Friday, December 23, 2011

Five Sentence Fiction - Sacrifice

The question formed in her mind but she forced herself not to ask it. She kept her head tilted down, eyes closed, panic racing her heart . He didn’t slam the kitchen door to make his point - he closed it gently. His heavy boots kicked up small stones in the driveway as he strode away. She pushed the chair away from the table, went to the sink, and searched through the dirty dishes for the sharpest knife.

2 comments:

  1. Well, now the questions are forming in MY mind. Just who or what is going to be sacrificed here? I really want to know, and at the same time, I'm pretty sure I don't.

    You've created great suspense in those few sentences, a delicious rising tension toward those terrifying last words.

    There's something in the second sentence that interrupted the flow for me when I read it the first time. I think it might be the two "-ing" endings in one phrase ("holding in the cold panic racing in her heart"). This is a pretty subjective thing, though--my guess is that it wouldn't be a hiccup at all for most people. My ear has its own fussy little quirks, I'm afraid. It would be a simple edit, though, if you wanted to accommodate my ear above all others--you could just change it to "eyes closed to hold in the...'

    Good grief. My feedback is longer than your entry. *slaps self a little bit*

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  2. I see (actually hear) what you mean. I did want the image to be of her holding in her thoughts and her feelings so that's where the "holding" came into things. Still, I do want the beats of the sentence to be right. I'll think on this. Thank you so much for the feedback!!!

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