Writing fiction is part of the broader human tradition of storytelling, of making things up, and of believing in things that do not, or do not yet, exist. As far as we can tell human beings have always told each other stories. We have always had the ability to tell and to listen, to conjure characters and narratives, to pretend, even for a little while, that things are different to the way that they actually are.
Telling stories and listening to them may actually be a crucial evolutionary advantage, helping humans to survive bleak times by allowing us to imagine different and better worlds. We make things up and we engage in believing in the made-up in order not to have to put up with an often painful or at least humdrum reality. To put it another way, storytelling, religion, and politics all come from the same basic human drive to imagine, and our concomitant need to believe.
Because we are human then, any one of us can make up a story if we put our minds to it and we tap in to our naturally evolved creativity. ?We find it easy to make things up and to believe in what other people make up. We find it easy to lie. And lies are very fertile. One lie leads to another, very quickly. We need a second lie to cover the first one, and then a third one to cover the second, and so on?,
Imagine a father investigating his seven-year-old daughter on the matter of a missing biscuit:
Did you take the last biscuit?
No!
Well, who did then?
The green monster?
Which green monster?
The one that lives in the biscuit tin.
How come I never seen him.
He doesn?t like you so he disappears?.
Or, imagine a woman who is trying to hide an affair from her husband:
How come you didn?t answer your phone?
I was in the gym and I left it in the locker by mistake.
Oh?did you see Marty, he said he was in the gym all morning?.
I saw him but I don?t think he saw me.
Why, did he have a blindfold on? It?s a pretty small gym in fairness.
No, I wasn?t there that long and when I saw him he was busy talking to someone.
To who?
I dunno, some blonde I think?
Note that some lies are more believable than others. But even the most outlandish fantasies have some basis in reality. The listener or the reader has to have some familiar starting point from which to enter the imaginative world of the story. As soon as you get the reader on board for the story-trip, however, you can take them wherever you want.
So, fiction is a hybrid of truth and lies. Angels are people plus birds. Lewis Carroll based his wonderland Alice on his own daughter.
Reality, in as much as we are humanly able to perceive, record or comprehend it, is our raw material for our storytelling. During the writing process we use our imagination to transform the raw material of our experience into fiction.
So the answer to the question ?Where do writers get their material from?? is straightforward. We get our ideas from the world around us. We observe and we consider what happens to us and we change it in our imaginations into stories, songs, and poems. We start from the ground of experience and we wing our way up to the fictional clouds.
This month?s writing prompt encourages us to seek out writing material in the real world, and to mix it with lies of our own invention to make fiction.
THE PARTY
Write a short fiction, lyric, or poem of? maximum 700 words on the theme of The Party.
This most be based on a real party that you or someone else has been to, but the details must be fictionalised.
Make sure to change all the names and the locations.
One way to get a party story going would be to ask a friend to tell you all about the last party they went to (it could be a wedding, A wake, a book launch?).
Ask your friend as many questions as you can think of about the party.
Take down all the details.
Then go back to your writing space and rewrite your friend?s story in the first person, as if it had happened to you.
So if your friend charlotte said she met her ex at a greyhound race meeting, you write down I met my ex at the greyhounds, and so on.
Add at least three lies to the story as you are going along.
It is best to start lying early on in the story.? Maybe tell a lie in the second line of the story, or the second paragraph of the story at the latest. If you find this difficult, and people often do at first, play the opposites game. If the party you or your friend went to was indoors in winter, put it outside in summer instead. If the party was a very sober affair, make it a very drunk one instead. And take it from there.
Write as much as you want, and then go back over it a couple of times to tidy it up and cut it down or bulk it up to somewhere around 700 words.
Congratulations on writing a story.
NEW PLANET CABARET: CREATIVITY FOR EVERYONE
These writing prompts are for everyone who wants to take part. You don?t need to want to be a published writer to get a benefit from exploring your creative side.
In fact, in my experience, people who focus on exploring and enjoying their creativity can have a much more positive experience than those who enter on the often frustrating and always challenging path?of trying to become a professional writer.
However, if you do want to submit your work to arena for possible broadcast, and for possible publication in our RTE/New Island Press anthology there are a couple of additional things you need to keep in mind.
- We want work that will come across well on the air and in on the page. It must speak in an interesting and novel way to Arena?s broad and intelligent audience. Be original. Avoid cliche. Pay attention to the medium you are writing in and the audience you are writing for.
- Think about the title of the project: NEW PLANET CABARET. NEW means work that is alive to and interested in the novelty of the present moment and in the way the world is changing around us. PLANET means we are seeking work that speaks to us from all over the world, work from and about our diaspora, work from and about our own many immigrant communities, work from and about those who have traveled and journeyed. CABARET means we are looking for work in a variety of styles and voices, and also work that is both sophisticated and well communicated, both experimental and populist- writing that is serious entertainment.
- Email your entry with the heading CREATIVE WRITING to arena@rte.ie. All entries will be read and considered, but only those people whose work has been chosen for broadcast will be contacted. No other correspondence will be entered on and canvassing of any kind will disqualify.
- Listen in to RTE ARENA at 7.30 pm on Tuesday the 1st of January to hear some or the selected work, and more discussion about creativity, and January?s writing prompt.
Lastly, here?s a lit of some great party-connected creation to help get your imagination going:
PAINTINGS
The Last Supper, Leonardo Da Vinci
?
Luncheon of the Boating Party by Pierre Auguste Renoir
?
Gustave?Courbet, Burial at Ornan?s
?
Discussing The Divine Comedy With Dante??Dai Dudu, Li Tiezi and Zhang An?
?
Jack B Yeats, Above the Fair
?
LITERATURE
?
On the Road. Jack Kerouac
?
First Party at?Ken Kesey?s with Hell?s Angels. Allen Ginsberg.
?
Children?s Party by Ogden Nash
?
For Grace, After a party, by Frank O Hara
?
Harold Pinter, The Birthday Party
?
Johnathan Swift???The Description of an Irish Feast
?
?
FILM
?
Dazed and confused
?
Festen
?
24 hour party people
Source: http://davelordanwriter.com/2012/12/05/the-party-decembers-writing-prompt-fpr-new-planet-cabaret/
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