For the past several weeks I've been working on the committee that's putting together AQ's Domestic Abuse Awareness Week. One of the new events we will have is an exhibit of artwork, poetry, and short stories about people's reactions to any form of domestic abuse. Although I had a large assignment due this morning, my mind was buzzing on this event, and I was inevitably sidetracked.
So today I started working on a short story that might be displayed in the exhibit. It's about the harmful cycle of verbal and emotional abuse, especially to children. In a way, I'll be re-writing the tale of Cinderella without the happily-ever-after. The hardest part of writing this is not the subject but how to go about making an strong but subtle impact throughout the story. That is, how to write about verbal and emotional abuse without specifically using crude and crass language dialogue. It's every writer's great challenge: show, don't tell. I'm generally not too bad at that, but subtly is not my strong point. I'm very much a blunt person and my writing generally reflects that. In this way, I think this short story is a good writing exercise for me. =)
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