Originally Posted by: Jolly McJollysonI'd say this is your best story yet. Your writing is becoming a lot less stiff; I can hear the flow of the sentences beginning to trickle. You have a very minimalist style, like Ernest Hemingway, which is the polar opposite of my own. It's a difficult style to pull off; I don't think I've ever heard of an author who has consistently done it well.

The main strength of the minimalist style (which many people imitating Ernest Hemingway and others do not seem to understand) is that, though the sentences and word-choices are typically very simplistic, they are used in such a way that it gives them as much power as possible.

"It made him sad," for instance, in the context of a minimalist story, could be an incredibly powerful line.

The most important thing to remember about minimalism is that underneath the simple exterior is a great, gushing current of power and emotion. There are several places in this story where I can hear that river, like here: "as she passed the bench, she smiled at the writer. He didn’t like that." You've done a phenomenal job on those places.

In other places, like this paragraph: "the writer sat on a park bench, admiring the view. It was a green and sunny day, just like he had written it to be. There were no birds singing, and no people walking along the park’s many trails. That was good. He liked to be alone." the description becomes overly simplistic. After the A-ok first sentence, the scenery begins to kind of fall into a simple flick of the writer's wrist. The "just like he had written it to be" reveals too much to the reader, and far too early. "It was a silent, sunny day with no one around. That was good. He liked that." might be a slightly richer way to say it. Remember, the minimalist style is going to use as few words as possible to bring out a lot of emotion in the reader. "Good" is no longer a silly, cop-out adjective. "Liked" is no longer something anyone does casually.

"The writer blinked several times. He must have spoken aloud. He rummaged through his brain for some sort of cover-up, but could find nothing. Oh well. It didn’t matter. He was the writer. He swallowed the lump in his throat." Here, again, this gives the reader too much information; instead of making him react emotionally, he simply swallows data. Things like "he was the writer" don't have much emotional power.

Yup. What he said. If you're going to study minimalism, don't forget to read everything you can get your hands on by Raymond Carver.