Songs without Words

I’m really excited about the new story project I decided to work on.  The idea struck me this past Saturday morning, and I jotted down a few pages and a preliminary character sketch.  At this point, I have the beginning, middle, and end pinned down, with the two emotional climaxes still in the works.  Since the last completed story I wrote – way back in June of last year, if you can even remember that – was rather plot-driven, I decided to let this one unfold in a more character-driven way.  It is a story about fraternal twins growing up and coming to terms with who they are, starting at age 5 and ending at age 23.  The “main character” is not the narrator, which was a difficult decision to make, but I felt that it was necessary in order to help the audience relate to some of the subject material.  At the same time, this mode of storytelling sacrifices a lot of opportunities I would’ve liked to explain the thoughts and feelings of the main character which instead have to come indirectly or through dialogue.

While this story is not terribly long, I thought it would be fun to go back and tabulate the longest stories I’ve written, in terms of words.  This list should be definitive, except for two stories which have the potential to be in the top 6 for which my computerized versions have been lost, “Cell Wars 0” and “Emptiness in My Heart.”