Primera estación: versionando una leyenda de mi país

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Después de revisar las bases teóricas del microrrelato, enfrentamos la primera experiencia de crear uno, basándonos en una leyenda tradicional de nuestra tierra. Debimos aprender algo que, más tarde, resultaría esencial para continuar avanzando: concentrarnos en un solo aspecto del tema para facilitar la brevedad y un desenlace impactante, que tomara al lector desprevenido. Desde ese momento nos dimos cuenta de que una microhistoria necesita reescribirse, una y otra vez, hasta lograr la máxima brevedad, sin renunciar a la elegancia o efectividad estética del mensaje.

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Segunda estación: Las exigencias narrativas de una hormiga

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Basándonos en las vicisitudes de una aventurera hormiga, experimentamos con diferentes perspectivas narrativas: contamos una historia como que fuésemos los protagonistas, desde la emotiva primera persona; escribimos una carta a un imaginario interlocutor (la hormiga del problema, en este caso), con el propósito de ubicarnos en la segunda persona, y redactamos un epitafio desde la referencialidad característica de la tercera persona. Comprobamos que la misma historia puede ser relatada desde distintos puntos de vista y que, como narradores, debemos ser fieles a las particularidades de la perspectiva que escojamos para que nuestro argumento sea creíble.

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Tercera estación: Buscando la máxima brevedad

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En esta tercera semana aprendimos a despojar el relato de todo aquello que puede estar de más, a concentrarnos en las palabras para despojarlas de adornos, de explicaciones innecesarias, hasta que solo quedase el mensaje desnudo. Para llevar a cabo esta tarea, los profesores del curso nos remitieron a un microrrelato nuestro realizado con anterioridad. Una excelente estrategia para que comprobáramos que siempre se puede decir con menos palabras lo que ya creíamos que era imposible hacerse más breve. Las otras tareas, como imprimirle valor literario a un telegrama o concentrar un texto lírico, fueron ejemplos extremos de concisión y plasticidad del lenguaje, o de la pericia de quien lo maneja.

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Cuarta estación: los distintos géneros de los microrrelatos

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Ya habíamos visto que los microrrelatos pueden, al igual que cualquier texto narrativo tradicional como el cuento y la novela, adaptarse a diferentes perspectivas y asumir algunos formatos de la expresión escrita que no pareciesen adecuados para contar una historia, como los antiguos telegramas, por ejemplo. En esta oportunidad, nos centramos en los géneros y subgéneros literarios para experimentar con breves creaciones asociadas a las particularidades de las diversas formas en que puede concebirse la creación escritural. Fue un verdadero reto afrontar esos tipos de textos a los que, por uno u otro motivo, siempre habíamos esquivado. Resultó un ejercicio apasionante la diversificación de nuestra condición como narradores, manteniendo todas las fascinantes características de los microcuentos.

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Quinta estación: Algunos recursos literarios

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En la penúltima estación aprendimos a convertir los microrrelatos en interesantísimas piezas literarias utilizando elipsis, metáforas y palabras o frases con doble sentido. Con esta tarea procesamos definitivamente que la elipsis es un componente esencial de los microrrelatos, ya que contribuye a sugerir o dejar sobrentendido significados o secuencias de las dimensiones espacio-temporales; que las metáforas son excelentes recursos para embellecer el mensaje y para aglutinar imágenes que se asocian para dar lugar a sugerentes interpretaciones; y que las expresiones ambiguas o con doble sentido convierten al lector en un participante activo del texto, debido a que este tiene que completarlo, que imaginar lo que sucede según su manera de captar lo que decodifica. La efectividad de todos estos recursos depende, por supuesto, de nuestra capacidad para plasmarlos en el sucinto espacio de la historia sin que su poder expresivo disloque los preceptos de un buen microrrelato.

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Reflexión general

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Tal como ya en cierto modo señalamos, lo más atrayente del universo de los microrrelatos radica en el hecho de constatar que pueden crearse desde cualquier tipo de texto o género literario y que, dentro de la brevedad de su estructura, son capaces de concebir los más disímiles y efectivos recursos literarios. Cuando nos sumergimos en los entresijos de estas minúsculas historias, nos subyuga no solo el desafío de relatar todo un argumento con el menor número de palabras posible, sino esa versátil maleabilidad que nos permite embellecer el lenguaje o imprimirles nuestros secretos y sugerentes propósitos, apelando a las herramientas que tengamos a mano o que nos parezcan convenientes. Escribir microrrelatos es una manera de desafiarnos como creadores, sabiendo que dentro de sus breve estructura cabe todo lo que intentemos, siempre que nuestras facultades como narradores puedan insertarlas sin que la fluidez y sus especiales valores se quebranten.

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English version

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This is the last week of the course of micro-stories and we are about to fulfill one of the final tasks: the creation of a portfolio where we expose our experiences throughout these interesting sessions of work and learning. I was unaware that there would be a diploma for the participants, for which we must indicate a pseudonym or name. In literary avatars I have always used this one: Amílcar Yáñez Sánchez.

Before embarking on this adventure, I had rarely written such short stories; in fact, I had only done so in two or three contests on this platform. It was then a great challenge to assume the creative writing from the conciseness of the language and abiding by the guidelines proposed by the teachers who moderated the course. From the beginning I realized that it was an exciting challenge to get the most out of each word so that they would mean much more than what they express in their literal sense; I perceived the craft of the micro-writer as that of a jeweler who chooses the finest gems to set them in a garment that must dazzle its recipient.

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My portfolio

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First station: versioning a legend of my country

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_{La bestia que necesito}

After reviewing the theoretical bases of the micro-story, we faced the first experience of creating one, based on a traditional legend of our land. We had to learn something that would later prove essential to continue moving forward: to concentrate on a single aspect of the theme to facilitate brevity and a shocking denouement that would catch the reader off guard. From that moment on, we realized that a micro-story needs to be rewritten, over and over again, until maximum brevity is achieved, without sacrificing the elegance or aesthetic effectiveness of the message.

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Second season: The narrative demands of an ant.

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_{Escribo desde diferentes perspectivas}

Based on the vicissitudes of an adventurous ant, we experimented with different narrative perspectives: we told a story as if we were the protagonists, from the emotional first person; we wrote a letter to an imaginary interlocutor (the ant of the problem, in this case), with the purpose of placing ourselves in the second person, and we wrote an epitaph from the characteristic referentiality of the third person. We proved that the same story can be told from different points of view and that, as narrators, we must be faithful to the particularities of the perspective we choose for our argument to be credible.

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Third station: Seeking maximum brevity

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_{De humor y amor}

In this third week we learned to strip the story of everything that might be superfluous, to concentrate on the words to strip them of ornaments, of unnecessary explanations, until only the naked message remained. To carry out this task, the teachers of the course referred us to a micro-story we had written previously. An excellent strategy for us to prove that it is always possible to say in fewer words what we already thought it was impossible to make shorter. The other tasks, such as giving literary value to a telegram or concentrating a lyrical text, were extreme examples of conciseness and plasticity of language, or of the skill of those who handle it.

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Fourth station: the different genres of micro-stories

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_{Escribo en diferentes géneros}

We had already seen that micro-stories can, like any traditional narrative text such as the short story and the novel, adapt to different perspectives and take on some formats of written expression that would not seem appropriate for telling a story, such as the old telegrams, for example. In this opportunity, we focused on literary genres and subgenres to experiment with short creations associated with the particularities of the various forms in which the written creation can be conceived. It was a real challenge to face those types of texts that, for one reason or another, we had always avoided. It turned out to be an exciting exercise to diversify our condition as storytellers, while maintaining all the fascinating characteristics of micro-stories.

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Fifth station: Some literary resources

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_{Escribo versiones de microrrelatos}

In the penultimate station we learned how to turn micro-stories into very interesting literary pieces using ellipsis, metaphors and words or phrases with double meanings. With this task we definitely processed that ellipsis is an essential component of micro-stories, since it contributes to suggest or leave implied meanings or sequences of space-time dimensions; that metaphors are excellent resources to embellish the message and to agglutinate images that are associated to give rise to suggestive interpretations; and that ambiguous expressions or with double meaning turn the reader into an active participant of the text, since he has to complete it, to imagine what happens according to his way of capturing what he decodes. The effectiveness of all these resources depends, of course, on our ability to capture them in the succinct space of the story without their expressive power dislocating the precepts of a good micro-story.

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General reflection

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As we have already pointed out, the most attractive aspect of the universe of micro-stories lies in the fact that they can be created from any type of text or literary genre and that, within the brevity of their structure, they are capable of conceiving the most dissimilar and effective literary resources. When we immerse ourselves in the intricacies of these tiny stories, we are subjugated not only by the challenge of telling a whole argument with the least possible number of words, but also by that versatile malleability that allows us to embellish the language or to imprint our secret and suggestive purposes on them, appealing to the tools we have at hand or that seem convenient to us. Writing micro-stories is a way of challenging ourselves as creators, knowing that within their brief structure there is room for everything we try, as long as our faculties as narrators can insert them without breaking the fluency and their special values.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

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Teachers:

@joslud y @solperez

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