Category: Text

Writing Exercise: POV

Erin Penn

Ship Wreck Stock Photo

Photo courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net

POV Study
WRITING EXERCISE: Write a scene of 100 words or less. Write is again from a different POV – change to first, second, third person, change the third person, change from close third to omniscient. Whatever floats your boat.

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Adam in the Boat 1

Spinning between eddies, the boat never gained the shore despite Adam paddling over the side with his one good hand. The fight, then the storm, had left him bruised, battered, and barely capable of movement. Daylight was approaching, bringing promise of more sunburn and dehydration, with a slim chance of discovery on the abandoned winter beach. Adam will die in that boat if nothing changes. (words 65)

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Adam in the Boat 2

Grimacing against the pain of broken ribs, Adam rebraced against the side of the shattered boat. He dangled one arm down in the cold sea water, using his last strength to push against the eddy current keeping him achingly close and forever far away from the twilight shadowed beach. If his other arm worked, he would swim for shore, but the grisly compound fracture made his arm only useful as a maggot breeding ground. Two days he had watched the abandoned winter shoreline tease with promise of solid land, skin blistering under the sun, lips bleeding through the salt-crust under moonlight. He had started losing time. Time his enemies were using to get away. He dared not go unconscious again. He would not wake up. (words 125)

*****

My choice change – omniscient to close third

(first published 2/5/2015; republished in new blog format 4/19/2016)

Flash: Crossing Over through the Dog’s Eyes

Erin Penn

Weimaraner Stock Photo

FreeDigitalPhotos.net photo by Gualberto107

Whining confusion, the dog looked up where her head lay in the old man’s lap. She first looked up at her favorite human through one eye then another, then lifted her head to stare across the swollen mud-choked stream where the rest of the pack just crossed with their herds and looked back in question. Her human just raised his hand and patted her matted, wet fur between her ears, settling her jaw onto his leg as she continued to stare at him.

A sneeze took her, finally clearing the mud from her nostrils allowing her to smell the spring flowers surrounding them. The churned soil from the passing of their many beasts and peoples provided a pleasant underscent to the floral smells, nearly overpowering the wet odor of ice snow melt and rain runoff from half-frozen ground carried by the waterway.

She was sick of the water. The sky fell in broken drops nearly every day since the family had started walking from the flat den to the mountain den. Everywhere streams, trickles, rivers, and creeks carved new passages, stealing the joy of running and herding into an arduous task with sucking-slipping paws. She wasn’t sure why her human had decided to leave the others.

He had gone down to the water with everyone else, her pups and their mates and their pups and humans. Even gone into the twisting waters with the others. But the water was deeper than the others they had crossed on the walk since the snows started melting. She barely paddled across and collapsed on the far shore panting. When she realized he hadn’t followed, she had to swim back and nearly didn’t make it. Swimming wasn’t like running; it tired her. Maybe that was it. He was tired and needed to rest before swimming.

Her nose nudged into his palm, and he lifted it to pet her again. Down the neck and across the back, soothing the soreness in her joints and spine. She had lived a long time with this human, and her body creaked nearly as much as his did.

Finally, he said something in that strange soft speech of theirs ending with “Come on.” She started for the creek again before realizing his scent was getting more distant and looked over her shoulder. Blinking once to clear her failing eyesight, she verified he was walking AWAY from the pack scent trail. A whine escaped between her teeth. But he was her human, so she ran to catch up with him.

(words 420 – first published 4/24/2016)

Flash: Funner Part 2

Erin Penn

Opened Dictionary Stock Photo

FreeDigitalPhotos.net photo by Arvind Balaraman.

Joe was trying to get little April to accept puréed carrots, when his wife said out of the blue, “Yes, I believe funner is a word. Fun, funner, funnest.”

The peanut butter and ginger jelly sandwich was placed where their personal 4-year old tornado named Scott would land as soon as his milk glass was added. She returned to the kitchen to pour the final attraction, and then start assembling their more adult sandwiches. Joe wouldn’t mind a PB and J himself, but Cheryl tried to keep them on a somewhat non-strict diet. Thirties brought a little gut to both of them and she dislike buying clothes just for “upsizing” as she put it.

Scrapping up the carrots that were using osmosis to feed his favorite daughter through her cheeks and bib, Joe tried to place the conversation … it took a moment. Reorienting the food through the more proper channel of her small mouth, he was able to respond, “Nope, I am pretty sure funner is not a word. Did you look it up?”

Delivering the last of the Saturday lunch to the table, Cheryl mouth pursed in consternation as her husband got a point in the debate. “Well, no.” She pulled out her smartphone after sitting down. Booting up, she started navigating through menus looking. “Let’s see, some stuff about funner added to the dictionary in 2010 … Urban slang … oh here is something. Both noun and adjective, but not … drat.”

The arrival of their oldest made her put the smart phone aside, as she saved various glasses from spilling and laid down the requirement of eating at least three apple slices as well as half the sandwich before leaving the table. Joe concentrated on cleaning up the baby, the highchair, the plastic beneath the high chair and finally himself before joining his family at the kitchen table and snatching the phone for himself. Juggling April on one knee, and scrolling through the Google search he found a good article and passed it over to his wife after Scott started counting the Fritos on his plate.

She read through it, taking a bite of her chicken sandwich. Cheryl sipped some black cherry Kool-Aid then returned the phone and said “I believe the circumstances were very informal and therefore the usage stands.”

Joe laughed at loud, thinking back to exactly what he was doing during the “circumstances” of its usage. Glancing at the phone, he confirmed the article he had found boiled down to “Funner should not be used in formal writing, though it’s usage has been accepted for informal writing. For formal English writing, more fun should be used.”

“Agreed. In addition, I will concede we were not writing at the time.”

“Funner … Fun .. Ner … f.u.n.n.e.r.” Cheryl stated and spelled.

Laughter took them both, with April’s baby chortle joining in. Scott looked up from his counting; not understanding the joke, but enjoying the laughter, his high pitch child squeals joining in.

(words 498 – first published 1/2/2013; republished in new blog format 4/3/2016)

Blog: Inspirations for Flashes – Visual and Text

Erin Penn

INSPIRATION: FLASHES – VISUAL AND TEXT

EXAMPLE: MY BLOG

Hey all, this is the fifth Thursday of the month. I decided for the fifth Thursdays instead of pointing you to someone else’s blog, to write my own. For this one, I thought I would let you in on how I write a little.

You may have noticed I sort the Sunday Flashes into “Visual Flashes” and “Text Flashes”. So, what is the difference? After all, nearly every post I do seems to have a picture associated with it.

First off, flashes are very, very short stories aimed around 1,000 words. Most of mine fall between 500 and 1,200 words. For fifth Sundays, like in January, I will be posting a flash of around 2,000 words. Flashes are meant to be written flat out and tend to be more “scenes” than full short stories requiring character development, plots, and growth. Since I am posting the flashes instead of hiding them away, I do a little editing – correctly the worst of my grammar and spelling errors – before letting the world see my babies.

The difference between Visual and Text flashes is what inspired them. With visual flashes, I am working from a visual prompt. I saw a picture and tried to create a story around the picture. Visual prompts started my blog.

Back toward the end of 2013, I discovered Breathless Press’s blog where they posted a picture every Sunday and asked readers/writers to post a line inspired by the picture. I wrote a few flashes – about three-week’s worth. Then I decided to start my own blog and posting the stories there as well. That way if anything happened to Breathless Press, I would still have my stories. Man, am I glad I did that. Because in 2015 the small press died, as so many have done. Publishing is a tough business.

I no longer have any of the original pictures, unless I was able to hunt them down and find the correct permissions. I am a stickler about creative attribution – but that is another blog (likely for the fifth Thursday of June).

Text flashes were written without any visual inspiration. I don’t have to tie them to a chair being red or a man wearing suspenders because that was in the picture. These stories may have been inspired by a conversation with a friend, an observation at work, or just spring from my head like Athena from Zeus’ (after a very nasty headache). Before posting, I try to find a good picture to go with the story.

A cool note that using visuals as inspiration and using writing to choose a picture have publishing industry equivalents. During the pulp era, sometimes publishing houses would buy a cover from an artist and give it to an in-house writer to build a story around. Modernly, author write the stories picked up by publishing houses, and an in-house artist builds a cover around.

I find that my visual inspirations tend to create new worlds and storylines, while my text flashes revisit and expand the worlds I have previously created.

As a reader, do you have a preference on the stories? Do you find the visual or the text flashes to be more interesting?

As a writer, have you used visual or text prompts for inspiration? Do you find one or the other easier to work with? Have you ever tried to find a picture for a story you wrote or work with an artist?

Comment below.

Writing Exercise: Switch Out Words

Erin Penn

Beer Stock Photo

FreeDigitalPhotos.net photo by Idea go

Use Better Words

WRITING EXERCISE: Write a generic scene – no more than 100 words. Then go through and change or add one or two words (no more than that) per sentence to make it better. Then try again, using the same generic start for a totally different genre or feel.

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After walking into the bar, a guy sits on a stool. He signals the bartender for a boilermaker. Beer and whiskey appear, and his money gets whisked away. The bartender returns to the girl he was flirting with. The guy knocks back the shot, then walks over to the couple holding his beer. (words 53)

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After sauntering into the bar, a guy hops on a stool. Smiling, he signals the bartender for a boilermaker. Beer and whiskey appear, and his meager cash gets whisked away. The cute bartender returns to the girl she was flirting with. The guy knocks back some courage, then walks over to the couple holding his beer.

*****

After walking into the darken bar, a guy mounts a stool. Furtively he signals the bartender for a boilermaker. Beer and whisky appear, and his money disappears. The bartender returns to the working girl he was flirting with. The guy knocks back the shot, then slips closer to the couple swirling his beer.

(first published 1/31/2015; republished new blog format 3/22/2016)