As most of you know, I am the author of two memoirs. Lately, however, I have been
trying (Do
put the emphasis on “trying!”) to write a novel. In order to facilitate this
endeavor, I began working with a Gotham Writers’ Workshop book called Writing
Fiction. I have been reading all the lessons and doing all the exercises and doing rather well I thought until I got to the following prompt:
“Return to the character you created in the previous
exercise, the one with the seemingly perfect life. Now write an entire story
centering around the major dramatic question you created. Your story should
have a beginning, a middle with escalating conflict, and an ending that
includes crisis, climax and consequences. One more thing. This story can be no
longer than five hundred words.”
What? Are you kidding me?
I was totally stumped. How was I going to transform my
character, whose name was either Annie or Lily, who did not have a
perfect life, who was a lonely waitress living in a lonely town, into a complete story of fewer than five hundred words?
Fortunately for me, I was doing that exercise at my daughter
Cindi’s house. I was sitting at her kitchen table; my twelve-year-old
granddaughter was sitting across from me. After I explained my predicament to
her, Chloe, who is a prolific writer herself, said, “Whenever I feel like
that, I write a story about animals.”
Of course, I scoffed at that
until finally, getting nowhere with my waitress, I decided to take Chloe’s
suggestion. The result became a story about Lily, a sweet little deer who lived
in the forest. Lily was lonely and wanted to make friends with other deer, but
she didn’t know how to begin. In addition, she lived in a portion of the forest
uninhabited by all other animals. So, Lily decided to go out on a limb - so to
speak.
It was the middle of November.
Lily knew that because all the leaves on all the trees surrounding her had
turned to gold and were trembling as they fell from their branches. Lily took a deep
breath and started moving. It wasn’t long however before something loud and
swift swept passed her ears. Lily looked up and saw a two-legged creature
dressed in bright orange clothing moving toward her. This creature, Lily saw,
was carrying something long that looked like a branch, but wasn’t. Lily didn’t
know what it was. She knew only that she had to get away quickly.
Lily started running. She ran
for miles and miles until finally, out of breath and tired, she came to the end
of the forest. The path in front of her was flat and smooth, but not very wide
and Lily believed she could make it across this path and into the forest on the
other side if she ran as fast as she could.
Lily stepped onto the path
just as a large lumbering object with four round legs came barreling toward
her. The object came to a screeching halt. Lily stopped too and looked into its
shining bright eyes that were bigger than Lily’s head. Lily didn’t stop to
think. She didn’t stop to wonder what this thing was. She just started running
faster than she had ever run before until she reached the point where another forest
began, where more creatures in orange clothing were looking for her, and where
she continued to run for her life until finally, she came upon a herd of deer
who beckoned her and welcomed her as
though they knew her although she had never seen any of them before. Lily moved shyly
toward them. The strange deer formed a circle around Lily, moving closer as though
to embrace her. Slowly, Lily began to make friends with the other deer who
silently and wholeheartedly led her to safety.
The End!
Cute
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