Hello again everyone,
Here’s another example of fast fiction from my monthly writers group’s warming up exercises. For anyone interested in a full explanation, here’s a link.
A quick rundown of the rules:
Rule #1: These pieces of fast fiction were generated from a prompt chosen at random during one of my monthly writers group meetings. I will label that prompt at the top and where I use it in the prose.
Rule #2: WordPress allows me a ‘click here to read the rest of the story’ break, and that will be used before the fast fiction begins in earnest so people browsing through this blog are not overwhelmed.
Rule #3: The prose of the fast fiction shall be transcribed from my handwriting accurately: Line breaks, grammar, punctuation, spelling, what-have-you. The point of showing a 10- or 15-minute first draft is saying what you tried to do in that time, so what does editing really get me? The very rare changes I really do deem necessary shall be noted with an asterisk and an apologetic explanation at the end.
Rule #4: After the fast fiction I will include a few sentences about my first thoughts of the prompt. These entries are less about the actual prose and more about the exercise as a whole. Post-gaming that exercise will be a big part of the end result.
And that’s it. Here we go.
Prompt:
This month’s prompt was a picture of the clown Pennywise from the reboot of Stephen King’s It. The picture was a tight shot of the face and especially the yellow eyes. The above photo isn’t exactly right, but it is in the ballpark.
“I like it!” He purred.
“Yeah?” She asked.
“Yeah.”
“It’s not too much?” She asked.
“No. There’s no such thing as too much.” He assured her.
“Because I thought the coloured contact lenses might be too much?” She asked.
“Laverne, I asked for evil clown. You gave me urine-yellow eyes. This will scare the neighbour’s children to death. It’s unearthly. I love it!” He exclaimed.
“What did they do to you, anyway?” She asked.
“Oh, I don’t want to talk about it,” he said, playing coy.
“Oh, c’mon. I just spent two hours turning you into a scary clown. The very least you could do is tell me why.”
“Because you are practicing for your makeup course at clown college,” he deferred the question.
“Clown college doesn’t do scary clowns. I can’t submit a photo of this for credit. And those yellow contact lenses I bought myself.”
“Well, thank you. They complete the thing. Absolutely.”
“You really like it?”
“I do! I do.”
“Then tell me what they did to you.”
He admired himself in the mirror a moment longer, smiling to reveal partially blackened out teeth that seemed filed to a point. Laverne really had outdone herself.
“They wouldn’t help me unload groceries from my car,” he said.
“For that you’re going to scare the Bejezus out of them?” Laverne asked.
“They wouldn’t help me unload the groceries from my care because they know I’m Gay. They said some nasty words.”
“Because you’re Gay?”
“Yes!”
“Not because you asked the neighbours’ kids to help you unload groceries from your car?”
“Yes!”
“What did they say?”
“They called me a fag!” He exclaimed.
“If my neighbour asked me to help him unload his car when I was ten years old, I’d’ve called him a fag too!” Laverne said.
“Really?” He asked.
“Really.”
“You’re sure?”
“Oh yes.”
“So this wasn’t a hate crime?”
“Oh, no.”
“So I shouldn’t break into their house tonight and murder them?”
“What!? No!”
—
Note: So I don’t love this, but the prompt was a picture of a scary clown, and this is where my mind went. What if the neighbourhood kids were mean to someone who would absolutely take it too far? I also enjoyed the idea of doing the whole thing or almost the whole thing through dialogue. It was a little goofy and a little creepy and a little fun. I’ve done better. I’ve done worse.
Leave a Reply