Hi readers, ready for another story? Check out “A Small Sacrifice,” by Yiyun Li, a story about a woman whose married lover buys her a pet pig named Tiny, who is supposed to stay small but grows to the size of a normal pig. The narrator’s landlord has been contacting her every day to remind her the pig must go, and today is finally the day that it is set to happen.
One Thing I Noticed: Li’s use of symbolism. The cute little pet, like the narrator’s affair with the married man, has grown too large. The narrator knows the pig must go, just as she knew the man would eventually return to his wife and child. The pig symbolizes the emotional and physical burden of a relationship begun on a whim (and, for the man, ended on a whim too), that is born by the woman.
One Idea: Write about a character who is in a predicament, made urgent by his or her denial or procrastination in finding a solution. Things have become desperate.
Okay, One More Idea: Tell a story through the imagined commentary of a dead person, played like a reel in the head of a loved one who can’t adjust to the silence that person’s voice once filled. [The narrator in this story can’t stop thinking about what her deceased mother would say.]