I want to do this just to see if I can. The plan is to write words that have just one beat. A few months back, I taught a course and learned that a prof tried this game. He had his class write brief tales that were made of one-beat words. The class found it hard, and said it would sound dull and not deep at all. But the prof stood by his rule. He claimed that the mark of a good tale lies in how terse and clear it is. We don’t need large words to reach large crowds. This stuck with me and that is why I thought I should find out if it is true. In fact, I must stress, I paused too much each time I reached the end of the line and felt I could not add more. What else can I say? Is it that I left facts out? Or that there is still much to think of when it comes to this strange new art form?
There is one way to know which is the case. I must do what I do best and that means I should use the one skill grad school made sure I learned well: I must play with words. So here goes. Here is my short one-beat tale too:
There once were two souls that were so close you’d think they were one soul. They lived on a farm in a tree-house that one of the souls had built. They loved the earth so the souls had planned for their home to be near lots of green trees where cats can come to play. One of the souls loved to plant and tried to teach her mate to do the same. All was well and calm on this farm. There were no gods and thus no wars, no loss, and no pain. The souls did not have much but they had their love and their hard work. The two dreamed of bliss and longed for the day they could have more goals they could aim for. It seemed hard for each single soul. So, they focused their strength and piled all their hopes into one dream. With time, their joint will grew strong and soon they had all they wished for. They could now live in peace and raise their cats with love.
This wraps up my one-beat test. I would have loved to write more but as I had to count since the start of it all, I now have cramps in my right hand and it seems to be in a strange curled up form. I best end this and take a break. I hope though, that I proved my point: Words are words, be they small or big, short or long. It is not the length or type of words that make your text rich, it is you. When you learn how to play with words not just for your own sake, but so all souls can find the joy in it, souls will come. And they will come to watch you do it.
References
- Lederer, R. (1991). The case for short words. In Bob Brannan (Ed.) A Writer’s Workshop: Crafting Paragraphs, Building Essays (pp.629-631). Boston: McGraw Hill.
