Anatomy of a micro-fiction
about the author
Name: Bob Thurber
Location Massachusetts, USA
contact
Website www.bobthurber.net
“Not since Holden Caulfield have I felt such a kinship with a boy in a book.”
Paperboy continues to haunt my consciousness. The narrator's skill and veracity in this spared-down and guileless rendering I consider a rare literary achievement. — Dennis Must, author of Oh, Don’t Ask Why, and Banjo Grease
“...reading this book, even at it’s darkest places, you can see Bob Thurber’s fingerprints. He’s so sharp – especially at short fiction – that he writes short burning chapters from which you can’t tear away. He slugs you right in the gut without any maudlin posturing...” — Review at Three Guys One Book
Paperboy is not a book, it's a state of mind. Gritty, visceral, desperately urgent and begging to be read, it is a novel that perfectly captures a dangerous and uncertain zeitgeist, the no-man's land that was really the no-boy's land of 1969. — Vincent Carrella, Author of The Serpent Box
Bob Thurber is a masterful wordsmith, driving you into the undiscovered corners of the heart with insight and courage. — Susan Henderson, Author of Up From The Blue
A brave book, a necessary book... a novel made out of short chapters, each one a blazing vignette drawn from the life of Jack Fisher, the 14 year old Pawtucket paperboy whose daily existence is, to say the least, challenging. These vignettes, often self-contained enough to be read as stand alone fictions, build upon, echo, reflect, and shatter each other for 259 pages, and it's amazing to me that Bob Thurber was able to turn this kind of form and this kind of desperate "material" into a page turner. — Andrew L. Wilson, Professional Editor, Writer, Manuscript Consultant.
bio
Bob Thurber is is the author of "Paperboy: a dysfunctional novel" (Casperian Books, 2011) Over the years his short fiction has received numerous awards, including The Barry Hannah Fiction Prize, and dozens of citations, most recently a finalist for the Donald Barthelme Prize.
Micro-fiction links
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Stories of 25 words or less
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NICKEL FICTIONS: 50 Exceedingly Brief Stories
You can read the Ebook/Kindle edition of “Nickel Fictions” on your Kindle, iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry, PC or Mac.
Anatomy of a MicroFiction
by Bob Thurber
First, we’ll read through the text — a micro-fiction of 150 words (the word limit for this particular venue) originally published online at The-Phone-Book.com
Three Days of Mourning
On the third day the old man took down a haunch of cooked beef hanging from the cabin's ceiling. The blade of his knife was razor-thin and passed through the meat without resistance. He was sixty years old and in mourning for his wife whose body still lay on the bed. He had been drinking now for three days without sleep and now he wanted to eat. He set himself a place at the table. He ate slowly, chewing each bite twenty times. The meat tasted dry and salty. As he ate he stared straight ahead at the stone fireplace which took up one wall. When he finished he would fetch a shovel and go to work. His wife had died peacefully in her sleep, and he imagined that was not a hard way to go. When his time came he believed very little effort would be necessary.
Now let’s examine the anatomy of this piece. The text contains eleven sentences, each performing a small structural task. Though each sentence doesn’t don’t do much, in combination they produce a small emotional effect.
1) On the third day the old man took down a haunch of cooked beef hanging from the cabin's ceiling.
Introduction of Time, Character, Place, and Main Prop -- the "haunch of cooked beef."
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2)The blade of his knife was razor-thin and passed through the meat without resistance.
Character in action with Main Prop.
3) He was sixty years old and in mourning for his wife whose body still lay on the bed.
Physical and mental characteristics, and present situation.
4) He had been drinking now for three days without sleep and now he wanted to eat.
Character's reaction to event, and proposed goal.
5) He set himself a place at the table.
Character in action, moving toward goal
6) He ate slowly, chewing each bite twenty times.
Character in action with Main Prop.
7) The meat tasted dry and salty.
Character's sensory reaction to Main Prop.
8) As he ate he stared straight ahead at the stone fireplace which took up one wall.
Character's reflective delay.
9) When he finished he would fetch a shovel and go to work.
Character's proposed new goal.
10) His wife had died peacefully in her sleep, and he imagined that was not a hard way to go.
Character's reflection.
11) When his time came he believed very little effort would be necessary.
Character's emotional response, in summary, understated.
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Now write one. Use as many words as you need to accomplish your emotional effect, but try to keep it under 300. The shorter and tighter, the better. Once you have a working draft, read and edit the piece once every day (or twice a day, but no more than that.) Examine each word and phrase. Weigh those modifiers. Try to get two sentences to do the work of one. Perform this task for at least one week. Don’t cheat. Once you have a tight micro-fiction, you can send it to me if you wish. If I think I can be of any help, I’ll reply with comments and suggestions as soon as I can.
Looking for more examples of micro-fiction?
Here are Ten Small Fictions published by Turnrow, and later used for a creative writing class. More links in the left panel.
