Wednesday January 27th, 2010

The exercise:

First off:

AFC Target: The End
AFC Actual: The End

Hurray! Total word count for January was 30,048. Total count, from start to finish, is 65,643.

In related news, your prompt today is: final words.

I was inspired by how much trouble I had deciding on the (for now) final line of the story.

Mine:

How do you end a story,
What words do you choose?
Does the hero earn glory,
Or falter and lose?

How do you leave your reader,
Do you make them cry?
Do you dare leave them hanging?
Or quite satisfied?

Writing a story is tough,
That much I now know.
But bringing it to an end?
That's a damn hard go.

6 comments:

Greg said...

Congratulations! That's another one finished, and so I have no doubt it's on to the next :) (After a short break to catch your breath of course).

I like today's poem, though I've got two little criticisms for you:
1) You've got a bonus "in" at the end of the third line of the second verse,
and
2) The last verse feels like you're forcing the rhyme at the end. The repetition of hard doesn't help dispel that feeling either.

Oh, and I see we've been paired again in the poetry tournament, which is annoying, since I thought we might meet in the final round this time. Well, good luck!

Given that today's theme is final words, I thought I'd imagine some final words for various characters I've used here:

Vince: "No, really, they'll all be too surprised to shoot as us. After all, I'm dressed lik--"

Dave: "Actually, I'm an Avon Lady."

Dr. Septopus: "It doesn't matter what you do, the bomb will go off and destroy the city anyway. I'm not stupid. Well, not that stu--"

The Green Lightbulb: "No! No! You want Sylvestra, not me! She's over there, under Mr. --"

Sylvestra: "Where's that useless grand-daughter of mine? I want to disown her a few more times before I die."

EmmaB: "I know everyone has to die, but I'd like to request an exception in my case..."

Marc said...

Thanks much! Next: a breather. After that: editing Lessons in the Dust. Probably start that mid-February'ish.

Bah, that's what I get for writing in a hurry so that I can do something else. Fixed the stupid spelling error, got rid of one of the 'hard's.

And yes indeed. At least one of us is sure to be in the next round!

Best of luck to you :)

I liked all of those, perhaps Lightbulb's the best. But we all know I have a soft spot for him :)

morganna said...

The old man lay in bed, breathing shallowly. The family gathered around the be, awaiting his final words. The end couldn't be that far away now. Suddenly his eyes sprang open, he sat straight up, and pointed at his youngest son. "You! You are . . ." They waited. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he fell back, dead.

Marc said...

Morganna - oh man. How much would that suck?

Haha, you'd just spend the rest of your life wondering what he was trying to say.

Nicely done :)

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