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Themes of Death Depicted in Electronic Literature

Shards 3

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Part 3: The Power of Words The images above are a collection of screen shots of the collage of words in the "Shards" section of "Girls Day Out". The words depcited above are origionally from an aritcle of the Houston Chronicles that descibred the discovery of the Calder Road murders. The words tell a vivid story of the murders even if they do not follow the layout of a conventional story with rising action, a climax and the resolutions (Meadows 22). In this case, less is more. Lawrynovicz just included the words that mattered from the Chronicles and left out the rest of the article that was just not as important. In Hint Fiction: an Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Fewer author Robert Swartwood argues that the best stories are where the author and the reader "meet halfway" (22). Extremely short stories comprised of a few meaningful words can have just as an impact on the reader, and even more so. The simplicity of the story encourages the reader to interact with the peice emotionally, becuase they must "fill in" the rest of the story themselves (Swartwood 23). Separately the words and phrases such as
skeletal
jawbone
all nude
unidentified women
bound hand and foot and shot in the head
don't have much meaning, but when the reader peices them together they tell a vivid story of brutally murdered women. In order for the story to make any sort of sense in the readers head they must actually think about it. Lawrynovicz is able to get this exact effect by not including the whole article from the Houston Chronicles, but only the few short words that matter most. In doing so, she creates a thought provoking peice about the murder her poem is based on. The way she explains the Calder Road murders is unconventional, but just as impactful.