Prompt: From Two Points-of-View

The prompt was based upon a fictional perspective between the thoughts of a dog and a cat, telling the same story from two points of view. Other suggestions were with a doctor and patient, husband and wife, police and prisoner, and mother and child.

The children’s book, I Am the Dog, I Am the Cat by Donald Hall is a good example of a story told by alternating points of view. A famous alternating point of view is Gary Larson’s famous Farside comic strip featuring what the human says and what the dog hears.

Gary Larson comic strip: What the human says and what the dog hears.

The prompt is to tell a story from two opposite points of view.

Senses by Susan Schmidlin

April 20, 2015

The earth between my fingers
Dark loam that crumbles at the touch
Warmed by the spring sun
Just moist enough to dampen my knees.

Visitors in the form of potato bugs,
Worms, bees, and slugs
Come and go as I toil
Leaving mere bits of memories in the stillness.

I notice something in the breeze
That distracts me from my work
Makes me pause and I breathe in
As the lilacs begin to sing.

Inspired by the Prompt: Senses.

Prompt: Words Have Texture

The prompt is based upon “Hiatus,” a poem by David Feela published in LabLetter in April 2015.

A pot of tea steeping
on the marble sill, its steam
clouding the window.

Sunrise on the counter
like the yolk of a broken egg,
oh happy disaster of morning…

Write a descriptive poem or short prose. Edit it to focus writing with texture adjectives and verbs. Choose words that are visual, painting a textural picture such as marble sill not just window sill, steam clouding the window not just steam rising, sunrise on counter not light, etc.

The Inciting Event

The Monday morning workshop recently focused on scriptwriting, specifically tracing inciting events and the patterns of storytelling for television, film, and even books.

An inciting event in a plot is the shift forward in a story, the twist, hook, and plot points of the story.

K.M. Weiland, author of the book, “Structuring Your Novel,” helps us understand the confusion in and around an inciting event in a story in “Your Book’s Inciting Event: It’s Not What You Think It Is” on Helping Writers Become Authors.

What the heck is the Inciting Event? That’s a question just about any writer can answer. The trouble is that sometimes we all have a different answer.

Is the Inciting Event the first thing that happens in the story?

Is it the moment that kicks off the plot and the conflict?

Is it the First Plot Point at the end of the First Act?

Is it something in between?

Is it something that happens before the story ever starts?

The chief trouble with identifying the Inciting Event is that the term is used rather wildly to apply to just about any of the above. One writer calls the Hook the Inciting Event, another calls it the First Plot Point. Argh! No wonder we’re all so confused.

Weiland demonstrates three examples.

  • The Hook: The opening moment in your opening scene, the first moment something happens that keeps the reader reading or “hooked.”
  • The First Plot Point: The thing that happens at the end of the first act that changes the course of the story. She calls it “where your story really begins…the moment that fully engages your character in the conflict. He couldn’t walk away now, even if he really wanted to.”
  • First Act Turning Point: This is the moment that is the “call to” adventure or action, the no-turning-back point, the lit-match moment. She explained that most writer’s don’t include nor think of the turning point in the first act as the inciting incident, but it is. It is the moment that can be pointed to throughout the rest of the story, the moment when everything was shaken up and decisions needed to be made and action inspired. This is the inciting event.

Weiland explained that the first act turning point, or inciting event, should be placed at the 12% mark or 1/8th the way into the story. The first eighth of the story is character development, the time the audience needs to connect with the main characters, the time, and the place, the set up. (more…)

Lend an Ear 2015

The annual Lend an Ear, Come and Hear event sponsored and produced by Writers in the Grove is set for July 11, 2015, Saturday from 11am to 1pm at Plum Hill Winery in Gaston, Oregon. Mark your calendars!

July 11, 2015
Saturday 11am-1pm
Plum Hill Vineyards
6505 SW Old Highway 47
Gaston OR 97119

The event is free and open to the public.

If you would like to participate as a reading writer, please see the instructions and submission application on Lend an Ear Come and Hear Submission Guidelines and forms. Submissions must be able to be read out loud lasting no more than 4 minutes.

Prompt: Conflict in Third Person

The prompt was to explore conflict from various perspectives.

Setup: Two children at playground

First Prompt: Write in third person, omnipotent

Second Prompt: Rewrite the story in first person

Third Prompt: Rewrite the story from the perspective of one of the mothers

Fourth Prompt: Rewrite in second person

Prompt: T-Shirts in the News Again

Recently, the prompt was about describing the response of a character when put in an internal and moral conflict when confronted with an offensive t-shirt. Another t-shirt is in the news again this week as a SxSW conference attendee wore a shirt handed out by Comedy Central at the conference and was taken off a pending flight by Southwest Airlines for violating their dress code.

Taking our original prompt further, what would be the perspective of the person realizing that the free t-shirt was considered offensive, especially after seeing hundreds if not thousands of them on fellow conference attendees? What about the airline staff seeing the shirt and having to respond? What about the passengers watching this event?

A quick search for similar incidents found that in 2011, a couple protesting outside Dollywood for more inclusive and equal rights for LGBT folks were told their t-shirts, which read “Marriage Is So Gay,” had to be turned inside out or they had to leave as it violated their dress code policy, while saying that the park is open to everyone of “all shapes and sizes.” The married couple was a lesbian couple, 76 and 84 years old.

Consider that perspective as an alternative prompt, both from the women’s perspective, the staff at the entertainment facility, and as a bystander. Does age change the character’s response?

In 2014, a scientist working on the Rosetta comet mission wore a t-shirt featuring scantily clad women as sex objects at a press conference, creating a furor. He made a public apology and broke down in tears as he admitted to his mistake, upset that he could have possibly offended or hurt anyone.

What about his story?

In 2013, a t-shirt manufacturing and online sales company was forced to close after a public uproar about the t-shirt they created that implied rape was a good thing. The owner admitted he made a mistake and the mistake cost him his twenty year old company. (more…)