harder to come up with since there were some specifications that I wanted the drabble to fit in accordance with the first drabble’s criteria. However, it was easier to fit everything into the word count and I didn’t do as much editing as I did the first time.
Was it easy or difficult to implement changes based on the first draft’s criteria?
As mentioned above, there was some difficulty with this because I believe I wanted to focus on the physical aspect completely. There was some mental processes involved within the drabble, especially the last line, but I think it still fits fine because it wouldn’t quite have the same kind of impact if I excluded it.
Am I satisfied with the second draft?
Overall, I’m not entirely satisfied but I think I’m getting the grasp of my original goal of adhering to one hundred words and finding different ways to make my ideas more concise. With this one, though, focusing on physical aspects was somewhat difficult for me because there’s so much you can do with action. It’s a certainty and if it happens, that’s it. However, with a more mental take on things, there are questions and tangents and that’s what made this interesting to write. I think at one point I was trying to think of what to write to meet the word count specified, if only because focusing on the physical aspect made me narrow it down completely to just the action and the next. This was an interesting piece to write though because I think it’s better to just evenly balance between physical and emotional like in the third week’s drabble with the same prompt. It gives a better visual and train of thought while also adhering to whatever actions are taken.