Julie Duffy – Page 257

[Tuesday Reading Room] Orange by Neil Gaiman

One of the things I love about short stories is the way they can play with form. They are, at their best, unpredictable. “Orange” by Neil Gaiman (which I found in the Best American Non-Required Reading 2011 anthology) is a perfect illustration.

Written in the form of answers to a police interrogation, the story never actually tells you what those questions were, leaving you to both speculate and laugh out loud at times. It unfolds gradually from the shallow answers given by a teenaged girl about her less-than-perfect homelife, to something much more complex and true. And funny and touching and hopeful and sad.

That the protagonist is answering a interrogation tells you immediately that something has gone wrong and you read in part to find out what. But after a while, as I often find with Neil Gaiman’s writing, you are reading just for the sheer joy of it. His use of language and character are masterful, engaging and accessible.

After reading this story, I immediately called over my precocious nine-year old son and read it again, over his shoulder. Upon finishing, he flipped back to the start to read it again too. It’s like that.

Highly recommended if you feel you’re getting into a rut with your short story writing and need some inspiration for a shake up. Or if you just want to read a fine, well-written short story.

[Weekly Writing Prompt] Alternate History

Fifty years ago this week, the US discovered that the USSR was building nuclear missile bases in Cuba. The two weeks that followed brought the two countries closer to disaster than ever before or since.

The Prompt

Write a story set in an alternate history where the Cuban Missile Crisis turned out differently and someone did launch a strike.

Tips

If you want to read up on the actual events, this Wikipedia article seems pretty good. I particularly liked the part (well, not ‘liked’, but you know what I mean) about the Russian submarine, the facts of which were only disclosed in 2002. What if the commander had made a different decision? What if Miami had been hit by a nuclear bomb.

You don’t have to write a Tom-Clancy-style military thriller here. Imagine anything in the alternate history of the world, from a mother trying to find clean water for her kids, to a history lesson for Fourth Graders.

Your story could treat the subject tangentially. It could be the kind of story you normally write, only with a few details in this world different: maybe there are only 49 states now (or maybe there are 52), perhaps Disneyworld was relocated to Pennsylvania “after the big war”…

You don’t have to be too serious. People lived and loved and laughed through the Blitz. People in an alternate timeline after Cuba would have to find ways to do the same, or humanity wouldn’t survive!

The Rules:

1. You should use the prompt in your story (however obliquely you use the ‘want’, it should be there in the character and all their reactions).

2. You must write the story in one 24 hr period – the faster the better.

3. Post the story in the comments — if you’re brave enough.

4. Find something nice to say about someone else’s story and leave a comment. Everybody needs a little support!

Optional Extras:

Share this challenge on Twitter or Facebook

Some tweets/updates you might use:

Don’t miss my short story: After Cuba #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/?p=2648

This week’s #WriteOnWed short story prompt is about the Cuban Missile Crisi #storyaday https://storyaday.org/?p=2648

Come and write with us! #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/?p=2648

See my story – and write your own, today: After Cuba #WriteOnWed #storyaday https://storyaday.org/?p=2648

[Write on Wednesday] Fun With Vitriol

Ever hated a place? I mean really hated it?

I’ve been reading a few books recently where a character pours his emotions about his life and everything in it, into his description of where he is.

The authors used the character to write passionate, scathing, vitriolic critiques of the places. Reading them gave me a gleeful, naughty chuckle because I am so darned polite and evenhanded that I could never say that kind of thing about any one, place or thing. But maybe my characters could…

The Prompt

Write a story in which one of your characters rips the setting to shreds.

For inspiration you could take a look at how the various characters look at the locations in Ken Follet’s sprawling Fall of Giants. At one point Billy, going home to the town he has longed for, suddenly finds it “small and drab, and the mountains all around seemed like walls to keep the people in.” [1. Follett, Ken (2011-08-30). Fall of Giants: Book One of the Century Trilogy (Kindle Locations 15428-15429). Penguin Group. Kindle Edition.]

Or look at how another Billy sees the towns he visits as a returning Iraq war hero in Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.

For a more extreme version, (and if you can take some furious-but-funny foul language), have a look at the opening section of A Big Boy Did It And Ran Away by Chris Brookmeier. Keep reading until you get to the bit about Aberdeen. (I will refrain from comment as I have family in Aberdeen. But tell me that writing doesn’t leap off the page!)

Ready to let a character trash something?

Go!

Post your writing in the comments, if you dare!

[Writing Prompt] Word List

A silly and simple word-list prompt today:

The Prompt

Write a story that includes the words

Enflame, nugget, jingle, spelling and flight.

Make it short, make it long, but make it happen!

Go!

And when you have written your story comment on this post and let us know how it went.

[Reading Room] The Women by Tom Barbash

At the start of “The Women” the narrator and his newly-widowed father are attending “holiday parties” dictated by the season. It is immediately clear that Andrew, the son, is unhappy with his father’s behavior but rather than baldly state this fact, the author makes Andrew’s feelings plain by showing us not what he thinks as much as what he is noticing.

The narrative style is clever: self-aware first person. Andrew is telling us, the readers, this story in a careful way, as anyone would: trying not to make himself look bad, but bursting all the same to show us his outrage.

“Before long the women were dropping by our house, and I’d see them late at night drinking coffee in my mother’s kitchen…”

But this is not just the sob story of a young man left doubly orphaned by his mother’s death and his father’s actions after it. The story moves on through the first year of his grieving, of his new life. By the following winter, things have started to change for Andrew.

This is a skillfully told story peopled by some engaging characters — and some realistically flawed. It will stay with me for a long time.

You can find it in The Best American Non-Required Reading 2011 and it was originally published in narrativemagazine.com

[Writing Prompts] 2 Points of View Part II

You’ve made it! Congratulations to anyone who wrote at all this month and I’m prostrating myself on the floor before any of you who are sitting down to write your 30th story. Really. I bet you’ve learned a ton this month, right?

The Prompt

Take the story you wrote yesterday (or any day) and rewrite it from the perspective of another character in the story.

Tips

Remember that the only ‘truth’ in a story is the truth as your protagonist sees it — preferably an emotional truth.
Remember that your former protagonist is now only a supporting character. Everything you show about that character should only serve your new protagonist’s point of view (even if you KNOW why the former-protagonist really slapped the old lady, in this version you should probably only show the new protagonist’s perception of that act).

And now:

Thank you so much for coming along on this journey this month.

I’d LOVE to hear about what you’ve learned. If you can take a moment, please send me an email (julie at storyaday dot org) and tell me one thing you discovered on your journey this month. (Perhaps it’s about how or when you work best, perhaps it was about the ideas that came to you, perhaps it was about how to carry on after a bad day…)

If you’re subscribed to the Daily Prompt email, don’t think I’m going to leave you stranded. You should still receive one email a week (on Wednesdays), to keep you writing throughout the rest of the year.

If you want to keep up with the news about the next StoryADay challenge (May 2013) make sure you’re on the Advance Notice List. I send occasional emails to this list, mostly with news about the upcoming challenge.

If you’d like to hear from me occasionally about writing courses, ebooks and other creativity-enhancing goodies, make sure you’re on my Creativity Lab list. It’s an even more infrequent mailing which goes out only when I find a great tool I want to share with you (hint: there’s a big thing coming in October, which will help you keep writing and polishing stories throughout the year). Join the Creativity Lab List here.

And lastly, thanks again for joining in. It give me so much pleasure to see people writing and getting joy from putting in the work!

Keep in touch and keep writing,
Julie