Brooke Forbes

Clear and concise sentences, said the brief, slapped across my phone in bold.

A writing competition – behold, a paid prize and published name as a reward. 

I wanted to enter, to be part of that world. 

But I thought; 

How can my written word be clear and concise?

How can I express myself in all its complications without twisting lingo and diction around surfaces and timeframes, breaking what it means to start with a beginning and end with a punch line?

You may as well say we want your short stories free from free-flowing universes, free from experimental style, free from life. 

We want you to stop experimenting with form and style, stop weaving the intricacies of life around a verb and noun combination, stop alluding to metaphors and repeating alliterations. 

And use humour too, it says. Capture the beauty of life within an accessible prose that entertains and makes your audience laugh. 

I try, and I try, to be simple, to be sweet, to be subtle and execute with pragmatism.

But, alas, I cannot.

Because  these words grow within in an unusual fashion, they take shapes unexpected and follow alluring twists and turns.

So no.

I will not write for your brief. 

I will, instead, keep my prose to myself.

Let it build in drop boxes and Google drives, a digital footprint so complex it’s mapped to match only the patterns of my mind. 

I will not write for your brief and instead be perpetually perplexed by my own written verbosity. 

Watching it form across the note sections of my phone; words piled with thoughts from the day, an inward inflection, a navel-gazing exercise. 

I take a deep breath, thinking of how this writing competition will never manifest in my future, how I’ve missed my chance because of an impossible instruction. 

And then, I continue my morning routine, thinking…

Your brief wasn’t written for me, so why should I write for it.