Sunday's Surprise: Open the Envelope (m)
Find a Conversation
Sunday's Surprise: Open the Envelope (m)
| Sun, 02-24-2002 - 12:22pm |
Sunday's Surprise: Open the Envelope (m)
What was the last song you heard on the radio? Use a lyric from that song as the beginning sentence of your short story. Any subject, any word limit.
Happy writing,
Mac

Pages
WTG.....~~>
a job well done. I think you have a great start where are you planning to gowith it. You charaters are great!
Jade
Have a mystical day,
Jade
Please Pray and Support O
WOW! Thank You!
Just the kind of feedback I like to get!! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
I couldn't agree with you more about the song problem. It sounds so contrived. I used this last summer for an exercize here and picked it up again recently. Then cheated a little again on this exercize. I've played with it a lot trying the get the song woven into it where it doesn't sound forced or contrived but I just can't do it. I think I'm eventually going to have to drop that part and rewrite the beginning and end.
(She saw clearly, not for the first time, she drove him to it with her lies, deceit, and obsession. This was her world; a world of her own making. *** That she drove him to what? What did she lie about? And what was she obsessed with?***)
She's guilt ridden and feels she drove him to the murder. The lies and deceit was her telling him she was on the pill when she wasn't. She was obsessed with him and fooled herself into believing that he would give up his world: wife, career, social status, etc... to marry her.
Oops, you caught the mill worker/mahogony colored arms mistake. I've been debating this and forgot to take her race out of this rewrite. This is based upon an actual case (the lawyer being the father is fiction) but in the real case the girl was black. I decided to change that and make it a social class issue rather than race but I forgot to take out the mahogony colored arms.
As for my plans for the story: finish it. I just can't get it out of my head. It may take me another six months to do it but I feel like I've got to finish it.
I can't tell you how much I apprecitate your feedback on this. Thank you.
Patty
Thank You Jade (m)
I just hope to finish it. It still needs quite a bit more work but I'm glad you like it.
Patty
About social class...
You're welcome, Patty. I'm glad I could provide more useful critique comments this time around.
About social class... If this story is set in present times, I'm not sure how to weave social class into the main theme of the story. When a person goes to university, does their social class really come into it, do they really spend much time thinking about it? How does the social class of their background really matter in their futures?
Where I'm coming from: I went to university with people from all over. Mill workers' kids, mine workers' kids, farmers' kids, teachers' kids, doctors' kids, kids with one parent. Not much was made of social class at all. Some kids were on scholarship, some on government loans, some paying or work-paying their way through. No biggie. When they finished university, some kids have student loans, some don't. Some move back in with parents, some don't.
Back to your story, did Sloane daydream that she would be swept up by Frank and carried into a more luxurious life than she would otherwise have from simply working through university and law school and getting an articling position at a law firm? I think she's bright to be where she is, as a pre-law student, and that she was on her way to making her own "success".
Why was she motivated to take the blame for Frank killing the baby? (Wasn't that in a previous version of your story? That he wrapped the cord around the infant's neck?) Was he threatening her somehow? Blackmail? You'd think if your lover killed your baby you'd be furious that your baby was dead and that your baby was not guaranteeing your dream of hooking up with the dream man. You'd find yourself a lawyer to make that man pay.
Eyewrite
A Happy Ending (m)
What a heart warming story! Your story gave me a warm fuzzy feeling all over.
Patty
Jambalaya
I actually posted this story on the writing exercise board last month, but it seems to go with this weeks theme, so I thought I'd post it here.
*****************************
“Me-oh-my-oh, me gotta go la la la la down the bayou,”
Sara whirled around the kitchen, washrag in hand. It was her turn to clean up, and she found that blasting some of her favorite music made the work go faster.
“Jambalay, crawfish pie, da da gumbo,” she belted out. Maria and Craig were at class, Ann had said something about her tarot card group, and Joe was working out at the rec building. She preferred to listen to Queen Ida when her roommates were out, because as soon as the strains of the zydeco music began, they started groaning, “Not more of the country crap!”
She’d never been much of a country fan herself, until she heard one of Queen Ida’s songs played on the university radio station. She couldn’t help herself – just hearing the music made her feet start moving. It rocked!
“Son of a gun, we gonna have big fun, on the bayou.” She swung her head from side to side, long hair flying, feeling the music in her belly. Her friends always said the best way to bring Sara out of her shell was to set her loose on a dance floor.
She dropped the rag on the counter and plucked the broom from the corner, dancing around the kitchen with it as if it was a guy. As if it was Joe.
Sara, Maria, Craig and Ann had all lived on the same floor in the dorm, and when it came time to move out, had decided to rent a house together. Ann had asked if her cousin Joe could join the group. He was transferring from an out-of-state college so he could be closer to home, and didn’t know many people at the University of Michigan.
He had been the last one to arrive on moving day. They had been in the living room, hooking up Craig’s TV and VCR when Joe had opened up the front door and walked in. His deep blue eyes and black hair made such an arresting combination, Sara had found herself staring. Ann had run to him and thrown her arms around him, then introduced him to her friends. When he’d looked into Sara’s eyes and smiled, she felt woozy.
It wasn’t just his looks that made her develop a hopeless crush on him, though. It was the way he always made a fresh pot of coffee when he took the last cup. How he had stopped in a drugstore on the way home from class to buy Ann a Hershey’s with Almonds candy bar, because she had mentioned the night before that it was her favorite.
Naturally, as soon as he appeared on the campus scene he’d been snapped up. First it had been an icy sorority girl, then the editor of the school paper, who had recently dumped him because he had the nerve to want to spend time with her when she’d rather be working. Now there were only three weeks left before finals, then they’d all be going home for the summer.
“Settle down, far from town, da da de do!”
Sara wished… but no, they’d all signed a lease already for the next year, and dating your roommate was a bad, bad idea. Besides, the two girls he’d dated this year were just the sort that always stole her boyfriends away. She couldn’t bear to get together with Joe, then lose him to the one of the cold, sophisticated girls he seemed to like. And to be perfectly honest, though they got along great and even flirted occasionally, he’d never given an indication that he was interested in her. She sighed heavily. Well, she could still dream.
Sara threw her hands up in the air, snapping her fingers, shaking her hips, and stomping her right foot as she sang her own words to the song.
“Joey Joe, Joey Joe, you’re a cutie, I would love to get my hands on your bootie!”
She spun to find Joe leaning against the doorway, with a wicked grin on his face.
“Hi,” he shouted above the music.
Shutting off the cd player was a perfect excuse for Sara to hide her crimson face.
“Hi,” she said. “How was your workout?”
“I couldn’t get the machine I wanted, so I left early.” He walked to the refrigerator and pulled out a half-empty bottle of Riptide Rush Gatorade.
“Oh, umm, that’s too bad.”
Joe tilted his head back and guzzled his drink down. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and lobbed the empty bottle into the trashcan.
“Yeah, well…” he shrugged.
He turned to leave the room, then turned back saying, “Sara?”
“Yes?” she replied, wishing he would just leave so she could die of embarrassment in peace.
“The feeling’s mutual.” He winked, then walked out of the room.
************************************
I like it, but I'm afraid it's a little boring. I thought of spicing it up by saying Joe had gotten drunk after his first girlfriend broke up with him, and Sara was trying to console him, they kissed, and then he didn't remember it the next day, but I thought that might ruin the character's "nice guy" image (even though nice college guys get drunk all the time). What do you think?
Good story!(m)
I liked the details in the story, like her specific injuries, and thought you did a good job with the dialogue.
One thing you might want to watch is switching between past tense ( The song blared on the radio as I turned off the interstate) and present tense (The radio goes to static as I cross through that long barren stretch of Wyoming).
Overall, it's a good story, and I love a happy ending!
Oh My!!!.....
Well boy, that sure sounded like me! I listen to that song every time I clean along with some other fast beat country like, I think its called Saturday Night, about a lady who goes out dancing with a band from Lousiana. Any ways it seems to make the cleaning chore go by faster!
You did a wonderful Job with your descriptions and your characters. I loved it!
WTG
Jade
Have a mystical day,
Jade
Please Pray and Support O
Love it!...
Hi Shmoopy2,
I read this when you posted it on the writing exercise board and I loved it. I love Sara making up the words, or inserting la la or de da in the phrases when she doesn't know the words, I love her whipping her hips and stomping to the music. I love it just how it is, I don't find it boring. Don't think you need to add the getting-drunk-oops-kiss-don't-remember part.
“Son of a gun, we gonna have big fun, on the bayou.â€
Still chuckling, Eyewrite
Thanks! (m)
The social thing is not important from Sloane's perspective, but it is Frank's. I do see your point, I suppose some areas are not as class conscious as others. May have to go back to the origional plan.
I don't think Sloane cares about the social thing. I think she's simply in love (or obsessed) with Frank and she's willing to get him even if it means trapping him (pregnancy). I see him as a potential mentor. Maybe I'll have her work part time in his law office and show the relationship that led to the horrible event in the dorm room.
I'm not so sure balckmail would work in this case; if anyone had anything to blackmail someone with it would have to be Sloane. Frank was a murderer and she could expose him. Instead, she's guilt ridden. She has taken rsponsibility for the crime (legally and morally) because she feels it's her fault. She purposly got pregnant hoping he'd give up his life for her.
You have given me a lot more to think about and some new ideas. Thanks a lot!
Patty
Pages