What great examples and really helpful distinctions between different the explicit and avoidant voice. Running behind but will be working on the exercises in the coming days.
No rush at all - join in as and when you can. Glad you're enjoying the examples and hope you can have fun experimenting with some different voices soon... :)
This exam is worth 50% of your grade. Or maybe 100%. Or maybe 17%. Who can say?
You are buying a gift for your girlfriend of six months. What do you choose:
a. Flowers. You can’t go wrong with flowers, right?
b. Chocolate. Now we’re talking. Maybe she’ll even share!
c. Jewelry. Flowers and chocolate are too cliche, and not nearly expensive enough.
d. A book. Jewelry is too expensive. And she loves to read. It’s one of the things you have in common.
e. A dress. Because she has probably already read anything you would get her.
f. Something sex related. Who are you kidding thinking of buying her clothes? You are almost sure to get the style wrong to say nothing of the minefield of guessing her size.
g. Nothing. She will be offended by the sex thing. Right? This is too hard. Just don’t bother.
h. Flowers. You can’t go wrong with flowers, right?
Great concept and a clever hermit shell to put it into! As Lorri said, I like how each answer springboards off the previous one (or circles right back to the beginning), adding context and layers each time.
I love your first line! Who can say at that point? And the circle completed by coming back to flowers, because gifts are hard, even later in a relationship because people have different styles (love languages). And the way each item plays off the previous in the list. Well done!
Love all the linked stories. And the one-word story with the long title was so good! The thing about flash is sometimes it reads as (deceptively?) easy and sometimes it reads as wow, how did she/he do that? I love the puzzle/fun aspect of flash.
I read "In the Dream House" recently (which was so good!) and have been thinking about using fairytales as a form. I keep wondering, though, especially with flash, how far can you deviate from an original form, and then I think, if you get a story that works, does that even matter? Do you have to start from a recognized fairytale or can it just sound like a fairytale? I have something I'm working on but will wait till a subscriber-only lesson to post.
Here's my take on WHAT really happened with the Princess and the Pea....
Merry never thought she could pull it off. All she really wanted to do was get out of the rain. But the lady who let her into the castle was so convinced that she was THE ONE, Merry agreed to go along.
Merry was wet, hungry, and exhausted. She wanted a hot bath, food, and a bed. She didn’t care how comfortable the bed was. She knew she’d be asleep before her head hit the pillow.
She slept soundly and decided she earned an Oscar for her performance the next morning over a silly pea. Except now she was engaged.
We fell in love in the Grand Canyon. After a year living together, eloped, got married in the mountains by a retiring justice of the peace. She told her parents at last moment. They brought cake and champagne. My approval rating was half baked.
She had a job; I took college classes on GI Bill. We agreed to share responsibilities, chores. She did inside, I did outside. This plan worked until I graduated; finally got a job. Help to pay bills.
She tried to cook, but wasn’t making the grade.? I said nothing, ate the food. I made breakfasts.and some nights dinner or we’d go out for tacos or order a pizza.
One night with red wine and lasagna baked on casserole dish we washed dishes from an old hand me down family recipe. I wash—she dries. She finds food still on plate. Returns for rewash. Get s to point; I didn’t wash right. We swap roles. At first dishes look clean. I don’t make a scene. Then say, “I’m the inspector, this one’s saucy.” I return for rewash . No reply at first. Then the soap splash. I thought scrubbing dishes together was a marriage rewarding experience. Seeing a clear dish reflection results in hand to hand combat that leads to drying dishes on a rack. Only one survivor washes the daily dishes.
Love lasts, but unanswered questions not resolved with multiple tasks, gets a couple to toss and turn through the long nights of days that lead you down the path with flickers of light to the dog house. Footprints in day glow colors on your butt show you the door to do dishes alone.
"My Father's Guide to Field Dressing an Elk" and "The Letter to Misses Delilah" were my favorites. It felt like every word was chosen carefully and enough meaning was conveyed for me to pick up on, but not enough for me to stop guessing. Very thought-provoking.
I ended up writing a "FAQ" with the theme of obsession. I'm happier with it than I'd thought I'd be, but it's a bit too long to share here. I'll keep tweaking it.
Your FAQ sounds fascinating. Always so fun to see what happens when you pair such an abstract concept with a boundaried structure like this. Good luck with drafting!
Just started washing a memory In soapy water. Getting a clean reflection and will have to hand dry or maybe let sit in dish rack to air out and drip dry.
I’m all for telling a story, but not the whole story. I’ll leave that up to the reader’s discretion to interpret what I mean to say.
Thanks for prompts. Working on washing dishes an old hand me down recipe for a cake Ed on lasagna way of scrubbing a marriage or a rewarding experience.
What great examples and really helpful distinctions between different the explicit and avoidant voice. Running behind but will be working on the exercises in the coming days.
No rush at all - join in as and when you can. Glad you're enjoying the examples and hope you can have fun experimenting with some different voices soon... :)
Pairing an exam question with buying a gift.
Relationship 101 Midterm Exam
This exam is worth 50% of your grade. Or maybe 100%. Or maybe 17%. Who can say?
You are buying a gift for your girlfriend of six months. What do you choose:
a. Flowers. You can’t go wrong with flowers, right?
b. Chocolate. Now we’re talking. Maybe she’ll even share!
c. Jewelry. Flowers and chocolate are too cliche, and not nearly expensive enough.
d. A book. Jewelry is too expensive. And she loves to read. It’s one of the things you have in common.
e. A dress. Because she has probably already read anything you would get her.
f. Something sex related. Who are you kidding thinking of buying her clothes? You are almost sure to get the style wrong to say nothing of the minefield of guessing her size.
g. Nothing. She will be offended by the sex thing. Right? This is too hard. Just don’t bother.
h. Flowers. You can’t go wrong with flowers, right?
Great concept and a clever hermit shell to put it into! As Lorri said, I like how each answer springboards off the previous one (or circles right back to the beginning), adding context and layers each time.
I love your first line! Who can say at that point? And the circle completed by coming back to flowers, because gifts are hard, even later in a relationship because people have different styles (love languages). And the way each item plays off the previous in the list. Well done!
Love all the linked stories. And the one-word story with the long title was so good! The thing about flash is sometimes it reads as (deceptively?) easy and sometimes it reads as wow, how did she/he do that? I love the puzzle/fun aspect of flash.
I read "In the Dream House" recently (which was so good!) and have been thinking about using fairytales as a form. I keep wondering, though, especially with flash, how far can you deviate from an original form, and then I think, if you get a story that works, does that even matter? Do you have to start from a recognized fairytale or can it just sound like a fairytale? I have something I'm working on but will wait till a subscriber-only lesson to post.
Ah, what wonderful tips! That one word story example was especially interesting!
I really love it when a title is an integral part of a story (or in this case, the majority of the story!).
Here's my take on WHAT really happened with the Princess and the Pea....
Merry never thought she could pull it off. All she really wanted to do was get out of the rain. But the lady who let her into the castle was so convinced that she was THE ONE, Merry agreed to go along.
Merry was wet, hungry, and exhausted. She wanted a hot bath, food, and a bed. She didn’t care how comfortable the bed was. She knew she’d be asleep before her head hit the pillow.
She slept soundly and decided she earned an Oscar for her performance the next morning over a silly pea. Except now she was engaged.
Love the twist at the end!
Haha, excellent! Particulalry like how you set up for a sequel at the end ;)
Here’s a flash in the pan:
We fell in love in the Grand Canyon. After a year living together, eloped, got married in the mountains by a retiring justice of the peace. She told her parents at last moment. They brought cake and champagne. My approval rating was half baked.
She had a job; I took college classes on GI Bill. We agreed to share responsibilities, chores. She did inside, I did outside. This plan worked until I graduated; finally got a job. Help to pay bills.
She tried to cook, but wasn’t making the grade.? I said nothing, ate the food. I made breakfasts.and some nights dinner or we’d go out for tacos or order a pizza.
One night with red wine and lasagna baked on casserole dish we washed dishes from an old hand me down family recipe. I wash—she dries. She finds food still on plate. Returns for rewash. Get s to point; I didn’t wash right. We swap roles. At first dishes look clean. I don’t make a scene. Then say, “I’m the inspector, this one’s saucy.” I return for rewash . No reply at first. Then the soap splash. I thought scrubbing dishes together was a marriage rewarding experience. Seeing a clear dish reflection results in hand to hand combat that leads to drying dishes on a rack. Only one survivor washes the daily dishes.
Love lasts, but unanswered questions not resolved with multiple tasks, gets a couple to toss and turn through the long nights of days that lead you down the path with flickers of light to the dog house. Footprints in day glow colors on your butt show you the door to do dishes alone.
Some lovely lyricism, rhythm and subtle internal rhyming in this. I loved that first line and the visual of "footprints in day glow colors".
"My Father's Guide to Field Dressing an Elk" and "The Letter to Misses Delilah" were my favorites. It felt like every word was chosen carefully and enough meaning was conveyed for me to pick up on, but not enough for me to stop guessing. Very thought-provoking.
I ended up writing a "FAQ" with the theme of obsession. I'm happier with it than I'd thought I'd be, but it's a bit too long to share here. I'll keep tweaking it.
Thanks for the lesson!
Two of my favourites, too!
Your FAQ sounds fascinating. Always so fun to see what happens when you pair such an abstract concept with a boundaried structure like this. Good luck with drafting!
Just started washing a memory In soapy water. Getting a clean reflection and will have to hand dry or maybe let sit in dish rack to air out and drip dry.
Oh yes, handle those memories delicately... Great pairing of ideas.
I’m all for telling a story, but not the whole story. I’ll leave that up to the reader’s discretion to interpret what I mean to say.
Thanks for prompts. Working on washing dishes an old hand me down recipe for a cake Ed on lasagna way of scrubbing a marriage or a rewarding experience.
Yess, absolutely let the reader bring their own interpretations. I suppose the trick is "tell just enough of the story..."
Love the sound of those prompt combos. Happy writing!