Writing Prompts and The Detective
Reading responses to a writing prompt is like interviewing witnesses to a crime. No one says the same thing, even though the impetus is the same. The gunshots sounded, nothing can change that. The prompt is what it is, no one dares to change that. Everyone comes to the prompt (or the crime) with their own biases and sees things from their own angle. Witness or the writer, each has something important to say.
This writers' group starts each monthly critique session with a different prompt chosen at random from pages of one sentence prompts. We never do the same prompt twice and allow less than a minute for each of us to write the prompt at the top of our pages. Then we have a firm five minutes to write the first thing that comes to mind. We read our responses to the group, with a combination of embarrassment, frustration, futility, or...very rarely...pride.
Today, I'll try something a little different and play detective with my only clues being the words on the page and my knowledge of the each author. Okay, I'll be cheating a little bit because I collected the responses via email and know the answers. But, even without remembering who read what aloud or seeing the emails, I'd be able to match respondent with response. My deductions will follow each prompt and may help you get to know my Pen Friends a little bit more. -cjh
~~~~
The professor stopped dead in the middle of his sentence when…
...the student stood up.
The young man was silent. Silent, serious but not menacing, with eyes as black and shiny as obsidian.
The professor gestured for him to continue, then waited patiently. He understood indigenous people carried a deep well of silence that persisted even in their descendants.
During this pregnant silence, some students squirmed in their seats, others shot meaningful looks to their friends. The athletes, male and female, threw their heads back to take a long-awaited nap.
“You tell us,” the young man finally spoke, “our horses came here with the Europeans.”
“Yes,” the professor replied eagerly, glad that the conversation was about classwork.
“But you’re wrong.”
Students’ eyes widened, heads perked up.
“My people have always had horses.”
If it wasn't mentioning horses, or alluding to their history, it was in grounding the response in "indigenous people" that was the dead giveaway that Cyd Raschke wrote this. Cyd is working on a wonderful YA novel of the first horses brought to the New World. Cyd has meticulously researched equine history and the Native American tribes in what we know as Texas. Horses, history, and Native Americans gave this the tri-perfecta of clues.
~~~~~
The Fishes’ Perch The professor stopped dead in the middle of the sentence when...
... a fish fell from the ceiling onto the stage in front of where he stood.
The fish was a large sea perch. The kind of perch that really no one cooked or ate at all anymore because ocean stocks had dwindled so alarmingly. The fact that it had been a perch was vital to the unfolding investigation and figured largely in the reason that two hours, twenty-seven minutes and forty seconds later the professor was removed from the classroom in hand cuffs. It fell to detective Smith-Collins to untangle the market chain in order to follow back to the origins of the perch. Detective S-C began with a walk around the desk where the professor had stood in beginning his lecture. “Why would he have placed the fish above,” the detective asked no one in particular, while looking up and stroking his goatee in that manner that drove his wife crazy. He noticed that not just one perch had been stored above in its’ lofty perch, but dozens of other fishes, all of endangered species, were stored there as well. There were rows of swordfish, cod, mussels and even salmon.
The first clue? The respondent sent their response neatly typed with a title! That was the dead giveaway that the author takes her writing and presentation very seriously. Only a freshly minted MFA recipient would take the meticulous steps to present a five minute work product with such care and a title! Geez!
The second clue? The subject matter. Sustainability issues and protecting endangered species, whether fish, fowl, or fauna, tipped the deductive scales to Elizabeth Rose. Elizabeth is writing a memoir of her travels to Guatemala to help people with issues surrounding poverty, farming, clean water, and literacy. She is a gladiator, and even a simple five minute prompt provided an outlet for her warrior spirit.
~~~~
The professor stopped dead in the middle of his sentence when...
... the black shaggy pup scrambled up the three short stairs to the stage. The class, afraid to be too disruptive, twittered softly to one another.
The puppy trotted proudly across the stage and sat, with ceremonious dignity on the foot of the professor. The professor reached down and picked up the little fella. He held him an arms length away from himself and with a look of disgust, asked, “To Whom does this belong? Please claim him.”
At that point my face had turned cherry red. I slipped out of my seat and approached the stage…out of the corner of my eye I saw a squirt!
A puppy? Wholesome drama? A scene that could have been plucked from a Disney movie? Oh, yes. It must be Donna Burke Seim! Donna's recently launched, middle grade targeted, Cheeky and Charlemagne is populated with adorable animals and playful drama. I don't know how Donna does it, but each of her responses channels an innocence of another time, and you don't have to be a kid to love her writing or her books.
~~~~
The professor stopped dead in the middle of his sentence when...
...he saw me standing in the doorway. I wasn't sure it was him, but when he stuttered over his words and blushed crimson, I was sure.
Thirty years and a lifetime, and now I had found him.
We were each other's first lovers when war tore us apart. He came back to a changed world. I had married. I had to marry, but I made the most of those years.
It took him all this time to emerge from the Hell war had torn into him.
It took this time for life to free me from a marriage that was fine, but without love.
When he stuttered, "C-c-class d-d-dismissed," we stood and looked at one another and the years vanished.
The class emptied and we stared.
I took a halting step forward. He said, in halting phrases, "I've been waiting."
Okay, no deduction here. This one is mine. Usually I try to have a murder or a crime be central to the prompt concept, but this time, I tried for love. Remember when I said that each writer or witness brings their own set of biases? Well, the readers do the same thing! I got a kick out of hearing the other writers were waiting for the narrator to kill the professor.
This writers' group starts each monthly critique session with a different prompt chosen at random from pages of one sentence prompts. We never do the same prompt twice and allow less than a minute for each of us to write the prompt at the top of our pages. Then we have a firm five minutes to write the first thing that comes to mind. We read our responses to the group, with a combination of embarrassment, frustration, futility, or...very rarely...pride.
Today, I'll try something a little different and play detective with my only clues being the words on the page and my knowledge of the each author. Okay, I'll be cheating a little bit because I collected the responses via email and know the answers. But, even without remembering who read what aloud or seeing the emails, I'd be able to match respondent with response. My deductions will follow each prompt and may help you get to know my Pen Friends a little bit more. -cjh
~~~~
The professor stopped dead in the middle of his sentence when…
...the student stood up.
The young man was silent. Silent, serious but not menacing, with eyes as black and shiny as obsidian.
The professor gestured for him to continue, then waited patiently. He understood indigenous people carried a deep well of silence that persisted even in their descendants.
During this pregnant silence, some students squirmed in their seats, others shot meaningful looks to their friends. The athletes, male and female, threw their heads back to take a long-awaited nap.
“You tell us,” the young man finally spoke, “our horses came here with the Europeans.”
“Yes,” the professor replied eagerly, glad that the conversation was about classwork.
“But you’re wrong.”
Students’ eyes widened, heads perked up.
“My people have always had horses.”
If it wasn't mentioning horses, or alluding to their history, it was in grounding the response in "indigenous people" that was the dead giveaway that Cyd Raschke wrote this. Cyd is working on a wonderful YA novel of the first horses brought to the New World. Cyd has meticulously researched equine history and the Native American tribes in what we know as Texas. Horses, history, and Native Americans gave this the tri-perfecta of clues.
~~~~~
The Fishes’ Perch The professor stopped dead in the middle of the sentence when...
... a fish fell from the ceiling onto the stage in front of where he stood.
The fish was a large sea perch. The kind of perch that really no one cooked or ate at all anymore because ocean stocks had dwindled so alarmingly. The fact that it had been a perch was vital to the unfolding investigation and figured largely in the reason that two hours, twenty-seven minutes and forty seconds later the professor was removed from the classroom in hand cuffs. It fell to detective Smith-Collins to untangle the market chain in order to follow back to the origins of the perch. Detective S-C began with a walk around the desk where the professor had stood in beginning his lecture. “Why would he have placed the fish above,” the detective asked no one in particular, while looking up and stroking his goatee in that manner that drove his wife crazy. He noticed that not just one perch had been stored above in its’ lofty perch, but dozens of other fishes, all of endangered species, were stored there as well. There were rows of swordfish, cod, mussels and even salmon.
The first clue? The respondent sent their response neatly typed with a title! That was the dead giveaway that the author takes her writing and presentation very seriously. Only a freshly minted MFA recipient would take the meticulous steps to present a five minute work product with such care and a title! Geez!
The second clue? The subject matter. Sustainability issues and protecting endangered species, whether fish, fowl, or fauna, tipped the deductive scales to Elizabeth Rose. Elizabeth is writing a memoir of her travels to Guatemala to help people with issues surrounding poverty, farming, clean water, and literacy. She is a gladiator, and even a simple five minute prompt provided an outlet for her warrior spirit.
~~~~
The professor stopped dead in the middle of his sentence when...
... the black shaggy pup scrambled up the three short stairs to the stage. The class, afraid to be too disruptive, twittered softly to one another.
The puppy trotted proudly across the stage and sat, with ceremonious dignity on the foot of the professor. The professor reached down and picked up the little fella. He held him an arms length away from himself and with a look of disgust, asked, “To Whom does this belong? Please claim him.”
At that point my face had turned cherry red. I slipped out of my seat and approached the stage…out of the corner of my eye I saw a squirt!
A puppy? Wholesome drama? A scene that could have been plucked from a Disney movie? Oh, yes. It must be Donna Burke Seim! Donna's recently launched, middle grade targeted, Cheeky and Charlemagne is populated with adorable animals and playful drama. I don't know how Donna does it, but each of her responses channels an innocence of another time, and you don't have to be a kid to love her writing or her books.
~~~~
The professor stopped dead in the middle of his sentence when...
...he saw me standing in the doorway. I wasn't sure it was him, but when he stuttered over his words and blushed crimson, I was sure.
Thirty years and a lifetime, and now I had found him.
We were each other's first lovers when war tore us apart. He came back to a changed world. I had married. I had to marry, but I made the most of those years.
It took him all this time to emerge from the Hell war had torn into him.
It took this time for life to free me from a marriage that was fine, but without love.
When he stuttered, "C-c-class d-d-dismissed," we stood and looked at one another and the years vanished.
The class emptied and we stared.
I took a halting step forward. He said, in halting phrases, "I've been waiting."
Okay, no deduction here. This one is mine. Usually I try to have a murder or a crime be central to the prompt concept, but this time, I tried for love. Remember when I said that each writer or witness brings their own set of biases? Well, the readers do the same thing! I got a kick out of hearing the other writers were waiting for the narrator to kill the professor.
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