Archive for the ‘Fiction’ Category
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“A Poet on a Couch”
I just finished the final* draft of my short story “A Poet on a Couch” for Ms. Elizabeth Hille’s class, English Composition: Narrative Storytelling. There’s a decent chance that I’ll be reading it tomorrow for the class, and if that goes really well, then maybe I’ll submit it to some competitions. And if you read it and enjoy it, then leave a comment to let me know!
Thank you to Ms. Hille and all of my classmates for all the useful feedback from the very first draft onward.
Also, special thanks to Stephanie Breijo, Elijah Colpitts, Krystal Kranz, Toby Mayer, Mason Prenevost, Chris Ramm, and Sabrina Wenske for top-notch editing and proofreading.
*Update: Heh, oops. I misunderstood. We read our stories, but we actually we have another week, so I’ll probably make some more changes after all. I’ll upload the actual final here on the 15th.
Update 2: As promised, I’ve uploaded the new version. Made more changes than I thought I would. The link points to it now.
Again, if you read it, please leave a comment (or at least vote in the unrelated poll).
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“10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.”
This extra short in-class writing assignment was an exercise in being frugal with words. The first sentence had to have exactly 10 words, then the next one had to have 9, then 8, and so on.
“I can’t believe it’s not butter!” sang the boy, grinning. He was just like a commercial: thrilled, bouncing, mindless.
Is this what today’s youth has come to? Superheroes and spaceships replaced by stupid slogans? Where did all the dreams go? Boy, we let them down. We were terrible shepherds.
It’s too late. We’re zombies. Dead.
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“Don’t say what’s happening.”
For each of these three quick in-class writing assignments, the instructor gave us a few things that the stories had to include, but the fun part was that we weren’t allowed to directly state some of them. I’ll include the bullets after each story so you can see if you figured out what was going on.
I think the third one is the most amusing, but also the most obscure.
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“Where were you last night?”
For this in-class writing assignment, we had to write a story that hinged on a character asking, “Where were you last night?” We had about ten minutes to write it. After that, we had to write the same story from the other character’s point of view.
I definitely like the second one more than the first one, even though I forgot a few things since we had to write really quickly.
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“Your tie is coming loose.”
This was a very, very quick and dirty in-class writing assignment where we were just supposed to make a character with a few qualities and stick them in a situation. Before that though, we made a list of five qualities. For our writing, we had to give the character the opposites of those qualities without being too conspicuous.
Just remember that these in-class prompts are done in like 5-20 minutes (this one was about 5), and I’m transcribing them verbatim from my notebook. Mileage varies.
Qualities
- Inquisitive – Uninterested
- Rational – Illogical
- Merciful – Unsympathetic
- Creative – Unimaginative
- Articulate – Undescriptive
Short Story
“Your tie is coming loose,” said Thomas without even looking up. The barrista ignored him, so Thomas said it again. “Your tie is coming loose.”
The pimply barrista slapped a plastic top over the the whipped cream island, raising a brow slightly.
“I’m not wearing a tie, sir.”
“I know,” said Thomas blandly. “I meant your apron-smock-thing, in the back.”
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