We haven't had any takers for contests lately so I thin I'll make it easier. Today (4/28) let me know if you plan to enter the contest. The final submissions will be due by Friday, May 7 at the end of class. Here are the rules:
1. Choose a "story starter"
2. Write a response in essay form to one of the subjects
3. Response should be no more than 1,000 words
4. Winners will receive guaranteed cheap, disappointing prizes
1. "Slowly, the black sail appeared over the horizon off the stern. The mast, as an ominous finger pointing skyward, and rocking, gained height and horror in the captain's eyes. Heretofore, it had been an easy journey and even the extra marines detailed to assure the safety of the nondescript, teak box double locked in a table in the captain's cabin had been lolling about the deck, bored.
"The Lord Chamberlain has really out-thought himself this time," the captain sighed, his right hand reflexively resting on the hilt of his sheathed sword.
"Send the Fire of India, the ruby the size of a giant's fist, unescorted, by fast ship, lightly armed. They'll never suspect! They'd expect a flotilla bristling with guns... BUT THEY DID SUSPECT!"
The captain winced. The tailing ship, full in view and cutting water faster than a hot blade could cut curled cream closed on the sloop. Unless they could outrun the blasted devils or a lucky shot blow them to kingdom come, the jig was up! It was time... only a matter of it...
"Pour on sail!", the captain shouted to the crew, seemingly frozen in fright. "And heave the penantu from the hold. It may be our only hope!"
"But sir...
2. Queezle ambled over to where the world lay, still spinning, right where the Quan had kicked it. Gently, he lifted the tilting planet and brought it to eye level. "Quan, are you remotely aware of how many denizens of this orb, this lovely blue orb you might have crushed with your silly tantrum?"
"Mummy gave me dat planet for my birthdiddyday and it is mine! I can throw it or kick it or hold it under widderwaddder for a zillions zishies if I've a mind and there ain't a thing you or anyone on that piddle planet can do about it. Gimme it, Queezle... I wanna kick it good!"
Unfortunately for Quan, he was not QUITE correct in his statement. Oh, the blue planet HAD come into his possession on his special day and he PROBABLY had the right to do with it as he pleased. Those are conceded. The part about no one stopping him however... for at the moment Queezle was grudgingly and gently handing back the object of Quan's forceful foot, several dust mite-looking specks, scampering about the blue orb, were gathering. On that abused planet, those dust specks were known as "rocket scientists". And at that moment they were bolting onto the top of an almost imperceptable stick, a device. The stick happened to be a rocket; the device, thermonuclear.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Thanksgiving Writing Contest
Jeff's class members are welcome to enter the first Thanksgiving Short Story Writing contest. Stories must be at least 1,000 words long and not exceed 5,000 in length. The topic is, of course, Thanksgiving. Student entering must be in Jeff's Creative Writing class. Deadline is Monday, November 24. Final copies must have been proofread for spelling and grammar. Prizes will be cheap AND disappointing, but not as cheap and disappointing as usual. The winning entry will be copied 5,000 times and dropped over Washington D.C. and the suburbs by helicopter (not really), but we will offer it to some publications (reasonable entry fee will be covered).
A wonderful time of the year where families gather in bucolic settings to munch turkey and stuffing and recount tales of days gone by. Only that story has been told. Take inspiration from a past Thanksgiving that may have been "different". It could have been extra inspiring or disappointing. The gathering may have missed a beloved member, or added one for the first time. Change perspective- has anyone ever done a story of Thanksgiving from the perspective of the turkey? What about from the views of vegetarians? Immigrants celebrating their own first Thanksgiving?
Most importantly, use your creativity. The first Thanksgiving on the Moon... what might that be like? Maintaining gravity is crucial lest cranberry sauce float up your nose! What about scrapping together a dinner when living in another land, a land where it is not observed? There are all kinds of settings and challenges associated with this most American of holidays. Find one. Good luck!
A wonderful time of the year where families gather in bucolic settings to munch turkey and stuffing and recount tales of days gone by. Only that story has been told. Take inspiration from a past Thanksgiving that may have been "different". It could have been extra inspiring or disappointing. The gathering may have missed a beloved member, or added one for the first time. Change perspective- has anyone ever done a story of Thanksgiving from the perspective of the turkey? What about from the views of vegetarians? Immigrants celebrating their own first Thanksgiving?
Most importantly, use your creativity. The first Thanksgiving on the Moon... what might that be like? Maintaining gravity is crucial lest cranberry sauce float up your nose! What about scrapping together a dinner when living in another land, a land where it is not observed? There are all kinds of settings and challenges associated with this most American of holidays. Find one. Good luck!
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Story Starter for Starters#2
"I don't like peaches and with pears I'm through.
" I don't like doctors, and I don't like YOU!"
"Should I be amused?"
"Doctor, you can be anything you want to be. Frankly, I don't give a rat's a..."
"Mr. Beckwith," Doctor Perryman quickly interrupted. "When did she start to respond in... ah, this manner?"
"I already told you doc. You not the listenin' type?"
"Tell me again."
Beckwith paused, eyeing the doctor up and down as if attempting, Perryman supposed, to find find some anomaly, some fault, some little label that whispered, "I'm not a real doctor. The real doctor is down in Half Moon Bay playing golf. I'm just the doorman at his apartment uptown he hired and gave a white coat to and oh-golly-you-got-me!"
Good thing the stethascope hung just right from Perryman's neck and that he had ordered extra starch in all of his gleaming labcoats.
"Good thing I shined my shoes," Perryman smiled to himself in mock relief. "And that the diploma framed in gold on the pale wall was from a real university instead of those mail-order ones. "Guess I'm really a doctor," Perryman's eyes answered when they met the grudging surrender of Mr. Beckwith's stare.
"I'm not stoppin' cause I'm havin' fun
"Billy Joe Gardner had better run!"
"Billy Joe?" the doctor wondered aloud.
"Classmate," Beckwith replied. "In her class at Frable. Poor boy ain't been t'a school though since Lutice here's been rhymin' on him,"
"Can't really blame him, the poor kid," mused Beckwith. "Ever since they found Emily Shivers drowned down the..."
" I don't like doctors, and I don't like YOU!"
"Should I be amused?"
"Doctor, you can be anything you want to be. Frankly, I don't give a rat's a..."
"Mr. Beckwith," Doctor Perryman quickly interrupted. "When did she start to respond in... ah, this manner?"
"I already told you doc. You not the listenin' type?"
"Tell me again."
Beckwith paused, eyeing the doctor up and down as if attempting, Perryman supposed, to find find some anomaly, some fault, some little label that whispered, "I'm not a real doctor. The real doctor is down in Half Moon Bay playing golf. I'm just the doorman at his apartment uptown he hired and gave a white coat to and oh-golly-you-got-me!"
Good thing the stethascope hung just right from Perryman's neck and that he had ordered extra starch in all of his gleaming labcoats.
"Good thing I shined my shoes," Perryman smiled to himself in mock relief. "And that the diploma framed in gold on the pale wall was from a real university instead of those mail-order ones. "Guess I'm really a doctor," Perryman's eyes answered when they met the grudging surrender of Mr. Beckwith's stare.
"I'm not stoppin' cause I'm havin' fun
"Billy Joe Gardner had better run!"
"Billy Joe?" the doctor wondered aloud.
"Classmate," Beckwith replied. "In her class at Frable. Poor boy ain't been t'a school though since Lutice here's been rhymin' on him,"
"Can't really blame him, the poor kid," mused Beckwith. "Ever since they found Emily Shivers drowned down the..."
Story Starters for Starters
Hello kiddies, I have been asked to create some potential story starters. I don't mind doing this but... It is up to you to supply the characters' emotions, characteristics designed to face whatever "problem" they encounter and advance the story. Also, the setting that I provide can be fluid. The rising action, climax and falling action leading to whatever conclusion or inconclusion is yours to include.
Hey- It's like having a party. You are providing the food, the music, the games and the guests. I am simply providing the hall...
#1. Of course Blitney knew how to handle the Straussman 88. Fully loaded, it could spray a cool ninety seven shots as steady as the shooter was steady; right to left, left to right, above the defender, below, if the attack came from downhill. Heck, the patented seismic sensor would even whip the base around and flatten any threat sneaking or slithering from behind. Even miniscule change in the air pressure within fifty feet- a slight disturbance in the earth's harmonics caused by footsteps of an average-sized human would shock the Straussman into action. And God help the man or woman in the path of the weapon's splattering apocalypse for it did not differentiate friend from foe... only live from dead. No, Blitney knew how to make the corridor all red and slippery in the space of seconds. He'd done it before and had not wavered. Only this time, this moment he paused, mouth dry.
"Hesitate is death, hesitate is..." his thoughts raced. For the shadows approaching Craig Blitney were half-sized, child shapes and their hypnotic moans quivered in high ranges. No training, no experience, no emotion had taught him to gun down...
Out of the shadows skimmed the first of the child-shapes. Pint-sized it was, with baby-like legs wobbling. Blitney was almost taken with the baby fat calves and thighs waving to find their balance. First one, then another staggered closer. A slight smile crossed the hardened commando's lips as he remembered the futive first steps of his own little ones. His smile froze sharp when he glanced the faces of the half-sized attackers. For they all had, frozen on their baby faces murderous, snarls. Sharp teeth protruded from each soft lip. Snorting sounds gurgled from each rictus mouth. Still... all at once, as the dozens of others came into the half light, it struck him. Every last one of the baby bodies supported a fully grown head- each head a dead ringer for a dead singer... "NOOOOOO ELVIS!" Craig bellowed. He opened fire...
Hey- It's like having a party. You are providing the food, the music, the games and the guests. I am simply providing the hall...
#1. Of course Blitney knew how to handle the Straussman 88. Fully loaded, it could spray a cool ninety seven shots as steady as the shooter was steady; right to left, left to right, above the defender, below, if the attack came from downhill. Heck, the patented seismic sensor would even whip the base around and flatten any threat sneaking or slithering from behind. Even miniscule change in the air pressure within fifty feet- a slight disturbance in the earth's harmonics caused by footsteps of an average-sized human would shock the Straussman into action. And God help the man or woman in the path of the weapon's splattering apocalypse for it did not differentiate friend from foe... only live from dead. No, Blitney knew how to make the corridor all red and slippery in the space of seconds. He'd done it before and had not wavered. Only this time, this moment he paused, mouth dry.
"Hesitate is death, hesitate is..." his thoughts raced. For the shadows approaching Craig Blitney were half-sized, child shapes and their hypnotic moans quivered in high ranges. No training, no experience, no emotion had taught him to gun down...
Out of the shadows skimmed the first of the child-shapes. Pint-sized it was, with baby-like legs wobbling. Blitney was almost taken with the baby fat calves and thighs waving to find their balance. First one, then another staggered closer. A slight smile crossed the hardened commando's lips as he remembered the futive first steps of his own little ones. His smile froze sharp when he glanced the faces of the half-sized attackers. For they all had, frozen on their baby faces murderous, snarls. Sharp teeth protruded from each soft lip. Snorting sounds gurgled from each rictus mouth. Still... all at once, as the dozens of others came into the half light, it struck him. Every last one of the baby bodies supported a fully grown head- each head a dead ringer for a dead singer... "NOOOOOO ELVIS!" Craig bellowed. He opened fire...
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
The Welcome
The writer, Truman Capote, was allegedly once asked what he thought about Jack Kerouac's novel, On The Road. It was one of the first descriptions of the restless, rootless lives of "The Beat Generation" of post-World War II American youth. The book was a best seller.
Capote, the famous author of the book, In Cold Blood, was not very impressed with Kerouac's writing efforts. "That's not writing, that's typing!" Capote is said to have fumed after reading On The Road.
Blogging gives the writer the opportunity to speak directly to others by melding the convenience of technology with the possibility of art. You are able to convey your ideas rather faster than your peers of even six or seven years ago. At the breakfast table of modern writing computers have served us up instant oatmeal... easy to fix... just add water...or words.
Herein lies the first pitfall awaiting the impatient and/or the unwise. Kerouac, the failed athlete- turned seer of his generation was so focused on maintaining the "mood and the continuity of his writing that, because he only had a manual typewriter (go see one in the museum someday), he attached pieces of paper together like a scroll and fed the scrolls into the typewriter carriage. That way he didn't have to stop to change, organize and adjust each sheet. He could let the story flow. This served Jack well. He wrote a book. It made him famous. I wouldn't recommend it as a way to keep thoughts flowing, however. Most of us are not "stream of conciousness" writers who need to maintain the paper to think. Kerouac was a demon-haunted genius and it worked for him. Sadly, he died very young of alcohol-assisted illness.
We are enwrapped by modernity. Technologically we can create fast, edit even faster and hold up our products to acclaim or condemnation more swiftly than Mercury could deliver messages god to god. This is a good thing. No more sitting around waiting for the ink to dry on the papyrus. No more smudgy hands jimmying recalcatrant ribbons on stubborn machines. We push the buttons to pack our urges in neatly wrapped parcels called sentences. These we fashion into larger paragraphs and submit as stories. We are sometimes congratulated and too often feel we are, for our efforts, made fools.
Building is still building. Strive to welcome into your musings only those characters whose looks, moods, beliefs and actions move your story to its storm. Don't bandy about a dark stranger unless that stranger shall be, in your future, cast into the light. Design authenticity into your setting. Why have the salesman murdered in Venice when, not only have you not sat in a gondola as it has drifted under The Bridge of Sighs, but you don't even know what someone might sell in that sea-scoured place? Better your blade-hawking sales-victim be sucked under a grain thresher by an Iowa madman near where you might have summered in your youth. At least it might be more "interesting" piecing together the clues strewn about the place with an almost fan-like force!
In your plot-"know what you have got". Tie a mental string from start to finish. Follow the string. If it knots uncontrollably, retie it- adjust it- pull it taut. Better your plot be loosely directed than you risk scattering breadcrumbs before you so that you might get to the conclusion unlost. Flocks of doubt alight aound the aimless so numerous they will devour each crumb and crust and leave you to starve in literary purgatory... the "Wilderness of Round and Round". Trust me, every hour of every day they discover bodies loosely covered in poorly-marked plots, some of them so "decomposed" they are mercifully left to the Grim Delete Button.
Make the climax so that the climber arrives winded but not so winded that she or he cannot appreciate the view. Make the climb to the summit of your writing steep but straight. You can "twist" the climber but make each pitfall, false path and seemingly simple leap to conclusion one whose odds of survival are in the pocket of the reader. Don't insult the intellegence of the reader, even if you have proof positive that their ancestors never waded in any but the shallow end of the gene pool. "Then I woke up", or "It was a surprise party" are not only cop-out ways of ending a story, they are the stock of the stupid. Make someone throw up for well-painted passion and not into barnyard dreck.
If you didn't comprehend all of this or you suspect the writer to have taken a long walk off of a short pier, it is of little matter. Understand that, while many still debate Capote's view of Kerouac's "ode" to the outsiders of his generation, there is a not-so-subtle invitation in his disgust... for goodness sakes, write, don't type! Please. Jeff
Capote, the famous author of the book, In Cold Blood, was not very impressed with Kerouac's writing efforts. "That's not writing, that's typing!" Capote is said to have fumed after reading On The Road.
Blogging gives the writer the opportunity to speak directly to others by melding the convenience of technology with the possibility of art. You are able to convey your ideas rather faster than your peers of even six or seven years ago. At the breakfast table of modern writing computers have served us up instant oatmeal... easy to fix... just add water...or words.
Herein lies the first pitfall awaiting the impatient and/or the unwise. Kerouac, the failed athlete- turned seer of his generation was so focused on maintaining the "mood and the continuity of his writing that, because he only had a manual typewriter (go see one in the museum someday), he attached pieces of paper together like a scroll and fed the scrolls into the typewriter carriage. That way he didn't have to stop to change, organize and adjust each sheet. He could let the story flow. This served Jack well. He wrote a book. It made him famous. I wouldn't recommend it as a way to keep thoughts flowing, however. Most of us are not "stream of conciousness" writers who need to maintain the paper to think. Kerouac was a demon-haunted genius and it worked for him. Sadly, he died very young of alcohol-assisted illness.
We are enwrapped by modernity. Technologically we can create fast, edit even faster and hold up our products to acclaim or condemnation more swiftly than Mercury could deliver messages god to god. This is a good thing. No more sitting around waiting for the ink to dry on the papyrus. No more smudgy hands jimmying recalcatrant ribbons on stubborn machines. We push the buttons to pack our urges in neatly wrapped parcels called sentences. These we fashion into larger paragraphs and submit as stories. We are sometimes congratulated and too often feel we are, for our efforts, made fools.
Building is still building. Strive to welcome into your musings only those characters whose looks, moods, beliefs and actions move your story to its storm. Don't bandy about a dark stranger unless that stranger shall be, in your future, cast into the light. Design authenticity into your setting. Why have the salesman murdered in Venice when, not only have you not sat in a gondola as it has drifted under The Bridge of Sighs, but you don't even know what someone might sell in that sea-scoured place? Better your blade-hawking sales-victim be sucked under a grain thresher by an Iowa madman near where you might have summered in your youth. At least it might be more "interesting" piecing together the clues strewn about the place with an almost fan-like force!
In your plot-"know what you have got". Tie a mental string from start to finish. Follow the string. If it knots uncontrollably, retie it- adjust it- pull it taut. Better your plot be loosely directed than you risk scattering breadcrumbs before you so that you might get to the conclusion unlost. Flocks of doubt alight aound the aimless so numerous they will devour each crumb and crust and leave you to starve in literary purgatory... the "Wilderness of Round and Round". Trust me, every hour of every day they discover bodies loosely covered in poorly-marked plots, some of them so "decomposed" they are mercifully left to the Grim Delete Button.
Make the climax so that the climber arrives winded but not so winded that she or he cannot appreciate the view. Make the climb to the summit of your writing steep but straight. You can "twist" the climber but make each pitfall, false path and seemingly simple leap to conclusion one whose odds of survival are in the pocket of the reader. Don't insult the intellegence of the reader, even if you have proof positive that their ancestors never waded in any but the shallow end of the gene pool. "Then I woke up", or "It was a surprise party" are not only cop-out ways of ending a story, they are the stock of the stupid. Make someone throw up for well-painted passion and not into barnyard dreck.
If you didn't comprehend all of this or you suspect the writer to have taken a long walk off of a short pier, it is of little matter. Understand that, while many still debate Capote's view of Kerouac's "ode" to the outsiders of his generation, there is a not-so-subtle invitation in his disgust... for goodness sakes, write, don't type! Please. Jeff
Monday, September 8, 2008
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