55 Fiction stories are really short stories that take a lot of thought and editing to make them only 55 words long.
1st Story:
Sun, walk, walk walk, tall grass, a deep creek. Cast, drift, tug, tug, tug. Again. Again. Again. Thump! “FISH ON!” I holler. Yes! The thrill that breaks the peace. Whoa, it’s big! Adrenaline rushing. “Dad!” As I counter the heftiness he jumps in and grabs it. “It’s huge, Kate!” Then…slack line. “Kate!” It’s gone. 2nd Story: “Yuck!” Sarah turned, her hand and hair draped in sticky thick web. Then I saw it. “SPIDER!” As big as a dinner plate! Clothes flew, feet ran, I heaved. Layer after layer clothing came off until finally the spider hit the ground and lurched away. We were scattered on the trail breathless, dumbfounded, and scared. |
1st Story Commentary:
This first story is my official post for the assignment. When I first read about the assignment I got a little excited. I work on writing with my 3rd graders so I thought this would be a fun exercise. I am hoping realistic fiction is Ok because that’s how I teach my students to write engaging and meaningful stories. I ran through stories I’ve been telling my friends we recently met up with in Ubud, Bali. I knew I’d have to pick something really narrow so I chose a couple topics that have had intense moments in my life, fishing, running a marathon, hiking, having babies. Fishing seemed like a good one because catching a fish can be a flit of a moment in your life and I’ve had several experiences that would work well written as a realistic fiction story. I started out wanting to describe everything in detail. Then I realized in three sentences I was already at 44 words and nowhere near the meat of the story. It’s hard to say it all without sounding choppy. It got it to 72 words with everything I wanted to say. When I read back through it I decide to add a speaker tag but that puts me at 56 words. Ugg, but finally the juices got flowing and I got things to line up nicely in exactly 55 words. Yay! This sparked another quick intense memory turned realistic fiction 2nd Story Commentary: This second story came from a hike my friends and I did in Taiwan. In South East Asia there are these huge spiders called banana spiders. They have extremely thick webs and you can see them in the mango trees outside my bedroom window. We saw some on a hike and had nightmares the night afterwards. This second story came easier after knowing how long the first one was and getting a feel for the length. This is fun. I'd like to try it with my students. |