After running a few errands and settling down, I started surfing the web and looking for ideas on a new story. I noticed a contest for a "story with a twist" and thought that I'd give it a try. I sat and started writing about something then went with it. It went on and seemed interesting. I was surprised that I could even write something cohesive. Soon I was almost done but realized I had already gone over the word limit.
I decided to finish it anyway and pare it down with some editing. I started reading it from the beginning and slashed away words that just took up space. They didn't really say anything or add to the quality of the story so I highlighted them and deleted. It reminded me of all those papers I had to write for classes. That's where I got the comment that I had written in fluffy language. Now it was time to cut the fluff.
When I started out, I thought I'd write from my own perspective since it would be easier. I converted situations from my own experience and started writing. I started thinking about how I related to other people. Soon a story began to develop and grow. There was an antagonist and an innocent bystander as well as an accomplice to the antagonist.
I was in a fine environment where everything went along smoothly. Me being the protagonist, I dealt with the antagonist and accomplice, though at the time, I didn't know that was an accomplice. Actually the accomplice was slightly involved with the antagonist just like the innocent bystander was, but unlike the innocent bystander, the accomplice had a direct relationship to the antagonist.
The antagonist knew the innocent bystander and was the reason why I also knew and interacted with this same person. The accomplice only knew about the bystander and I doubt there was ever any interaction between the two of them. The accomplice dealt with me when I had the rare occurrence to initiate an interaction. I was, though, often in contact with the innocent bystander and antagonist. This was the gist of our relationships.
After dealing with the three of them over the period of a few months, nothing much seemed to change until a year of the same monotony continued into another few months. In that time, I found that it was very difficult to interact with the antagonist, although the plot required it. The antagonist kept me at a distance. Though initially I dealt with the accomplice closely, I found that there too, was a distance that was impossible to cross and found myself keeping away and secluded, mostly dealing with the innocent bystander.
The innocent bystander seemed to have a lot of observations and gave me a lot of insight about the antagonist as well as some of the history about this person and the accomplice. It seems they all spent quite a few years interacting with each other though the antagonist seemed to interact much more often and influence the innocent bystander more than the accomplice. The accomplice then seemed to become a character that took on the personification of more than one person.
It got more complicated. I interacted with many innocent bystanders that were familiar with the antagonist and accomplices, but who were only involved with both to a lesser degree. There was only one antagonist, but there became several accomplices and innocent bystanders.
Interacting with the antagonist seemed to be difficult, and innocent bystanders seemed easy to interact with, but accomplices were the worst. Accomplices were seemingly even more difficult to interact with because they seemed to be influenced by the antagonist while at the same time not having the antagonist admit to having such influence. In addition, accomplices would at times not be available for interaction when the time came for me to question the influence that was their reason for action such as whether it came from the antagonist or not.
Eventually, the antagonist attempted to portray me as the antagonist and not the protagonist. The original antagonist then claimed to be the original innocent protagonist! Not only was I supposedly not the protagonist, but accomplices were innocent bystanders. Such a depiction would greatly benefit the original antagonist, but I found the original innocent bystanders were actually accomplices because the original antagonist had influenced them to the same level as the original accomplices, thus making them all part of one antagonizing group.
Writing this story began to remind me of a cartoon I saw once. As I thought of the algebraic symbols leaping off a dark chalkboard and attacking the student, I decided that I better escape from the threats of literary terms. I put the story safely away and decided to write something else.