Winner!

I have no idea who the artist is who made this amazing piece of sculpture, but isn’t it magnificent? The photo has slightly flattened it, but in real life it had terrific movement and force, the runner had just breasted the tape and was about to slow down, her hair flopping back on her shoulders, her chest inflating to grab in whole lungfuls of triumphant air because surely she has won? Her legs must feel like jelly, pain and aches must be beginning to make themselves felt, and the sweat trickling over her skin must be beginning to prickle as it dries. Her eyes are about to open and her mouth is about to open into a terrific grin and a yell of triumph… Unless she was last in the race and is crossing the line in utter exhaustion, defeated. Or maybe it is a dream and she is running in a dream, her eyes still closed in sleep but her dream body racing round the track…

One of the mantras of the writer is ‘show don’t tell’, letting the reader ‘feel’ and ‘see’ what is happening, rather than the writer standing in front of the text pointing it all about in leaden detail. I was thinking about this and looking at different texts and theories on this and came across Hemingway’s Iceberg Theory – which I think is self-explanatory! I think I need to think of icebergs more often as I write… icebergs are the key!