Misfortune
(What If? Exercise: Read the description here.)
My friends insisted I come to the carnival with them.
For some reason, the fortune teller caught my eye.
She’s never wrong, the other gypsies warned us.
Come and learn your future, she said.
She laid the cards before us.
Flip to reveal your fate.
Sara’s fate was riches.
Joey’s was fame.
Mine, misfortune.
This piece is based on What If? Exercise 93: “Ten to One”. The exercise is to write a 55-word story in which the first sentence has ten words, the second has nine, etc., until the last sentence has only one word. The objective is to show that precision and thrift in writing can produce surprisingly powerful results. I hope you enjoy what I’ve written. Thanks for reading!
What If? Writing Prompts: Paranormal II
To keep up with my creative writing, I’m sharing a new set of “What If?” Writing Prompts for you to enjoy. This week’s post features another batch of prompts in the paranormal genre. See what sorts of mysterious stories you can write based on these ideas! Have fun!
What if… the two-hundred-year-old ghost of a former resident were haunting your house?
What if… you lived alone, but kept finding notes scribbled on your bathroom mirror whenever you took a shower?
What if… you had a mirror in which you could see the future?
What if… you could telekinetically manipulate objects based on your emotions?
What if… you held a seance for a departed loved one… that went horribly wrong?
Good luck spinning your own paranormal tales!
If you have any “What If?” writing prompt suggestions (for any theme), please feel free to share them in the comments below. Ideas I like may be featured in future “What If?” posts, with full credit and a link to your blog (if you have one)! Also, if you’ve written a piece based on an idea you’ve found here, be sure to link back to the respective “What If?” post. I would love to see what you’ve done with the prompt! Thank you!
Word of the Week: Sycophant
Word: sycophant
Pronunciation: SI-kə-fənt / SI-kə-fant
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: a person who acts obsequiously toward someone important in order to gain advantage
Source: Oxford Dictionaries
She turned you into this untrusting, crazy, jealous sycophant! [her friends stare at her] All right, so I don’t know what “sycophant” means, but the rest is right!
– Phoebe Buffay, Friends (Season 4, Episode 18 – The One With Rachel’s New Dress)
Remember that word I wrote about last week? It’s time to put it to good use. The first (and probably only) time I ever heard the word “sycophant” was in an episode of Friends, when the women try to help Ross overcome his irrational fear that he might lose his girlfriend Emily to his ex-wife’s life partner Susan. In an attempt to convince him that he’s being unnecessarily jealous, Phoebe uses an uncommon word that she’s never used before – to humorous effect, as Ross’s jealousy is hardly an indication that he wants to please important people just to get ahead.
A “sycophant” is someone who acts in an excessively obedient or attentive manner toward an important person as a means of gaining an advantage. The word arose in the mid 16th century as a reference to informants, and can be traced back through the French noun sycophante to the Greek noun sukophantēs, meaning “informer”. This noun is comprised of the noun sukon “fig” and the verb phainein “to show”, which may be a reference to the insulting “fig gesture” made toward informers.
To be honest, I have yet to find a good place for the word “sycophant” in my fiction. I do like the sound of it, though, so it would certainly be a good alternative if I were to write a character who relentlessly pleases others for their own gain and wanted to avoid vulgar terms such as “suck-up” and “kiss-ass”. Perhaps I’ll use it in one of my stories someday, but if you tend to create such phonily obsequious characters, you can already start writing a “sycophant” or two into your fiction! Good luck!
What are your thoughts on this word? Any suggestions for future “Word of the Week” featured words?
My Heroine
Woman of wonder is she.
Only her family can truly understand.
Night and day, she cares for us,
Defending, nursing, teaching, loving,
Every day, without question or fail,
Rescuing us like a superhero.
What a wonder she is, that
One woman I admire above all others.
My mother is a blessing, for she is
Always there for me, and she
Never lets me doubt how much she loves me!
Happy Mother’s Day to my wonderful mom! Thank you for being my Wonder Woman, the greatest heroine I could ever ask for! I love you!
What My Parents Taught Me About Love
When it comes to writing romance, I tend to draw a lot from personal knowledge and experience. Though I have lived a few interesting stories of my own, the truth is that I learned most of what I know about love from my parents. They’ve been my inspiration for as long as I can remember, and they’re the reason I have so much faith in love today. My love stories feature healthy relationships and happy endings because that’s the reality I grew up witnessing every single day.
So what are the secrets to writing a love that’s true? Here are a few tips I learned from my parents that I love to implement as much in my stories as in my personal life. I hope you can learn some valuable lessons from them too! Enjoy!
1) The best kind of love blossoms from friendship.
Anyone who has read at least a few of my romantic stories has no doubt noticed that most of the love I write grows between characters who start out as friends. My parents met well before they got together, and I think the reason they get along so well today is because they’ve known from the very beginning that they have enough in common to make things work. Not too much, of course, but that’s where the next piece of advice comes in…
2) The key to everlasting love is mutual respect.
As alike as they seem sometimes, my parents are two very different people. My mom is soft-spoken and attentive, while my dad is loud and passionate. The key to their successful relationship is that they never try to impose elements of their personalities on each other, but rather appreciate each other’s strengths and accept their differences as the dynamic that keeps their marriage interesting. In other words, they avoid making that common married-couple mistake of trying to change each other. Not that they don’t learn from one another, of course, but when they do, it’s thanks to their intelligence and willingness to each be the best spouse the other deserves, which makes for a much healthier kind of relationship. They’ve become better people together not because they felt obligated to, but because they wanted to.
3) It’s important that you make each other laugh. Always.
When I think back on all the times I’ve noticed my parents interacting, I realize that I’ve heard them laugh much more often than I’ve heard them argue. Even when I’d overhear them getting upset about something, it would never take too long for one of them to say something silly that would start them both laughing about the whole thing. And I’m certain that’s what’s kept them together to this day. If I’ve learned anything from observing my parents’ relationship my whole life, it’s that love is only worth holding onto if it brings you much greater joy than sorrow. This may be the most important piece of advice my dad ever gave us: if you’re not laughing anymore, it’s time to jump ship.
4) Marry someone you love talking to.
Something else I’ve always noticed about my parents’ relationship is that they talk to each other about almost everything. Maybe it’s because they have similar yet distinct ways of thinking, so they’re usually interested in what the other has to say. Occasional difficulties in listening aside (mostly on my father’s part), my mom and dad have always been on the same page when it comes to communication. Of course, this made it nearly impossible for me and my sisters to get away with anything, but that just helped us to grow up as well-disciplined and happy children. That’s another important lesson we learned from our parents: to maintain a healthy relationship, communication is a must.
5) Learn to let the little things go and just enjoy life!
This advice technically applies to anyone, but it’s especially important for committed couples. If you and your significant other get hung up on every little thing in your relationship that upsets you, you’re eventually going to drive each other crazy. That’s why my mom and dad never get stuck on minor issues for very long. When it comes to their arguments, they’re more about the “forgive and forget” philosophy, because they know that in the long run, those little spats are not worth stressing over. Instead, they focus on the important things, they support each other through thick and thin, and they make the most of each other’s company to just enjoy life. Can you really imagine a more perfect love than that?
These are the lessons about love that I’ve learned from my parents, and I’m grateful to them every day for the example they’ve set for my sisters and me. I only hope to experience a love like theirs throughout my life, but for now, I’ll keep using it as inspiration for my romantic fiction, as I hope you can too. Good luck! Thanks for reading!
Dedicated to my parents, the happiest couple I know. Thank you for teaching me what true love really is. Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad! I love you!
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