by Naomi L. | August 7, 2015 | Flash Fiction, J.C. Wolfe's Writing |
(What If? Exercise: Read the description here.)
Having gotten through college without a problem, I honestly thought getting a Master’s degree would be simple, but I didn’t realize it would be a whole different experience right from the beginning, from talking to your professors for hours to come up with a great idea for a project, to having to write a standout résumé and totally kill it in the interview, and then sitting through the requisite amount of discipline hours for a whole semester before actually getting started on the project, only to realize halfway through the program that your methods were never feasible for a two-year project to begin with, so you spend another several hours discussing it with your advisors until the project has changed completely, meaning you have to start almost from scratch with only one year left to get everything done on time, so you rush through your lab work in what turns out to be a lesson on why you should never rush through lab work that sets you back another month, but you stay optimistic in the knowledge that it’s all a learning experience and now you know what not to do, so you press on through one obstacle after the other – difficult field work, delayed lab material deliveries, failed DNA amplifications – until you finally have enough results to begin last-minute data analyses, all the while reading up-to-the-minute papers that risk changing the entire course of the thesis you’ve been writing and rewriting for the past few months, and just as you’re about to give up the last shred of hope that you’ll be able to meet the final deadline, you reach deep down inside and find that final burst of determination, and before you know it, your thesis is complete, your project has been successfully presented and defended, your paper is in preparation for submission, and all your hard work has earned you a Master’s degree, and you’re so proud of yourself that you forget all the stress you endured to make it here and focus solely on the glory of success… until you decide to pursue a Ph.D and the whole journey starts all over again.
This story is based on What If? Exercise 90: “The Journey of the Long Sentence”. The exercise is to write a short short story that’s only one sentence long. The objective is to understand how we can shape our writing in a similar manner that our minds function, building a linear order for observations that often consist of many overlapping aspects. I hope you enjoy what I’ve written. Thanks for reading!
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by Naomi L. | July 31, 2015 | Flash Fiction, J.C. Wolfe's Writing |
(What If? Exercise: Read the description here.)
He had been planning this moment for two months now.
Nervously, he gazed at the love of his life.
I love you more than anything, he whispered.
This was it: the moment of truth.
He got down on one knee.
Then he produced the ring.
Will you marry me?
He waited, terrified…
She smiled.
Yes.
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!
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by Naomi L. | May 15, 2015 | Flash Fiction, J.C. Wolfe's Writing |
(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.
Death.
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!
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by Naomi L. | May 1, 2015 | Flash Fiction, J.C. Wolfe's Writing |
(What If? Exercise: Read the description here.)
Ms. Miller listened absently to the ticking of the clock, the only sound left in the classroom after her students simultaneously lowered their heads. Every last millisecond used to count, she remembered as she gazed longingly at the silver medal on her desk. Funny how a single leg injury could change everything.
—
Mary scribbled on her test paper as if she were deciphering a secret code for the military. Her father promised he would take her out for ice cream if she passed the semester with straight A’s. She was beginning to wonder if he would ever come back and make good on that promise, but for now, her only concern was mastering algebra.
—
Jane subconsciously snapped her pencil in half when she saw Michael staring at Laura’s behind. How silly she had been to think that pen-dropping incident was their special moment. He could beg all he wanted; she wasn’t helping him cheat this time.
—
As always, the numbers sat there quietly and encouraged George like puzzle pieces falling into place under his pencil. They never bullied him, or yelled at each other in front of him, or got drunk and beat him until he cried. George realized then why he loved math so much: it was the only thing in his life that made any sense.
—
By the time the bell rang and Johnny handed in his test, only half the problems had answers, and he knew half of those were wrong. In the hallway, he whistled a merry tune as he crossed paths with the cute girl who was a year behind him. Maybe next year, he would finally get to sit next to her.
These pieces are based on What If? Exercise 97: “Nanofictions”. The exercise is to write five flash fiction pieces of three sentences each, which may or may not be connected by a common detail. The objective is to understand how to focus immediately on a troubled situation and learn how to identify the details of drama. I hope you enjoy what I’ve written. Thanks for reading!
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by Naomi L. | April 24, 2015 | Flash Fiction, J.C. Wolfe's Writing |
(What If? Exercise: Read the description here.)
She thought she was so special, that gringa. Everyone liked her. Everyone wanted to talk to her. Just because she came from America. So what? The girl couldn’t even speak a word of Portuguese! What was she doing in a seventh-grade classroom in Brazil? The whole first week she was here, she didn’t open her mouth once. Who wants to be friends with a girl like that?
She was useful for English class; I’ll give her that. She even kept a Portuguese-English dictionary in her desk at all times. I borrowed it more than once. She never offered it, though. She liked the popular girls better, I could tell. They were the ones who always talked to her and tried to teach her Portuguese. I went to school with these girls for years and they wouldn’t give me the time of day. This stranger was around for five minutes and somehow she deserved all their attention? Please. She wasn’t even as pretty as them. I bet they were just using her for help with English too.
One day, the Geography teacher made us work in groups of three. My friend and I got stuck with the American girl. I could see up close that she wasn’t so special as all that. I pointed out her flaws to my friend: that stupid ponytail, those dorky glasses, the silly way she’d tilt sideways when she wrote. I didn’t think she’d understand what I was saying anyway. Not until I saw the pitiful look in her eyes. She went home in tears. Crybaby.
My friend and I got in trouble the next day. Turns out the gringa had told her mom what happened, and her mom had talked to the principal. On top of everything else, the girl was a tattletale.
She thought she was so special, that gringa. But I knew what she really was: no better than me.
This story is based on What If? Exercise 66: “Bully”. The exercise is to write about a factual incident from the first-person perspective of someone who bullied you as a child. The objective is to practice writing a “villain” by taking over the persona of someone capable of brutality and making that character three-dimensional. I hope you enjoy what I’ve written. Thanks for reading!
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