Challenge 179

Imaginary Cities
Describe a city that doesn't exist. Concentrate on the food, or the houses, or the organization of the streets, the hand gestures that are somehow related to the geography of the place.

Word count: 500 (+/- 10%)

Challenge 111

Use a house in a story fragment. Think about the power of rooms (kitchens, basements, unfinished attics, walk-in closets) on psychology and conversation. In this fragment, make the house a unique, though passive, participant in the unfolding efvents.

Wordcount: 500 (+/- 10%)

Challenge 23

The Closet

Write a story in which the narrator is snooping around an ex-boyfriend (or Girlfriend's) apartment because he or she still has a key. They whole story takes place in a closet in the bedroom that the narrator retreats to when said ex comes home with the narrator's best briend. The narrator must endure whatever this couple gets up to. Describe only what the narrator can see and smell inside the closet and what he/she can hear or guess is going on outside. Don't rub salt in the wounds, but rather focus on as much detail as possible of the outside world. You can present the narrators deep anger or sadness without having to describe it.

Wordcount: 500 (+/- 10%)

Challenge 20

Colors

Write an exercise in which you repeatedly use two different primary colors. Describe these colors without naming them too often - and try to find effective synonyms for the colors without being too obvious about this disguise. Repetition of anything alien to the human elements of a story is bound to influence the way the story sinks into the readers mind. How would red and yellow, appearing over and over again in drapes, carpets, clothes, hand-made ashtrays, or toilet bowls, affect you as a reader? If you know anything about the meaning or symbolism of colors, choose your pair of hues well to play off emotions against each other (red for anger; blue for passivity). Apply this exercise to a situation with which you're already frustrated.

Wordcount: 500 (+/- 10%)

Challenge 18

TV

Write a short interior scene during which a TV is on. Let the words and images on the screen interact interestingly with the activity going on in the room. Your characters can be watching the TV, or it can be background noise. Choose your TV show carefully to reflect an interesting aspect of the human situation you're also describing. You might do some research, taking notes with the TV on. Think about the kind of people who have a TV on all the time and don't seem to know about the mute button. Maybe you could play with the notion of TV reality interfering with your characters' reality.

Wordcount: 500 (+/- 10%)

Challenge 10

The Ironist

Create an observer of events outside his/her own experience, someone who knows more than she lets on, who jokes with us (the readers) but who also indirectly reveals a complex reading of the events she is describing. In Greek comedy, the character eiron was a dissembler, who spoke in understatement and pretended to be less intelligent than he was. This will be like the unreliable narrator, except that this character is aware they are telling 'tall tales'.

Wordcount: 500 (+/- 10%)

Challenge 8

Third to First

Rewrite a part of an old story of your that was originally in the third person in first person (or vice versa). When you're making this change, count the number of hes or shes (or Is) in the original piece. Reduce the number by half in the rewrite. Use a relatively small section of a story or novel.

Wordcount: 500 (+/- 10%)

Challenge 4

The Unstable Self

Write a story that alternated between the I and the he/she (or narrator name), making sure you don't confuse the reader with the switches. You might also consider other ways of indicating instability - voices (in italics), commands, or out-of-body perpectives. Perhaps a situation where a person is under such stress they cannot think straight?

Wordcount: 500 (+/- 10%)

Do your best with this one - I am looking forward to seeing what you can come up with.
Good luck participants.

Challenge 3

Unreliable Third

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

Wordcount: 500 (+/- 10%)

Notes:
Usually, an unreliable narration is spoken in first person, so what happens when you give us a slightly detached, yet still unreliable narration? (Think Hitchock's movie Stage Fright) In third person unreliable narration, the readers will believe more of the lies, so see if you can present a deceptive character's perceptions as what he/she believes or wants to believe. You have to both believe the lie and show it to be a lie.

Confused? Good, now show me what you can do!

Good luck.

P.S. Add any bonus challenges in the comments section.

Challenge 2

Imperative

Write a fragment of a story that is made up entirely of imperative commands, e.g. "Do this; do that; contemplate the rear end of the woman who is walking out of your life." This exercise will be a sort of second-person narration.

Wordcount: 500 (+/- 10%)

Ideas for the bonus challenges? Post them in the comments section below. Challenge closes 22nd Jan 2010.

Good luck!