Last week, a friend of mine told me about the George Saunders 200/50 writing exercise. I’d never heard of it before, but I thought it sounded fun, so we committed to attempting the challenge and sharing the result with each other within the week.
The rules are fairly simple. In 45 minutes, write a story that is exactly 200 words long. As an added twist, you can only use 50 unique words. Once you’ve used 50 unique words, you have to reuse your existing pool of words for the remainder of the story.
I’ll post my result below, and then discuss it briefly.
Autumn came to Edinburgh in the usual way: rain, followed by rain, followed by rain. It fell on the roof of the bus stop where Jacked waited. It drifted up from the tires of passing cars, settled as beads of mist on her wool coat.
But that was autumn in Edinburgh. The rain fell, drifted, settled; Jackie fell, drifted, and settled with it.
Jackie checked her watch. Her date was late, or at another bus stop, or had settled as beads of mist on another wool coat. That was the usual way of things.
(in autumn, in Edinburgh, in the rain)
Jackie waited. The bus came, followed by another, and another…
***
In another autumn, in another Edinburgh, her date was on the bus, and it never came late. Her date drifted up from the tires of passing cars. Her date was Edinburgh, and autumn, and the mist, and the rain, and Jackie never drifted, never settled.
But that was another Jackie. The usual Jackie followed the usual way of things. Checked her watch. Waited.
Fell.
**
Her date came the usual way - late. Checked for Jackie at the bus stop, in the passing cars.
Waited, in the autumn rain, for her.
Overall, I’m pleased with how it turned out. I did cheat a little; my first draft came together in less than 45 minutes, but I probably spent 10 minutes reworking it and changing things around before posting it here.
A few things I noticed during the attempt:
The word “her” pulled a surprising amount of weight.
I essentially had three words to propel my main character through the story: Jackie, she, and her. “Jackie” is essential; even in microfiction, I almost always name my protagonists. “She” is useful as a personal pronoun, but doesn’t serve any additional purpose. It can only replace Jackie as the subject of the sentence, which means I’m devoting two words to the same task.
On the other hand, “her” is remarkably versatile.
As a possessive pronoun, it lets me describe Jackie (her wool coat, her watch) and introduce tension (her date, who is late). As a third person singular pronoun, it allows Jackie to be the object of the sentence, which gives me a second point of view and leads neatly into the poetry of the last line.
That final line gives us a ray of hope, a chance to believe that things will work out for Jackie. After all, someone is willing to wait in the rain for her.
Limited by word choice, I toyed with conventions.
I generally hate repetition in writing. I’d do almost anything to avoid writing the word “rain” seven times on a single page. Usually, that means reaching for different words, or changing the structure of the scene so that dialogue breaks up the repetitive prose.
For this exercise, I couldn’t reach for new words, and I couldn’t make the scene shorter or longer, which meant I had to find other ways to relieve that pressure.
Like this line:
(in autumn, in Edinburgh, in the rain)
I don’t do that, that little aside in parentheses between the paragraphs. I think it’s cutesy and informal, and seems like the kind of thing that would either a) look weird if you only did it once, or b) become really annoying if you did it every other page. I’ve seen other authors do it, but I’ve never considered it worth stealing, because it never really fit my personal style or aesthetic.
But when stuck between a rock and a hard place, my usual conventions cracked, and that line snuck through. I don’t know that I’ll ever use it again, but seeing my hand reach for a new tool was worth the time spent on the exercise (thanks, George!).
I’ll be back in a week with another microfiction. If anyone else wants to try the exercise in the meantime, feel free to tag me and share what you wrote.