It’s OK to use these “F” Words

In my last blog I told you that there’s always a downside, but I also turned it around and explained how I really launched my career as a writer.

Here, I am going to tell you how I made the best of a bad situation, one which introduced me to a whole new genre—Fifty-Five Fiction. Most of us have heard of the Japanese Haiku, a greatly condensed form of poetry. Just the other day I was explaining to a friend that poetry is an exact art-cum-science—every word, every nuance, every idea, has to be expressed as a whole, the entire poem coming together to make a single, holistic unit. What if the same principle was applied to fiction? Of course, fiction may never be as concise as poetry, but what if? And that’s where the idea of “fifty-five fiction” came into being, I guess. I discovered this whole new genre—believe it or not—in the Library of King Saud University in Riyadh, KSA. I was working there at the time and I made use of my free hours in the very extensive library there.

Well, as we all know, a story must have—according to the pundits who have now been long forgotten—a beginning, a body and an ending. This was the mantra to keep readers alive and receptive, for it most often symbolized wholeness too. The same principles must be followed when composing a piece of “fifty-five fiction”; if you are able to pull it off, you will have a miniature masterpiece that not many people will appreciate, but at least you will have the satisfaction of turning out a particularly pleasurable piece. Getting it noticed is another skill, as one master—in this case, I Allan Sealy—says [in my own garbled words]: “Any fool can write a book; the trick is to get it sold!”

For starters, I chose one special character and worked around him in my take on “fifty-five fiction.” Here are two examples. If you find them interesting enough, you may want to give it a try yourself; the sooner, the better.

Dumb and Dumber

John Bosser, friend, colleague and language-instructor extraordinaire, sported not only green trousers and yellow shirt, but also a thousand-word vocabulary.

Innocence—and ignorance—make a soft target.

Cooling down a particularly steamy session, a colleague exclaimed: “John is no fool.”

Bosser beamed.

“John is no ordinary fool,” said another, pointedly.

Bosser nodded agreement vigorously, again.

Mind Your Language

John Bosser had his own charismatic way of conveying information. His precision was a result of his pinched, parched, and poverty-stricken vocabulary.

Fancying a gourmet meal at his favourite restaurant, Johnnie instructed the bearer: “Bring me the ‘mind’ of the goat.”

The bearer was quick on the uptake.

Turning, he said softly, but soundly: “Baaah!”

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