Stalking and Stories

We started off the morning trying to capture extraordinary writing by looking at ordinary items. We walked through the building and into a campus common area keeping an eye out for ordinary items that could spark a story. Students examined bird's nests, shrubs, pavement cracks and even rocks to inspire writing.

As campus life started stirring, we sat in hallways and inconspicuously tried to grab snippets of conversation as folks passed by. Spoiler alert: we may need to work on being inconspicuous. ;)

Back in the classroom, we explored flash fiction using the prompts below. Most came from various lists found online. Some were adapted from NPR's Three-Minute Fiction series. Prompt six was developed from Liz Prather's post on her blog, Teach Like Everyone is Listening. The writers captured some great fiction while playing with these prompts.

1. Write a story in the form of a voice mail message.
2. Write a story in which one character is leaving town, while another is arriving.
3. Write a story in which a character finds an object that he or she has no intention of returning.
4. Write a story that starts with “Turn around.”
5. Write a story that takes place in one hour.
6. Write a story that includes two people attempting to do something together, but they get stopped and each person wants something different than the other.
7. Write a story that begins and end with a bicycle.
8. Write a story in which two people are waiting for an announcement.
9. Write a story in which a certain color causes conflict between two people.
10. Write a story in which a celebration is in the wrong place.

After lunch the students explored ways to digitally publish their stories on StoryboardThat, StoryBird, and PicLit. These digital writing spots are great to not only finalize your writing, but they can also be places to generate and start telling stories. They are all free sites that don't necessarily require memberships. 

If you have a writer struggling to tell a story or create, give them a StoryboardThat template, and watch them go! There is just something natural and nonthreatening about having access to a ton of images, backgrounds and characters (all with the ability to customize) that takes away common hesitations to create stories. In this comic/graphic storytelling mode, the writers carefully and instinctively play with point of view, mood, dialogue and characterization. I have witnessed so many young writers (males and females) thrive using this storytelling mode.

A Storyboard created by Lucas.