An Execution

Gather together three or four ordinary people. Let them meet in a businesslike environment-- a conference room, a grade school class room after school hours, a hotel room. These three or four people are going to decide to put someone to death. They are not government officials, rogue CIA agents, Mafia lieutenants-- they're just plain folks. And the person they choose to executes is also a run-of-the-mill person just like them, except he is slated for death. Stay is this room. Don't follow through on the death sentence. Simply watch this group decide who needs to die and why. Choosing the victim is going to be hard. Keeping the group from simply going after someone who has angered them or cut them off in line or slept with a spouse - that is your problem. This group of executioners should know one another but not too terribly well. Don't tell us why or how they've been chosen to do this; just accept the situation and try to let them accept it too. POV - the executioners' , as well as the intended victim's in a sense - will matter a great deal. One POV will predominate. You probably want to tell us this scene from a dramatic perspective, allowing only spoken ideas to come out (don't show us the executioners' thoughts) 

700 WORDS

This exercise is based on the Donald Barthelme STORY "Some of Us Had Been Threatening our Friend Colby." The second sentence of the story is, "And now he'd gone too far, so we decided to hang him." The Barthelme story is not about murder but the moral (though comic) consequences of murder as relatively reasonable and sane people might see them in advance. Don't make this exercise about murder or a mob execution either. Treat the possibility that a few ordinary people could decide one day to kill one of their acquaintances honestly and plainly. Remove one layer of societal prohibition from the mix, but don't remove all prohibitions. This execution should still trouble these people.

The Ironist, "Smoke"

I suppose you want the whole story, right? A clean-cut beginning, middle, and end? A story, where the bad guys are bad and the good guys are good? A story where truthfulness and compassion win out over avarice and hatred? Do not expect much of that here. Evil owns all. Chaos reigns. End of story, goodnight.

It's true that without evil there can be no good. But what they don't tell you is that you don't need any good for evil to exist. Evil is fundamental in the core of man. Men are brought into this world kicking and screaming and that's the same way they go out. 

The best place to begin this story, aside from "In the beginning", would be on a Saturday, in a regular city, a little past lunchtime.

A loud explosion could be heard echoing down the streets and alleyways. For a time everyone sat in silence not sure why the ground shook, or why all the pigeons, rats, and any other city dwelling animals began to frantically fly, scurry, slither, or crawl out of their homes and into the streets. For a time all was silent. Then the screaming began. From the 'Cafe Diem' on Main Street, a quaint little coffee shop with the best croissants around, patrons could witness a flood of people surging down the street. Some missing limbs, some blinded from debris or blood in their eyes, one lady still clutching the severed arm of her child as she sprinted for safety, all screaming not one daring to look back.

Behind them a huge plume of white smoke and ash barreled down upon them, like a fat kid at a buffet, gobbling them all up. The slow were the first to go. Inside the cloud was total confusion. The cacophony of horror echoed off of the surrounding buildings and bounced back creating a terrible soundscape of suffering. A heroic few tried to help out amidst the clouds of confusion, to possibly help out some of the people lost in the dense haze of death. You know how they say not to swim towards a drowning person? Those gallant few who plunged into the maw to aid the injured got it the worst. The victims inside had become feral amongst the suffering. When given aid they lashed at their would be saviors and set upon them like rabid dogs hungry for a meal. Not one of the brave souls who set out to help was ever seen again... Unless you count the parts they didn't like.

Onlookers began to be puzzled by the smoke. It remained thick in the air advancing slower and slower but never stopping or dissipating. The screams of the fallen still issued out from the fog but were less frequent as the numbers of the suffering converted into the numbers of the dead. Still the cloud advanced through the city. Then a melody began to play from deep within. It was long and purposeful, remorseful and filled with the fondest memories that you have long since forgotten. As the tune grew in intensity the screams fell completely silent, as did the rest of the city. Everyone seemed to freeze to the spot as the tune brought about the most bittersweet memories in an instant. Slowly, the city began to lean into the song; Slowly, the first footsteps fell; Slowly the population began to advance into the smoke.  

The Ironist

Create an observer of events outside his or her direct experiences, someone who knows more than they let on, who jokes with us (the readers) but who also indirectly reveals a complex reading of the events they are describing. M.H. Abrams, in A Glossary of Literary Terms says "... in Greek comedy the character called the Eiron was a dissembler, who characteristically spoke in understatement and deliberately pretended to be less intelligent than he was." This will be a little like unreliable narrator, but there is a crucial difference that the unreliable narrator does not know he's unreliable. The dissembler or ironist or trickster is a wiseass, a clown perhaps, a teller of tall tales.

500 Words.

Feel free to be this trickster yourself, as the author. What's wrong with a writer interfering with his own fiction, playing around with details, offering suggestions for different endings, beginnings, or life changing moments? You may find this tactic useful, usually in rough drafts, to speak directly to the reader. The pleasure of these interruptions often masks the seriousness of their suggestions for you -- and you can say things to yourself that you may not initially notice about what you're writing. But don't feel hamstrung by the last bit of advice -- create any kind of ironist you want. They can be thrillingly unusual types to introduce to your fiction.

The Royal We, "Nagging Bitches"

           Saeta laughed. We were lost and hopelessly so. Nyckolai scowled as the reigns tightened causing the carriage to jerk to a halt. His eyes full of blame as he stared into the emptiness of the four walls. We were lost and to make matters worse, we were lost together.

           “I should have never listened to you, I knew you would find some way to ruin my day… you always do”, Nyckolai spat as he yelled from inside the carriage, placing the silk ribbon delicately inside his book and snapping it shut as he reached for the door. Saeta smirked as she heard him fidgeting with the door. He didn’t know that she had purposely blocked it and the idea of his growing frustration, tickled her gingerly.

           “Perhaps then you should have “driven”,” Saeta mocked, as she wiggled in her seat, hearing Nyckolai begin to bang on the door. Saeta’s snake like eyes glinting for the moment as she slid from the seat, hitting the ground with a squish, scowling as she ran her nails along the door. “Now now, such profanity, is that any way to talk..to your..dear..friend?” her tone was hard as she unlocked the latch watching him spill into the bog.

            “You’re a right dizzy cunt,” Nyckolai said, stating the more than obvious. “Why did we stop? Are we lost now …” he paused looking down at his pants and shoes now covered with mud, moss and visceral looking roots. “Great and we’re covered in forest.”  Nyckolai looked around, trying hard to figure out where we were. Through the trees he could make out nothing more than shadows and trees, abandoned and broken wavering in the wind.

            “Well what shall we do then?,” Saeta smirked as she walked around front, running her fingers along the slick leathery skin of the creature that was pulling them. Her eyes flashing in the moonlight, slitting as Nyckolai clicked a small light in his hand.

          “I guess we need to turn around, find an alternate route, or call it a day.” He snorted as he lifted himself up on the step of the carriage, kicking mud and muck everywhere as he tried to clear his shoes off, wiping at his pant leg with his kerchief.

            “We can’t head back now.” She hissed as she grabbed hold of the reigns, hopping back up into the seat. “We have come too far and are too close to call this quits. Beside, this is the party of the year and I demand on crashing it. Why else would we be in this predicament?” she scowled as she surveyed from uptop, clicking the reigns hard pushing the creature harder with each movement trying to get the carriage unstuck and around the deep sinkhole.

              “This isn’t the first we have missed and this is sure not to be the last, Saeta," Nyckolai said as the carriage broke free from its sticky disposition a small popping sound as the wheels peeled themselves from the mud. “Besides, we have better things we can be doing back home.”

            “Well at least Nyckolai does” she thought as she grumbled through gritted teeth, taking them off the path and slowly making their way backwards.

            Nyckolai didn’t respond to the loud ruckus Saeta was causing in her seat as they returned. He knew how badly she wished to have caused a scene at the party. But there will always be another grander party, we will look back on that night and realize that when we got home he was forced to regret every nagging decision he made that night from now till eternity.

Word Count: 600

The Royal We

So, I apologize to everyone who may care for the lack of updates but I had lost my book that I pull these exercises from. Buuut it does not look like anyone really missed it anyway. However, I have torn my room apart and emerged victorious. So I am picking up where we left off. Welcome back.

Write a first-person-plural narration of an event from the POV of a very close-knit couple. This means the narrative should sound something like this: We found the body in the outhouse, and Jenny got the can of gasoline from the garage while Benjamin removed all the toilet paper rolls stacked up on the door shelves (No sense wasting them). Jenny and Benjamin are the we at the beginning of this narrative. The reader should be unable to discern which of the two is telling the story. Do not use the first-person pronoun I in this exercise. 600 words.

If you accept the challenge you may learn what it's like to have two minds in the narration - an uncommon experience. I've known couples who write letters this way, no first person pronouns, just this wonderfully eerie we and the names of the individual units of the couple - the two will trade off writing one section or another and sometimes edit or add material to the other spouse's section. Science fiction plays with this all the time by means of telepathy or actual joining of telepathy or actual joining of consciousnesses. I contend that this is difficult to imagine but useful to do anyway. Narration tempered by two ways of seeing the world - a schizophrenic worldview - every rule of narration we know instinctively. A lot of our everyday language is a blend of many different voices and languages - we echo acquaintances , newspaper or television news fragments of thought, advertising, film, fiction, and poetry without knowing it - often all in one paragraph of speech.

Journalism, Confessions of a Procrastinator

Mon, Jan 17th

2:30 pm
I feel like death shat me out today. I felt mostly fine yesterday but as I was working yesterday I began to develop a cough that persisted til I left. On a lark I ran by the grocery store yesterday to grab some ginger ale and cough syrup. I got a good deal on the ginger ale, four for five dollars! For the win. So I went to bed marginally early and took some of that delicious NyQuil and passed right out. I woke up this morning with a horrible head cold and a bloody nose. So I had to call out of work and miss going to the movies tonight. I would work on this damn assignment but my head hurts too much to focus on a screen of any type.

--

6:30 pm
I can't even play video games. I sat and stared at the ceiling for the last three hours. Kill me. I am going to take some more the 'Quil and pass back out.

Tues, Jan 18th

11:15 am
So my cough has gotten a little better today. But not by much. I feel completely worn out. I woke up about seven times last night because my nose wouldn't stop bleeding. It got so bad that I just shoved tissue up my nose and went to sleep. I probably got close to swallowing that pint of blood that they talk about.

--

1:09 pm
Just threw up blood. Hit my pint mark. Woot.

--

3:00 pm
Feeling better. This humidifier is doing the trick.

--

6:00 pm
After a few more hours of sleep I feel like a million bucks. My cough is still here but it is not nearly as bad. I might even be able to go to work tomorrow.
Wed, Jan 19th

8:45 pm
I could have used another day of rest but I went to work anyway today because I could definitely use the scratch. Work went by quick enough atleast so I can't complain about that. I am pretty wiped out though. I am gonna go to bed early tonight even though I should start that writing assignment. Meh, It's ok, I still have the rest of the week to finish it.

Thurs, Jan 20th

9:30 pm
Work drug on so long today. I can not say how nuch it sucked. even though I got off relatively early I feel like it is midnight. AND I have to get up at 4:30 am tomorrow to get to work by 5 am. I hate morning shifts soo hard. I wont be able to get to that project tonight either. Oh well.

--

12:30 am
It is midnight and I still have not gone to sleep. Fuck me.


Fri, Jan 21st

2:20 pm
I could not get to sleep last night. That sucked soo bad. now I am almost falling over in my chair. I gotta take a nap so I  can be fresh to go to the club tonight. It is rave night in Baltimore! Should be fun, a good number of people said they were going to meet me up there so everything is looking up. And my cough has almost disappeared so that is awesome too.

--

3:30 am

Had an awesome time at the club, time to watch anime, eat chicken nuggets and chillax.
Sat, Jan 22nd
5:15 pm

I cannot think of anything to write. I have sat with writer's block for the last five hours gazing at all the internet has to offer and yet I can not think of anything to write.

--

7:45 pm

Lol, I just saw a cat get kicked at a TV while some guys was playing video games! Still no progress on the writing. I think that sickness has stolen my creative powers. DAMN YOU RHINOVIRUS! I do not even have any inspiration for drawing.

--

10:47 pm

I was in the kitchen looking for some chips or something and I saw a picture my little cousin had sent us. It was a basic drawing of her and her family but it touched me. I remembered drawing people little pictures for thank you cards. They all sucked but I was proud of them at the time and I thought it was a great exchange. I do not know if they kept any of them or anything but the thought was there. So now I am going to draw a picture for her I think that she will like it. I never had an adult give me a drawing in return for a drawing as a kid so I don't know how she will take it.

Sun, Jan 23rd

12:20 pm

Fuck, I didn't write anything all week. I better do something. maybe I can just B.S. this thing and do journal entries like I have been keeping a journal all week.

Journalism

Write a part of a story in the form of journal entries. Everything that happens in the story will most likely happen between the entries. Make sure your readers can see the events off stage, but also present your journalist’s blind spots – She will not present the whole story, just parts of it. Your journal writer may not even understand the significance of the events until a few entries later – if ever. Keep all entries close together in time (within a week or two). This exercise will challenge those who think there is no limit to realism: Make sure that the journal writer is telling a story – showing as often as telling, revealing things about herself. In other words, you have to work just as hard in this exercise to choose the words of this narrator. Writers will tend to think that this journalist can say anything and not look outside of herself Avoid completely self-absorbed narrators here – and everywhere. 700 words.

Mark Mirsky chastised the occasional writer in his workshops for indulging in journalism as opposed to fiction. (By this he meant writing found in journalism writing found in journalism or diaries – although he also intended us to hear the overlapping meaning of newspaper-written reality). Journalism accepts the world at face value. Fiction delves below the surface of reality, spending most of its time proving that there are many levels below the accepted surface.

Another (hidden) point of this exercise is to convince you to keep journals. Writers learn how to write by writing miles and miles of pages. Get some blank books and become a regular and tough-minded observer of the world around you. How else do you get practice writing fiction than by paying close attentions to what’s nearest at hand? 

The Unstableself, "Coming soon"

To fill in soon.

The unstable self "The voice"

Jack walked down the street pondering what to do next. His girlfriend had just called it quits after five long years of a mostly happy relationship. Obviously they had had their ups and downs but there were way more good times than bad. Filled with rejection and self loathing he had taken to the streets to clear his mind. Jack abruptly stopped.

--

I cannot believe she just 'decided' to break up with me. This is bullshit. Why would she do this to me? It was about that time, as I walked down the street, wrapped up in my thoughts that I first heard it.
"Jack walked down the street." At first I thought I was just hearing things so I dismissed it and went back to my dark thoughts but it didn't go away. I listened as it began talking about my break up and feelings. Hello? What the fuck is going on?  I looked around trying to find the source of the voice to no avail. "Confused, Jack looked around cautiously" I had entered a park and figured someone I knew was playing a trick on me with some kind of voice throwing device. The park appeared to be empty though. And who would be doing this anyway. Who would know about us breaking up? WHY DID SHE BREAK UP WITH ME?

--

Reminding himself of the breakup sent Jack into a bottomless hate spiral that made him momentarily forget about the voice that was dictating his movement. "I can still hear you, I just don't care right now."  Feeling like a used diaper and not wanting to continue on with this walk in the park for fear of running into some happy couple Jack sat on a nearby bench and put his head in his hands. He thought back on the last few months wondering if there was anything different that he could have done to change all this. Perhaps it was all just fate and it was inevitable.

--

Great now I am going crazy. This is not what I need right now. Her words still reverberated through my brain. "It's not you it me. I feel like we are growing apart and our lives are going in separate directions." What the hell does that crap mean anyway? I bet it was all a cop-out. She probably just wanted to go fuck somebody else. Why does this voice keep talking to me? And why does it talk about itself in the third person?

--

Jack ran down the street hoping to out run the mysterious voice but it followed him through the city. Jack did not want to deal with any of this today. First there was no milk, then he got dumped and now he was hearing voices. "That's it I am going to kill myself" He decided to kill himself. "That's what I just said." Jack caught a cab to the edge of town where the old dam still stood. The quarry had been drained a long time ago and now the remains served as a popular suicide spot. Jack climbed to the apex and looked over the edge.

--

Well, it seems like a cowards way out and most people will probably think I am emo for killing myself but I swear to God I will not listen to this for the rest of my life.

--

It was then that the voice spoke directly to Jack for the first time. "My child, rest easy. Take heart because this, like all other problems in life, will pass."

--

Wait, all this time God has been speaking to me? Why would you do that AND why do you talk about yourself in the third person?

--

Haven't you figured it out yet? God just likes fucking with you guys, its better than HBO. Also, God likes to talk about himself in the third person.

The Unstable Self

Write a story that alternates between the I and the he or she (or name of the narrator), making sure you don’t confuse the reader with the switches. You might also consider other ways of indicating stability –voices (in italics), commands. Or out of body perspectives. Why would this be useful or necessary? Imagine a situation where a character is under such stress that he cannot think straight – or perhaps she’s madly in love and doesn’t carte if she thinks in standard-issue thoughts. Josh Russel, the author on Yellow Jack, supplied the basic idea for this exercise. 500 words

I believe that attached third – person narration is the most accurate representation of how we think and live our lives, but many late – twentieth-century fiction writers came to distrust the third person, seeing it as the method of popular and genre fictions, which accepted the nineteenth-century notion of a stable fictional world and the suspension of disbelief. On the other hand, we rarely use the I in thoughts during everyday movements and activities. The first-person pronoun is provoked by others; it bursts out when you need to differentiate yourself from the surrounding world of other egos. Psychologists say that most people cannot remember new names on first hearing them because they’re replacing the stranger’s name in their minds with their own names as a defense mechanism.

The late Anatole Broyard wrote in The New York Times many years ago about a friend of his who had recently retired from psychoanalytic practice. The friend turned to reading novels because he missed “all the details of being and doing.” “Tell me,” Broyard said, “what do you miss most? What did your patients give you that fiction doesn’t?” His friend thought a while (and we should note Broyard’s implicit catty criticism of fiction – he was one of the regular reviewers of it for The New York Times) and said:

Most of all, I miss incongruity. A psychoanalyst, or at least this one, is constantly refreshed, even sustained by the gorgeous incongruities that people produce under stress. Such a wrench of perspective is a measure of our range, our suppleness. Occasionally a patient will go through the kind of abrupt self-transcendence that’s one of the glories of our species. Without transition, she’ll leap from the disgusting to the sublime, from the petty of mundane to the wildest shores of human sensibility.

My most common criticism of much contemporary traditional fiction is that it does not reflect these wrenches of perspective. Look for the musical sound of abrupt self-transcendence. Play with the idea that your football-playing character can move from relentlessly monotonous statements to a warbling and even girlish delight in his voice when he discovers the first violets peeping out on his mother’s backyard.

Unreliable Third, Pound

Pound

There Zane stood, looking dejected and alone at the bar, ignoring the music, pulsing and pounding through the air like a rocket attack into London Square circa 1944. So of course Klaus sidled up to him, approaching him as he did all things, crabwise and oblique, for fear of spooking Zane into leaving.

“Dude, put your phone away, you're out to forget about her, not make drunken texts in the middle of the night to a chick that didn't appreciate you anyways.”

“Of course you'd say that as you're always making drunk texts, but furthermore I lack a crucial prerequisite in making a drunken text, namely, being drunk.”

“Well, maybe we should fix that, y'know, loosen up a little, let your hair down, wash that sand out of your vag. I got the solution. Its perfect. Jagerbombs! Or maybe an A-10, c'mon man just relax!”

“I guess this round goes to you... along with the bill, and only, only if you get a water for yourself, you're going to hate yourself in the morning.”

“Psh, whatever man.” Klaus turned to the bartender and ordered 2 Jagerbombs apiece, just enough to get Zane a little drunk when his low tolerance was considered, and just enough to get Klaus himself approaching buzzed.

“To Beginnings! And Endings! And all that crap with everyone in between!”

Zane carefully, painstakingly even, downed his pair of shots as Klaus slammed his down the breech and into the barrel of his stomach.

“Cocked and loaded bro! I saw this chick eye-fucking you earlier, man, she was a sweet piece of ass, the bartender pointed her out to me. She's got a stellar fucking tramp stamp bro.”

“Uh-huh, and I'm sure she loves to be described like that.”

“Well you obviously need more shots.” Turning to the bartender Klaus put up two fingers and kinda twirled them, 4 more shots appeared and disappeared. “Follow me dude, trust me, you'll thank me in the morning.”

“Right, thats what I always do, I thank you for taking me to the sleaziest bar you know.”

“Nah man, this ain't the sleaziest, the chicks here have to leave their tops on, now c'mon, I need to introduce you to Cori. She's more your type than mine, but I'll take the hit and go for Ms. Tramp Stamp 20-11 while you waste your time.”

Dragged protesting through the crowd to an island Zane is introduced to two little petite blondes, one whose name he doesn't catch and Cori. “Not so bad” Zane thinks to himself, “She seems to be almost as disgusted with this place as I am.”

So they talk. Cori, is a 5' nothing, pretty despite her slight overbite, college junior into Politics, having an opinion, Star Wars, D&D 3.5, and most definitely not Nirvana. Zane thinks he's found paradise on earth, despite the provocative “dancing” of his friend Klaus that can be glimpsed through the crowd.

The night continues, Klaus and Ms. Tramp Stamp showing the club how this type of music got to be called “Pound”, while Zane and Cori begin a real connection. Drinks come and go, time comes and goes, and finally all 4 go home together back to Zane and Klaus' apartment.

Things happen there on the couch, again on the table, the kitchen floor, the bathroom, and then finally again in the bed. Followed by sleep. In the morning Zane wakes up in his 1 bedroom apartment, looks over at Cori snuggled up against him and asks “When did you get a tramp stamp?”

Decided to go for a hopefully more humorous and slightly less crazy take on this assignment. 607 words, counting the title. Out of curiosity, who do you relate better to?

Unreliable Third, One Night Out

This is it; this is the one, the cute little thing from downstairs. Today is the day. All I have to do is walk up to her and… the boy looks over the girl’s shoulder as she gets her mail.

I can’t do it.

He shoves his hands in his pockets and walks away.

She wouldn’t be interested in me anyway. I’m way too boring. We probably have nothing in common.

Wind whips at his face while he walks to the gym. The girl poking and prodding his subconscious like one of his guildies on a drunken rampage. All that he knows is that she lived on the floor below him and sometimes watches TV loud enough to hear it in the hall. Somewhere in that head full of Mountain Dew and Doritos he sees the perfect mate. Most people would just want to fuck her but all he wants to do is eat dinner with her and maybe show her the song he had been working on that week.

In a fit of what can best be described as frustration he takes to an elliptical machine ignoring the stares of passers by. After spending an hour avoiding mirrors and staring he goes to shower off the salt and stench. The clock in the locker room reads seven thirty; he has time to get some dinner before his raid.

There is always one hot chick working the register at the Taco Bell near the boy’s apartment. He waits in line with everyone else, but she is always boring a hold in his head. Once he saw her joking about him with one of her coworkers. She is nothing like the girl living a floor below him.

“Can I take your order?” the hot chick asks impatiently.

The boy looks at her for a minute, “Um… a number seven, chicken with soft taco, baja blast, cinnamon twists, and potato burrito.”

He checks his bag once he’s given his order, his order was filled correctly but they seemed to mix his order up with someone else’s because there is piece of paper with a phone number and girl’s name. The boy shrugs and heads back to his place to raid in peace.

As he walks past his angel’s apartment he can hear her watching Ruroni Kenshin through the door. The smile on his face disappears as he turns on his monitor, lays out his dinner, and clicks on the WoW icon. Normal friends would try to get their friends to stop such behavior labeling such friends as “shut ins” and forcing these people to go out for drinks or come over to watch movies. His friends aren’t normal; his friends are level 85 champions of the Horde.

One opens a chat window, “Dude, did you ask her out yet?”

“Nah, she’d never be into me,” he types while shoving a burrito in his pie-hole.

“You’re such a pussy. But seriously, all you have to do is ask her out.”

Nothing dropped from bosses in the raid as usual so our boy decides to go back to Taco Bell to mop up his tears in tasty grease. Hot chick is not at the register, she is replaced with douchey guy who sometimes works nights. The boy orders his food as per usual and walks to the pick up area where he notices the girl downstairs. The girl sees him and looks at her feet.

“Um, you live upstairs right?”

“Yeah, I, just wanted some food so…” his voice fades away.

“You wanna come over? We could eat and watch movies,” she sounds far away but is standing next to him.

“Really? You don’t think I’m disgusting?”

“For eating at Taco Bell every day? No, I think you’re pretty hot.”

Unreliable Third "This is only here till I can do better"

Claire slid her long fingers between the blinds, trying to peer out into the yard. The setting sun, setting at the right angle burned at her eyes. The bright light and warm glow from the sun made even going outside on a winter’s day a hassle. If only it would all go away. Sliding on her brown brimmed hat and and her obnoxiously fluorescent pink sunglasses, she raised her jacket’s hood over her face. She double-checked that the Flash paper, matches and playing cards were all together and slid them delicately into the pocket of her coat.

Finally, a break from monotony. Clair thought as she light her cigarette.

Claire started her walk to the hospital. The children's wing was letting the EMT volunteers come in and do small things for the children today. She was sure that her magic tricks would be a hit with the children. After all, what child didn’t enjoy the momentary escape of a magic trick or two.

Screams of laughter echoed down the halls. Claire ran down the hallway, quickly towards the sounds. She burst through the doors, just in time to see two nurses laughing as the children were brought into the room, clapping.

They look happy, Claire thought as she smiled, they’re cheering me on.

Claire took out her cards first, giving a small bow, she shuffled them amazingly. Walking up and down the isle, showing the kids, her amazing card tricks. Taking turns to allow small groups to witness her trick and ask questions. Quickly, she brought out her next trick. Claire gave the bright colored kerchief, hiding in her sleeve a quick pull. The kerchief line didn’t budge. She smiled, wearily for a moment before tugging harder. Claire tugged so hard, kerchiefs flew about the room, in an explosion of color. The children laughed. Claire scanned the crowd, with a sad smile. In the corner, the small brunette child in a white sweater dropped her cup to the ground, in a coughing fit. The rest of the children moved out of the way as Claire took a deep breath, and headed towards the girl. The child’s face fell as tears welled up in her eyes as her skin began to grow pale, her monitors, screaming. The children grew silent, as they tried to move out of the way, cowering under their covers, crying. Claire smiled moving on with the show, as she began to light pieces of flash paper in amazement, as she raised her wand in the air, a piercing pain took to her chest as the lights flickered to black.

Claire woke up in a strange room, the pain in her chest burning as she found her arms bound to her sides.

“Hello Claire, It’s good to see your awake.”

Claire looked at the doctor perplexed, she didn’t seem to recognise her.

“Do you know where you are?.” She said, Claire nodding a little. “Your in the ER. Do you know why you’re here?”

Claire thought back over her day. with a smile. “I was preforming magic.”

“No, Claire, I wish that was the case. You came into the children’s ward Christmas show. Unfortunately, you began to shut down, some of the children’s respirators and monitors. Others, you beat with your wand, before sitting down on an empty bed and setting the room on fire. When they tried to remove you, you began screaming and yelling and threatening more children. They had to take you down. Fortunately, no one died. Unfortunately, You’re going someplace where you can’t hurt anyone ever again. ”

Unreliable Third 'It happened'

It finally happened, Damn Zombies. Jake sighed as he put a bullet between the eyes of the last of his family members. It came just like he had always known it would. It came without television warnings. It came without police barricades and televisions warnings and looting; though there is always time for looting. He began to gather his family into the backyard for the burning. After the pile was completed he doused them with gasoline and tossed a match. There is nothing quite like the smell of burning flesh. All at once Jake new he was going to loose it and double over emptying his stomach onto the grass.

The morning had come like any other, Jake finally decided to get out of bed around ten o’clock and stumbled to the kitchen to find something to eat. He settled for some cereal and an orange. As he was eating he thought it was strange that none of his family was around, especially because it was a Saturday and no one had anything to do that he knew of. It was when he was finished his food and was loading the dishes that he heard it: A thumping coming from his sister’s room.  He crept up the stairs to investigate the mysterious noise. He knocked for courtesy and the thumping stopped. Michelle? I am coming in. He waited for some sort of acknowledgement. All was silent. Then she began to pound and scratch at the door. She sounded almost subhuman. He tried to open the door for fear that something was wrong but she was exerting a surprising amount of pressure against it for someone so small. He heard desperate, almost angry grunts and moans emitting from the room. Now worried Jake backed up and kicked the door like he had seen in the movies. The first kick seemed to have stunned the creature on the other side of the door, A second knocked the door off it’s hinges. He charged in to the room to see his sister falling back and stumbling over a laundry basket. She flailed about trying to right herself. She looked pissed. Jake, having grown up around 4 girls and being the middle child knew it was damage control time. IamsoosorryMichelle,Ithoughtsomethingwaswrong.IheardallthenoisesandeverythingandIgotworriedandIguessIkindaoverreactedbutcanyoureallyblamemeImea- It was then that Jake noticed his sister’s fingers. She had literally clawed them to the bone. He could see the nails peeled back on themselves, the small white nubs wrapped inside the flesh. She charged at him. With no door to slam in her face he sprinted down the hall to his parent’s room. They were still lying there in bed. He began to shake them to tell them the awful truth of the morning. His mom was the first to wake embracing him in a comforting hug.  Jake was glad to have the familiar touch but something was wrong she was hugging a bit too long, a bit too hard, a bit too restricting. Then she felt her hot breath on his neck, and heard that now familiar groan he broke away just before she was able to sink her teeth into his precious neck meats. His dad woke up with a yawn and she was on him in a second. Jake seized the opportunity to arm himself. He crawled under their bed to find the gun case and quickly loaded clip and slammed it home. He rose slowly and aimed, said a prayer and pulled the trigger click. Nothing happened. He then realized the safety was on. He disengaged the safety and fired. His dad began to rise and Jake was quick to fire again. The rest of the family was quick to go.

 Jake reflected on the morning’s events as he headed back inside from the fire. Suddenly there was a pounding on the front door. Cautiously he crept to the front door. He could see a police officer’s uniform through the glass.  The officer called in Sir, we have reports of gunfire in the house. We are coming in. The cops burst in and saw Jake bathed in blood and gun in hand. He was screaming about the zombie outbreak when they hauled him away. The neighbors gathered on the corner to watch the events. An old lady was quoted by saying: He used to be such a nice young man. 

Unreliable Third

Hey everyone, I hope you enjoyed your holiday and are making the most of this new year. We are diving right into it now - Break A Leg!

Write a fragment story from the POV of an unreliable narrator— third-person limited (or attached) narration. 600 words. 

This is a deliberate misuse of the more objective third-person narration. What makes a writer choose first person over third person anyway? Usually, an unreliable or naïve narration is spoken in the first-person of an untrustworthy narrator. What happens when you give us a slightly detached, yet still unreliable narration? We will hear the thoughts of this character and see what this character tells us to see.  Sindra smelled smoke, so she pulled the fire alarm. What if we find out later that Sindra had not smelled any smoke?

There is a famous early scene in Alfred Hitchcock’s Stage Fright – A story told by the main male character, who has hitched a ride out of London with the female lead. The two are strangers, but she senses he’s a good man on the run. He tells her the story of what he got caught up in and because she sympathizes with him – and she’s attracted to him—She believes him. The viewers of the film also believe the story, because Hitchcock lets us see this man’s story according to his telling in a visual flashback. The movie was controversial at the time: The man ends up being proved the murderer, not an innocent scapegoat, and audiences were unhappy they’d been duped by the early, visual lie they had seen rather than simply heard (if we’d only heard his version of this story, critics at the time contended, audiences – and the critics themselves—might not have felt so manipulated).

This exercise is going to be alarming and very difficult to pull off. You will irritate your readers, who do not want to be lied to like this, even by a fictional character. An unreliable first-person narration, once we get a little used to it, allows us to see around the edges of the unreliability. What truth of the situation we can gather from what the narrator is not telling us feels all the more plausible. In a third-person unreliable narration, your reader is going to believe a good deal more of the lies, as the film critics of Stage Fright did. See if you can present a deceptive character’s perceptions as what she believes or what she wants to believe, but which also have plausible alternative realities. A schizophrenic worldview is essentially unreliable, for example, if seen from an outsider’s vantage, but from inside is perfectly acceptable and real. But who can see inside a psychotic’s mind? Does this exercise try to get you to create a story that makes the reader ‘hear’ a false story or ‘shows’ the reader a false story? Both. As the writer you’ll have to both believe the lie and show it to be a lie – The trick of all good fiction, in the end.

The Imperative "Why does your smile look so fake?"

Keep smiling. Just keep smiling. Try to walk straight. Try to keep your chin up and your back straight. But most important, just keep smiling.
Step forward. Step. Step. Step. Twirl to the left. Twirl to the right. Pirouette. Don't forget to spot. Back straight. Arms firm but relaxed. Keep smiling!
Breathe in and out. Breath out and in. Steady yourself. Be confident. Don't let that sinking feeling in your stomach take hold. Remember the months of practice. Remember to breathe. And just keep smiling.
Chassé back. Back. Back. Back. Bras Bas. Keep your back straight. Don't slouch. Chin up. Don't stare. Don't move. Don't forget to breathe. And whatever else, just keep smiling.
Be sure of yourself. Don't hesitate. Remain confident. Don't watch the others for your signals. Own the stage. Move, really move! And smile, smile, smile!
Plié. Plié. Grand plié. Relevé and arabesque. Hold it. Hold it. Breathe and échappé sauté. Move full and sure. Keep that smile on!
Don't hold back. Breathe in and out. Do not stare at your feet. Let your feet follow the beat. Don't bring attention to the girl who slipped. Focus on yourself. Don't forget that smile!
Pas jetés. Pas jetés. Keep those arms up! Back straight. End in fifth. Hold. Hold. Don't falter. Don't stare at that girl who faltered. Just keep smiling!
Remember what Madame always says: “Stay steady. Stay sure.” Don't disappoint them. Let the practice pay off. Remember your posture. Feel the music. When all else fails, keep smiling.
Coupé. Coupé. Passé. Step and leap. Step and leap. Chassé. Chassé. Jeté entrelacé. Watch your step! Arabesque and fondue. Hold that. Don't forget your smile!
Don't stare when the lights come your way. Don't let those flickers of light on your vision get in the way. Ignore the need to be ill. Keep your head up. Smile!
Pas de bourrée couru. Keep your pace. Finish in effacée. Hold those arms and glissade. Keep your movements fluid. Keep flowing smooth. But above all else, smile!
Exude that confidence. Fake it if you must. Don't let them see how nervous you might actually be. Be bold with every movement. Don't forget the smile!
Entrechat deux. Entrechat quatre. Entrechat deux. Entrechat quatre. End in third. Plié then arabesque penchée. Hold that. Don't fall. Remember to smile.
Keep holding. Keep breathing. Don't fall. Remember that this eternity will end. Don't pay attention to the sweat. Don't let the audience see how hard this is. Make it look easy. Make it look natural. Don't gasp when the lights go down. Be silent as you fall in line. Hold hands delicately. Don't squeeze too tight. Ignore her clammy palms. Feet steady. Back straight. Eyes forward. Put the smile back on before the lights come back on.
Bow before the cheering crowd. Don't let the thunderous applause overwhelm you. Recover and bow again. Hold the contents of your stomach long enough to get off stage. Keep smiling!

Let go and love the moment. Fade to black. Open your eyes and wake up. Don't let the dream get to you. Ignore the ache in your jaws.

Imperative, Good morning failure

Wake up Nyckolai!
I said wake up, Nyckolai!
Look at your life. Look where it has lead you.
Look at this meaningless depiction of happiness.
Head against the wall now, Nyckolai. Spread your arms. Wider.
Feel the cold smooth metal in my hands pressed hard against your head.
Feel the engravings etched on its side, as I run it across your cheek.
Stop crying.
You wanted this.
Hand me your wallet.
Know that I've be watching you. Every move you make, every person you’ve slept with.
I know you, where you go, what you eat. I even know your three weeks, six days, and five hours behind in rent.

Can you Remember two days ago? Remember waking up sure about everything. Tell yourself that life no longer hurts, that you were finally happy. Get up, Get up now from that camping cot of a bed. Walk to the closet, reach for that shoe box buried deep in the back. Pull out the gun. Remember running you fingers across the engravings etched on its side. The feel of the cold smooth metal. Remember putting it in you mouth. Remember the taste.

Shut up. Turn around. Open your mouth.
I said Remember the taste!
Think of all the things that ran through your mind that justified you, and likewise me, into pulling this trigger.

Remember you want this. Need it. Crave it. Begged for it.
Stop crying now. Beg for the solution to all of your problems and faults.
On your knees, now!, hurry there isn’t much time
Beg me, no us, to end it and do what you couldn't alone.
On the floor. Put your head against the carpet. Prepare yourself to die. No better than an dog in a back alley way of this run down decrepit apartment.
Stop crying. Remember you asked for this while seated on your bed, contemplating redecorating your room with bits of you. Try to pull the trigger. Unlock the safety.

Chicken out.
Remember chickening out.
Remember what caused you to stop. Take that tear soaked barrel out of your mouth, and say "I'll do it tomorrow."
Your worthless, you always say “I’ll do it tomorrow.”

Recall yesterday where the same thing happened. Think about this morning. Understand that I am just here to help you with something you can't do by yourself.
Stop blubbering. Don't make a scene. Ask me to end it now.
Stop it Nyckolai.. Stop craving life when death is just a nod away. Don't realize that all your problems are fixable and that there is still so much for you to enjoy. Take the easy out that I offer. The one you begged so much for.

Fine, put your gun away.
Remember that it's only going to get harder. Make your own enjoyment out of it.
Take your wallet. Use the money I put in there to pay off your debt. Go shower. Go to sleep. Wake up and enjoy your morning. Eat a balanced breakfast, call your current flavor, go to work. Work at bettering yourself. Try to Live life to its fullest.
Call me what you will, next time, this is all on you..