Descriptive Words That Don’t Typically Go Together
It’s mind bending and somewhat creative trying to picture these expressions: ~Elmer’s scowl was coldly demented. ~Nina wore a lacy smile. ~Old Beanwhooper sat with one leg ajar and the other removed at a distance. ~Uncle Raemon was the first to let out with a barn melting zinger. ~My boss is always so ultra banjo-man. Now that I’ve indulged myself, perhaps you can find a way to fit one or two of these into a scene. Feel free to find your own descriptions that challenge us to peel through our own mental images.
Poems of the Day
For those of you who are new to this site, Poems of the Day are written with great abandon, not care and attention. They come from within, allowed to be weird, accepted as quick rather than craftsman-like. I will put one of mine here, and I encourage you to do the same. Accept your wild inner postures and let them out onto the page. Say “yes” rather than “oh no.” Just write. Poem of the Day 05/11/16 “All shall be well” –Julian of Norwich But I sleep alone in the wrong bed. “Que sera, sera” –Doris Day The path leads down and away “Sometimes the magic works, and sometimes it doesn’t.” –Old Lodge Skins in Little Big Man I scream and cry, and only then grow silent. “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold” –Yeats But the kitchen is clean. “Ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posies.” –Children’s nursery rhyme Nature grows thin when love is gone. “Time is on my side.” –The Rolling Stones I ache, listening to the clock he made. “He who can destroy a thing, controls it.” –Frank Herbert, Dune I stare. I wonder. I wait. “Where go the boats?” –Robert Louis Stevenson
The Rubber Ducky…
is angry.
The Thrift Shop of the Future
Gladys parked her new Super Streamer floating recliner in front of the reconstructed twenty-first century reconstruction of a 1900 store front. The full display windows and winsome partial-glassed in door welcomed her to Ye Olde Antique Shoppe, a store which ran side by side with a number of other reconstructed reconstructions of storefronts. They were all so cute, she couldn’t resist shopping ON HER OWN FEET instead of using her Easy-Shop clip on glasses with the instant delivery function. She felt she had discovered quite a unique hobby. Wouldn’t her international Creative Clam Cookery cyber club friends be jealous when she shared her replay of this adventure! She pushed open the door and heard the tinkle of the bell announcing her entrance. All around her were racks of strange clothing items, actual glass and ceramic dishes, plus kitchen appliances she did not recognize. What was that silver item with the two slots in the top and the charmingly antiquated electrical cable coming out the back? She leaned over a black square item about a foot square with a label that read “George Foreman Classic Grill” and wondered if it was something she might hang on her wall. She could start a collection of obscure ancient appliances for this month’s wall decorations in her ninetieth story apartment. Her wall installations proved she was an artist; everyone said so. Good thing her Super Streamer came with large side pocket storage. She giggled. So many choices! Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed a proprietor emerging from behind a curtain.
There are Characters, and Then There are Characters
Mandy was everything her mother had hoped for in daughter. Mandy grew up with long blond curls and strikingly blue eyes. As a preteen, she was colt-like, long-legged and agile. The rest of her charmed life followed: Homecoming Queen, high grades earning her a scholarship to State, a four-year degree in Ecology, on to a Law Degree at a prestigious university, and marriage to her high school sweetheart, who worked hard to become Chief of Pediatrics at the University Hospital. But this isn’t who Mandy really is. Who is she really?
The Un-Galumphing
Instead of assembling tricky items into a story or plot, I want you to connect a horribly predictable set of stock novel elements into a very unpredictable plot. It’s going to take a very tricky mind to avoid the easy connections and cliches! Nazis Time travel Attractive female doctor Masculine undercover agent Wise men from Tibet Secret societies of mercenaries Atlantis
Five Honest Statements
I’ve been reading a book called My Name if Lucy Barton. The author reminds me of students I’ve taught who learned to write on their own, without much guidance or instructors telling them how to write. It’s fiction (at least I think it’s fiction), but what is most striking about the story is how honest the narrator is. She’s blunt, not fancy. She repeats herself at times, as we might if we were storytelling aloud. She doesn’t dress up her sentences or her story. It feels as if she has found an editor to remove obvious language mistakes. Even so, the clunkiness of her writing remains at times, and it underlines her truth-telling. So here is your challenge. Write five honest statements about yourself. That’s the only rule. Let your honesty make the impression. I’m not asking you to embarrass yourself or reveal secrets you’ve kept for years. That’s for Facebook or your journal. I’m asking you to simply state five honest things about yourself that you could write about. Here are five of mine: …I picked up a handful of snow today and wept. …Cooking fills up a welcome couple of hours daily. …I take three steps forward for each two steps backward and count this as my usual progress. …The things I write surprise me, as if someone else wrote them. …I like to notice when happiness overtakes me.
The Unfolding Path of Plots
When writing fiction, the writer is required to carve out the path forward. You have to deal with the fact that if Character X stops and looks back, it may mean that Character Y may have to shoot her or perhaps that Character Z will have to check his wallet to see if he has enough money. We sit at the forks of our plots over and over, deciding who to move where and what to have them do. It’s even more fun when you’re not sure what the ending is going to be. Then you have to loose your arrow even though you’re in the fog and hope that somewhere out front there is a target with a well-defined bullseye on it. Given the restraints of making stories mean something and the responsibility to be credible, it happens that often the bullseye has a homing device on it, pulling your arrow in the right direction. Or not. Yes, we often have to backtrack, dig our way out of a dead end, or climb the brick wall that blocks our plot. One of the biggest obstacles to plotting well seems to be the temptation to indulge in a cliché. For example, it’s easy to have Ariel’s husband divorce her so she can move to a small town in Arizona where handsome and artistically inclined Theo turns up to make her life full and rewarding. Or perhaps Dr. Zeno, the evil inventor, is thwarted by Josh, the crafty kid with no friends at school, but who does have special powers. Or take techno spy, retired CIA operative, Brett, who discovers the underground plot of a long hidden KGB cell that now has connections to terrorists. So easy. So predictable. Add a few plot twists and bake for two months. Voila! Predictable genre fiction. Instead, I have found that the moment the easy cliché path pops into my head is also the time when I have the opportunity to turn the plot on its head. Ariel’s move to Arizona after her divorce includes neither a lovely new romance nor a new career. She’s going to spend all her time in the desert, fasting, and trying to find the meaning of life. Maybe Dr. Zeno is actually trying to invent a time machine to travel back to the past to visit his beloved mother who died when he was the same age as Josh. Maybe Josh’s special powers are that he has an extra strong sense of smell, which just makes him feel weirder than the other kids. Or maybe Brett, our techno spy, ends up in Arizona deciding to let the terrorists take care of themselves while he joins Ariel in the desert, fasting and searching for some other interpretation of life that doesn’t involve shooting people and keeping vital national secrets. Or, maybe you have a better plot for our heroes Ariel, Josh, or Brett….
Time to Dream
I don’t know about you, but it’s cold where I live, and the snow won’t be leaving for some months now. That means it’s time to dream by the fire. (No, I’m not going to ask you to describe a flame. Ack!) Life marches on, and most of us have picked our path or at least been handed one that we’ve had to follow. Even so, those dreamy flames encourage the fun of imagining all those paths we might have followed. Let’s say you can command the forces of fate and pick a couple of other paths. What would have liked to try? Would you have liked to be a trapeze artist named Regina Glorina? Or perhaps a world-famous environmental attorney, defending the preservation of pure water and clean air? How about an explorer who circled the globe in a boat you made in your garage? What dreams (you are not limited to one!) lurk in your flames?
Your Chance to Write a Sitcom
I have to admit I’m a bit tired of predictable plots In TV dramas and sitcoms. Certainly we can do better. If I give you some characters and a location, can you come up with an episode? Location: A lovely bay on one of the Great Lakes, where vacationers can go out on a small sailboat for a two-hour morning, afternoon, or sunset cruise. The boat holds six plus its captain and his teenage son, who helps out. Characters: Captain The teenage son The sailboat The current group (from one to six people) who have signed up for the sunset cruise. Conflicts The weather isn’t all that great; a storm may or may not come in. The captain and his son are in the middle of a fight about the father’s latest girlfriend The group includes people with certain disagreements about religion