Write that Shit: Lesson 1.
Hello and welcome to lesson one. In this lesson we’re going to learn to write fiction because we’re
nosy and have questions. The purpose of these exercises is to essentially learn a new method of
stimulating our creativity and making something.
You may walk away with a completed ready for sales story. You might write the most whack flash
story ever. The point here isn’t perfection or instant writerly greatness. We just want to make a
thing and learn a way to get ourselves going.
Some uses for these exercises:
- Jumpstart your writing practice without the pressure of perfect/publishable.
- Use this methodology to apply to other creative ventures like: poetry, painting, even nonfiction.
- Play with forms you’re just learning about.
- Play with themes or subject matter you don’t normally work in.
- Play with Genre fiction.
The purpose of these courses is not to turn you into an instant best seller, the best writer ever, etc. The
purpose of these courses is to help expand your creativity and give you some tools to grab onto when
you need help.
Ready?
Let’s do this.
What you’ll need:
- Some time. Fifteen to twenty minutes.
- Something to write with/on.
- A sense of play.
What I have for you:
- Some questions to get you started.
- An example of questions I asked myself.
- An example story/free write inspired by my questions.
Get your writing things and let’s get going
Let’s get Nosy: writing to answer questions.
We’re going to start off with some fantastical type imagery to work with. Our practice stuff will be based
on some notes I took for a story idea I had while in the middle of my commute. I started with the
question in my head, what if there was a person who could do battle and eat ghosts and demons and
stuff?
Unhinged jaw?
-the notepad that lives in my purse
Gathering of psychic energy into a kind of flesh?
Jiu jitsu?
Shit talking to get strength?
Eating?
Happy little monster girl?
Works in mortuary?
Haunted bldg?
This is where I want to note a few things before we go on. A lot of folks I’ve talked to about writing fiction
have the idea that to write, one must plan and outline. Nah son. That has a place in the process but,
sometimes it is really more beneficial to you as a creator to just let go and let flow.
Those of you who are more oriented to planning, this is going to be challenging but I want you to try.
We’re going to start with five minutes of just doing.
Get your utensil ready and ask your brain, things are going to get absurd.
This is your question:
What if a butterfly talked to me?
Here are the rules for this exercise:
- Make this whatever you want. All dialogue, play with point of view, play with tense, try writing a
poem. Whatever. - Just write it.
- Just write it.
- Calm down. You’re okay, you can do this thing.
- Focus on letting your weird voice start talking.
To celebrate our first exercise experience, I’m going to give you some prompts that might tickle your
brainmeats.
- The butterfly just committed a crime and you are interrogating it.
- The butterfly is drunk on fermented nectar and has a story to tell.
- You are eavesdropping.
- You are the first person to ever hear a butterfly speak.
- Butterflies talking is a regular thing in the world you are writing about. That could include the world we’re in, the one you make up, it is fiction do what you want.
Take a deep breath. Tell the part of your brain being a jerk about this and telling you ALL the reasons
why it is dumb and terrible to shut the hell up.
GO GO GO GO GO GO!
Below you’ll find what I came up with.
Five minutes after I left home, shit went weird. I mean, it went left. Two short of a sixer. All the way the fuck wrong. Things were going okay. I had some good coffee, it was warm but not gross outside, I had time to go for a walk before I caught the train and that is where it all went sideways.I walked around a bend in the path and for a full thirty seconds I just stopped and stared. There was this riot of flowers blooming, so many colors and high sweet smells and butterflies, it felt like a fairy tale. I have never ever, been that person in my life. Not one time. The one time I was on a ferry and people spotted a whale, I missed it. The time when my Mom went full Disney princess and had hummingbirds eating out of the actual palm of her hand, I sneezed and scared them away.
Then in that moment in the sun with the flowers and shit it happened.
A big orange butterfly flapped in front of my face. My eyes welled up with tears and I froze, it was so amazing. I was finally chosen for the special moment, I was magical
and like awesome.
It was so good. Until I heard it.
“You get the fuck outta my territory ‘fore I beat the brakes off you.”.
I almost peed my pants and then I spentTIME ELAPSED 5:00
Let’s look at what just happened. To answer a few questions you might have, this is not a whole story. It
is not spellchecked or otherwise edited. It was written while standing at a bus stop, using my Gmail to
write in a draft. It took exactly five minutes between me arriving at the bus to making that. It’s not a lot
of words, I had no plan. I just let it happen.
OH! One last rule for every lesson. Do not delete your exercise results.
Doesn’t matter if it is complete crap. If it makes no sense and you forgot how to use a comma or spell
the word what. Stash them in your email, stash them in a folder labeled crap. But do not delete them.
This is important. We will get back to why I say this towards the end of class.
Now, if we look at my original question: What if a butterfly talked to me? Where did my Weird Voice
go. I wanted to enter the mind of someone who has never had a magical experience and then when they
have one it is not what they wanted. What I wanted to play with was mainly giving that first person, let
me tell you a story feel that you might get from a friend.
Was it successful? Did I make any words? Yes I did. That means the exercise was an unqualified success.
That is the real purpose of this sort of thing. Think of it in this context. You wouldn’t run a marathon
without stretching, you wouldn’t just walk up on a 500lb barbell and jack that shit up over your head
without training. This is why I like to do these little freewrites and why I let my brain roll out weird
questions until something in me says, OH GO WRITE THAT SHIT!
For bonus points, expand your time limit in five minute increments. Lots of other writers all more famous than me have said this and I’m gonna say it too, for free. Just write. Next time we’ll get into what do we do next.
And with that my friend, you have written a fiction. You have committed a literature and even if it was pure nonsense, you did it. Subscribe to posts or bookmark for the next lesson.