Writing prompt #72: SHADOWS & SILENCES

Hi Everyone,

One of my favorite 20th-century Japanese writers is the prolific Jun’ ichirō Tanizaki, whose novel The Makioka Sisters (published in the forties and translated to English in 1957) is one of my all-time favorites. Recently, I read Tanizaki’s early novella-length essay, In Praise of Shadows, his meditation on Japanese sensibility.

“Were it not for shadows,” he writes, “there would be no beauty.”

YOUR PROMPT: In the cacophony of our stories, do we stop often enough to account for the shadows? For the silences? To acknowledge the ebbs of even our busiest characters’ lives? Today, slow everything down. Describe a protracted moment of silence, of shadows. Write 2-3 closely-observed pages where nothing happens.

Abrazos,

Cristina