It takes a deft writer to tell a complete story without actually telling it, much less to do so in only 300 words. Sometimes, it’s easy for us writers to hint at things we think the reader is going to get, only to find that the resulting story is more confusing than what we intended. Show, don’t tell is what every writing teacher I’ve ever had has told me. And that’s hard. The key is to remember that, no matter what genre you’re writing in, you’re always writing to clarify even if you’re trying to obscure certain details and facts.

This week’s winner is clearly a master of revealing tiny details in small spurts, revealing to the reader the situation, plot and the characters both seen and unseen. There’s a certain skillful elegance to the writing that can take a lifetime  to develop.

Fellow writers, please help me in congratulating Lauren Flax for her piece The Mirror! Here it is for your enjoyment.

Mirrors

Would he be able to tell just by looking at her? Sarah stood in front of the round mirror in the foyer. Her cheeks were pink and her skin looked clearer and brighter than usual against her black curls, black tank top and dark eyes. It was just a kiss. She had fixed her lip gloss in the car, and now her lips matched the rising pink in her cheeks and neck. Over her right shoulder was the reflection of their wedding portrait and the folk art sign that read “The Kellers Est. 2001.”

She leaned in close to the mirror and touched her cheeks, pressing her fingers into the flesh until it went white, trying to push the rosy tint back down into her body. Soon she would look the way she usually did and there would be no rosy prints to read on her face, just palest, white skin, and black spiral curls, like a blank sheet of paper in an open sketchbook. She looked into her own dark eyes and wondered who she was, then promised the woman staring back at her that it would never happen again.

Still looking into her own eyes, Sarah stepped back from the mirror and took her fingers away from her cheeks. The rosy tint was fading, leaving behind the plain white face she was accustomed to seeing. She watched her collarbones rise as she took a deep breath in, then watched them fall as she sighed. Everything would be okay.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 5th, 2009 at 11:11 am and is filed under Weekly Winners. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.