I am sure each of us have written something that when you have read it back to yourself has struck you as as being very powerful, either emotionally, visually or conceptually in our illustrious careers I was wondering what this piece was for you and why you felt that way.
For me it was a piece that I wrote in a 1st year university paper called 'Telling the Story' This paper was a cross between creative writing and techniques for analyzing contemporary fiction.
We had an assignment to produce 4 pieces of writing by a certain date and I was struggling to get my final piece written. On the morning of the last day I sat down at a computer at university and decided to do what my tutor had described as life writing. this was to take an emotion or event that was occuring at the time and just write.
Anyway I sat down to start writing and tried to find an emotion in my life that I could write about. I sat and sat and started writing about how my life felt emotionless. I recalled events in my life that should have been high or low points, but the memory of which had been systemastically stripped of emotion. I described the first time I kissed girlfriend and how I could remember the mechanics and the situation that led up to this kiss, but all semblance of emtion was gone. I went on to describe how I felt difficult to know if what i remembered was true or ever really meant anything to me.
The piece ended up being only a page long, but as I read it back, and tweeked the grammar, I felt that this was enough. The PIece struck me with a sense longing for something that I wasn't really sure existed. The comments from the lecturer came back that it was a very powerful but sad piece.
I still remember it to this day as it really did describe my life at the time. I had recently left home and was flatting while at university. I was doing somethings I knew I really shouldn't be doing and I felt very empty inside. I could give all the appearance af a normal life, but nothing of real value seemed to stick. This was a very cathartic piece to write and I think was a step towards coming out of this slump.
I am not sure what ever happened to the piece, but if I ever found it I would love to post it on here to get some comments.
What about you? what about your own writing has struck you as powerful? I would love to hear some of your thoughts.
Posted by Rommel Fenrir Wolf II (Member # 4199) on :
the only thing i wright that strickes me lter are the pomes i write when i get drunk and fing them rather interistingly pecefull. they are of privet matters of love etc... so none will be found here.
Rommel Fenrir Wolf II
Posted by Wolfe_boy (Member # 5456) on :
Most powerful? My novel, currently in editing. Hands down. I almost cried a few times writing the damn thing, had to take a day off after writing the climax just to let my heart relax a little.
Jayson Merryfield
Posted by JeanneT (Member # 5709) on :
A short story titled Assassin's Mark. I haven't sold it yet, but it is going to high end markets. It is by far the best thing I ever did. It was one of those days that I sat there thinking-- I didn't know I was that good. *laughs*
Now if I could be that good EVERY day.
Posted by Grant John (Member # 5993) on :
I completely understand Wolf Boy, I cried at the end of my Science Fiction manuscript because I thought it was really sad, my brother laughed at me because I had known how it was going to end for about five years, but it was a really sad ending and if I didn't cry seeing vividly the horrible events how was my reader going to care,
Grant
Posted by Brendan (Member # 6044) on :
It's a strange thing writing emotionally. I once wrote an SF short about a guy remembering his family that had been tragically killed in a massacre. I contrasted his grieving process to the different processes of several aliens facing the same issue. (My idea was to reflect the different cultural grieving methods on Earth today.) I cried at the climax. However, when I took it to a crit circle, one person thought it was really powerful, and all the rest thought that it was distant and couldn't understand him at all. So, the reality is, power is in the eye of the beholder.
Posted by Umi-chan (Member # 5881) on :
My most powerful piece of writing was written my sophomore year of high school and to date only one other person has read it.
It would I suppose be considered fan-fiction as I borrowed some of my characters from a fairly well known band. Anyway, the main character is a young woman who sings lead for an entirely fictional band. She, her band and a friends band are all playing this festival tour and it opens with her being dragged into the camp of this well known band. Two of its members are ecstatic about showing a third member her tatoo.
From here I split into two story lines the first is the present story where many questions are asked about this particular tatoo. For a visual this tatoo is like a ribbon wrapped around her body with angels depicted on the upper part with clouds and then smoke and flames and then demons as the tattoo goes lower. The main character doesn't want to answer alot of these questions and so the story follows with the two bands making friends and having fun with questions about the tatoo and the person who did it continually popping up.
The second story line is presented through a series of flashbacks. It explains how the tattoo was done by the MC's former boyfriend and the entire story climaxes with the tragic ending to that relationship.
It tells how this girl is dealing with all of the emotions from this relationship and how she's moving on.
I love this story and one day four years from now I will go back and rewrite it into an original and edit it into perfection. Unitl then it will be shown to very few people, only extremely close friends.
Posted by SchamMan89 (Member # 5562) on :
What I'm writing now, Dream Chasers, is getting to be extremely potent. I'm still outlining it, but I've already teared up in a quite a few spots. In some ways, I feel like I'm writing about myself and my problems in a fantasy adventure...
Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :
Well, every few years, I write something that seems so much better than what I've been doing. Something that's lifted up my writing to a higher level. Used to be every two dozen stories or so. Of course my output has dropped lately and I don't get it as much.
(Also I'll look at it years later and think, "I thought this was better?")
Posted by djvdakota (Member # 2002) on :
My Boot Camp story.
I knew for sure I'd done something powerful when my dear friend tugged at my sleeve as she was reading it. Tears were streaming down her face.
It was all a really very intuitive story. I had done my research and just wrote the thing (in less than two days), just doing my job of telling a story. I wasn't really thinking about the deeper meanings and nuances, but they came out anyway--they emerged naturally from my own experiences, knowledge, and sense of the characters. It was only later, as the story was being discussed in the group, that I became aware of some of the powerful moments that came out of the story.
Now if I could only sell the darned thing.
Posted by WouldBe (Member # 5682) on :
My best work of fiction was my first résumé. I'm afraid to look at any other early works.
[This message has been edited by WouldBe (edited August 19, 2007).]
Posted by Antinomy (Member # 5136) on :
“Moving Away” is a short fiction story based on a true family occurrence before my time. The MC and POV are of a five-year-old girl, who, in 1925, is thrilled about packing up and leaving a remote Texas farm to motor across country to California where she will go to school with other little girls. Her only friend and playmate is “Fly,” her dog, who she admits, saved her from drowning. At the last second as the car pulls away she realizes that Fly will be left behind.
Posted by Pyre Dynasty (Member # 1947) on :
It was about the son of a serial killer who thought he committed the crimes himself. It was the only thing I've ever written that I didn't know where it was going. It creeps me out to no end. I actually thought he was the killer through most of it. (and I loved him so I hated it.) It turned out to be a three chapter novella, so I printed it out and put it away. I don't think it will ever be published, it doesn't really fit anywhere.
Posted by Howjos (Member # 2441) on :
Pyre, this sounds really interesting, I would love to see it. Maybe you can't find a home for it in print but have you ever thought of it as an idea for a screenplay?
Posted by ArachneWeave (Member # 5469) on :
I've had a few times when my mother has come to me, and handed me back something I wrote with tears in her eyes. The latest makes me teary-eyed myself because she only started crying after she was telling me how good it was...and basically told me it was something beyond what I've done before. Something definitive. Something that will be published.
There are other things I've reread that have made me tear up, but that's usually because when I was writing it I pushed through the emotion of it, and later was discovering that it WORKED, or I was actually at the same pitch with my characters sympathetically.
But the audience's reaction is what really gets me.
I was wondering what this piece was for you and why you felt that way.