Specular
Anita C.
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(The following spoils the plot of my story!)
This piece began with a concept that came to me randomly: what if I wrote a flash fiction of someone running away from himself? I then began brainstorming scattered ideas of physical manifestations of mental concepts. These included light and darkness, shadows mirrors, music metaphors, and the landscape. Most of my ideas didn’t make it into the final piece.
This was a long process, to say the least. I wrote the first version of Specular in November, where it was around 1.3k words long and had a much more complex (and probably more confusing) plot. After receiving some critique, I revisited it in December and decided to work on cutting it down and improving the story. Throughout the editing process, I had to make tough decisions on which parts to do away with and which were crucial to my storyline. Meanwhile, I worked on improving the flow of the story and paid attention to my transitions and sentence structure.
While my previous version of the story represented “the figure” as an embodiment of the character’s mental nemesis/monster, this version of Specular focuses much more on music as a metaphor and point of tension. Though writing and editing Specular was difficult, I enjoyed the process and am proud of how it turned out. I hope whoever’s reading this enjoyed my story!
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Creativity means having the freedom to create whatever I imagine and whatever I deem significant. I can spin the threads of imagination and reality together in writing, potentially making an impact on someone else or the world. Creativity holds power, which is why it means so much to me.
