The Cigarette

For the past week, I've been writing two to three flash fictions a day. This is the first one in my collection. Enjoy.

A man in a dark brown sweatshirt and ripped jeans snuffs out a Marlboro on the corner of Lexington and Nevada. It's around dusk on a brisk, fall day in Springville. Below steel-toed boots, he grinds it into a sidewalk crack. He leaves and heads north.

Minutes later a blonde teen in a mini-skirt, leather jacket and stilettos steps on the cigarette. Unknowingly, tiny fibers from the trampled Marlboro get stuck in a spot on her heel. She's perfectly oblivious.

A balding man in a checkered coat walks by about forty-five minutes after the teen. He's holding a Walgreen's bag. He watches the loafers on his feet step routinely in front of one another. From the corner of his eye, he notices the Marlboro jammed into the sidewalk crack. A grimace paralyzes his wrinkled face. If only people didn't make the same mistake he had.

Under neon glow, bald man takes the tip of his left loafer and pushes the cigarette further into the crack. With a wince, Mr. Lung Cancer crosses the intersection and walks slowly down Lexington.

Hope you liked it!

i like this one, my dad smokes and i hate it! if doesn't take away the appeal i don't know what will. i like your writing style! keep it up!(:

Hello there Jane

Short, sweet and to the point. Even though the storyline is pretty obvious, there is a great use of imagery and your descriptions and message are pretty clear. Carry on with your flash fiction project! One suggestion I could make is that maybe you should italicise "Malboro", I don't know.
Anyway, good job, I *like*.

This was good, a little less descriptive than I expected, but still good. The teen sounds like a smart kid, that implies -to me- that she is against tobacco. I would give it a 7-and-a-half of ten since you leave the little forty-five-minute section without a word; e.g., everyone ignored the cigarette for those forty-five minutes.

What a fascinating piece.

I don't know what "flash-fiction" is meant to be, but I thought the idea behind this snapshot was excellent. It's fantastically original. Because it's such a short piece, I feel I can comment on it all in detail. But, if my comments on your writing in general are not accurate, then I apologise and ask you to ignore them.


Word choice
To me, "snuffs", in the first paragraph, sounds a little archaic. When you are writing something as short and sweet as this, you need to be very careful with which words you use. Each one must fit together to build the same picture. (Read some of Kylan's writing on YWS; I seem to remember he was very good at this.)

Ironically, after finding this example, I can see so many other examples of fantastic word choice! I love the verb "grinds" and the description of the "fibres" is also very good. Just take care not to let up at all!


Being specific
Again, you are generally good at this. With this kind of detached narrative, you need certain things to be specific, and other not. Let me try to explain: the passing of time is irrelevant here, but the descriptions of the people are vitally important.

When you say "minutes later", or "around dusk", you have got this brilliantly! You give just enough information for the atmosphere, but not too much that would distract from the narrative.

But, when you say "about forty-five minutes" it is a little confusing. Firstly, it detracts from the mysterious nature of the description, and secondly, it makes the reader think "About forty-five? What's so special about that? It must be important!" so try to avoid this.

On a side note, I love how the first man simply "heads north" when he leaves the piece. You have a direction, which is reasonably specific, but nothing more. It's beautiful. Really nice.


Showing or telling
You've probably heard this 101 times before. Sorry, but I'm going to say it again. Although, again, this doesn't seem to be too much of a problem for you, there are occasions where you don't need to make things totally obvious for the reader. I suppose this links in with being specific. If you have shown, through your description, that the bald man is dying from lung cancer, you don't need to tell the reader. In fact, it is actually much more effective to hint at it, but leave it to the reader to make the conclusion themselves!

On these grounds, I'm not too keen on "Mr. Lung Cancer" or "She's perfectly oblivious." The former, because it can be made obvious without being stated, and the latter, because it already is obvious.


Conclusion
I suppose, with a small piece like this, you almost have to use the techniques found in poetry. On the whole your word choice is very good, and the imagination with which you tackled this so-called "flash-fiction" is staggering. I am very, very impressed. (Impressed enough, in fact, to want to review this. In itself, that's a compliment! )

So, don't take this review too hard. It was nice to read this snapshot, but it would be nice to read something else of yours. If there is anything you'd like me to review, please don't hesitate to PM me. And if not, then don't worry about it either! If you want to talk (or argue!) about anything I've said here, you can usually find me in the chatroom or, again, PM me.

Charlie

I really liked this. My boyfriend smokes, and it's not just a cigarette a day kind of thing. He smokes all the time, and if he doesn't have one he comlains a lot. I also used to smoke, but I quit. I'm somewhat allergic, lucky me I got out of it. Anyway, I really like the idea of this, it made me sad to think of all the people that go down the path of smoking.

Kudos for writing this!

-Flower-

Overall I enjoyed this. At the beginning I wasn't all that interested. Your first sentence didn't really pull me in as much as it should have in my opinion. But as I got to the part of the teen I was interested. I wanted to know what the teen had to do with this man. Although, from what I understood she had nothing to do with him. The piece was shorter than I had expected & I really would have liked it to be longer, to know more. But it was well- written. Short, sweet & simple. Very to the point, I really liked that.

Keep on writing, your really good. -Imaginemyming *like*

Best flash fiction I've ever read

Ahhhh, thank you all so much!

For the past week, I've been writing two to three flash fictions a day. This is the first one in my collection. Enjoy.
[bHello! Booky here to review! Comments are bolded[/b]
A man in a dark brown sweatshirt and ripped jeans snuffsTeehee i like this verb! out a Marlboro on the corner of Lexington and Nevada. It's around dusk on a brisk, fall day in Springville. Below steel-toed boots, he grinds itUnclear pronoun reference into a sidewalk crack. He leaves and heads northThe north part is irritating me...too specific for the tone so far.

Minutes later a blonde teen in a mini-skirt, leather jacket and stilettos quite a cliche hmm?steps on the cigarette. Unknowinglyhow bout, unbeknownst to her..., tiny fibers from the trampled Marlboro get stuck in a spot on her heel. She's perfectly oblivious.

A balding man in a checkered coat walks by about forty-five minutes after the teen. He's holding a Walgreen's bag. He watches the loafers on his feet step routinely in front of one another.I've noticed you've been focusing quite a bit on shoes... From the corner of his eye, he notices the Marlboro jammed into the sidewalk crack. A grimace paralyzesParalyzes is too strong a word in this case... his wrinkled face. If only people didn't make the same mistake he had.

Under neon glow, bald man takes the tip of his left loafer and pushes the cigarette further into the crack. With a wince, Mr. Lung Cancer Odd way to describe himcrosses the intersection and walks slowly down Lexington.

Hope you liked it!
To be terribly blunt, this was not a favorite of mine. It has a fresh idea (brilliant!), which i applaud you for, but the execution has something to be desired...

There is one reason I really, really love this piece- it presents cigarettes for what they really are.
I can't tell you how many times I've seen "cool" characters in stories smoking because it's trendy or something. No consequences to smoking are ever present; health risks aren't even mentioned. It's just sort of a stylish thing to do. When I started this, that was running through my head. I looked at the first couple lines and thought ugh, here we go, another story about an edgy, classless city kid with his Marlboros and don't-care attitude, another Holden Caulfield rip-off without any real depth of character- and then I felt bad for my initial reaction, because it really took a different turn than I had expected. Finally- someone pointing out the fact that cigarettes are bad for you. Thank you.
As for the writing itself, I feel like you might need a more consistent tone. Some is specific, some vague- I can't really work it out. You may want to be a little more careful with your word choice in some places. Like Charlie said, you must pick words very carefully when you're writing a short piece like this.
Overall, I love the shortness and simplicity of this piece. I love the idea- and in my opinion an idea is the most important part of any art form, whether it be writing, painting, photography, etc. I think if you read this aloud to yourself a few times and found some good, solid words to back up your idea, it could be a really fantastic piece.