Category: Writing Forum

After a few false starts I came up with the page below. Not perfect, but it got me interested in the voice and the story. So who knows? Maybe I’ll turn it into something one day. What did you write? Paste excerpt or link below!

Let me tell right off that what you know about werewolves is probably crap. We don’t howl at the moon—not involuntary anyway. There’s actually a family story that goes with this. And, according to my mom, the reason werewolves bay at the moon at all has to do with my great-great-grandfather Charlie (of course, he’s on mom’s side of the family; anything good is because of her side of the family). It’s a long and boring story and I might share it later, but if not, consider yourself lucky. Anyway, right, so we don’t howl at the moon. We don’t eat the heads of live chickens either. First of all, that’s just disgusting. I mean have you SEEN a chicken whose head gets chopped off? It has to be done just right or the poor thing flaps around all headless and bloody and gross. And second, why tear into live chickens and choke on those feathers and intestines when you can eat ones from the supermarket that have been cleaned and and degutted? Cooked is my preference, but if you like them clean but raw like my brother Jeffrey, knock yourself out. So how did that rumor even get started? According to my mom, the fault lies with Stella, my great-great-grandmother (can you guess whose side of the family?). I’ve heard this story a million times and the short of it is that poor Stella was trying to win a bet when she was a teen wolf, bit off the head of a live chicken, some gypsies saw it and years later here we are. According to dad, it went nothing like this. Yes, she bit off the head of a chicken but that’s because this was during the Great Depression and the family had no food and when she saw the chicken, she couldn’t help herself. I don’t know. Either way, I feel bad for Stella.

What else is a load of bull? Oh yeah. I saw the movie Teen Wolf when I was a kid. My parents thought it would help me see I wasn’t alone (but hello? Michael J. Fox is an ACTOR!). Anyway, at first he’s not too keen with people finding out he’s a wolf (wonder why), but then he turns into one during an important basketball game and his team loves him because he helps them win. OK. Sooo many things wrong here I don’t even know where to start. But let’s go with the obvious one. There is no way in hell—no matter how many games and trophies you win—that high school kids will think you’re uber cool and want to hang with you when they see you’re really a werewolf. Even if everyone claims to love one another and spends the days skipping and holding hands, ain’t going to happen. In fact, if you ARE in one of those kumbaya schools and turn into a werewolf during gym class, let me congratulate you because you will be solely responsible for changing that school’s image into a typical we-be-hatin’ high school.

So what is true? Well, we do have to keep our identity secret, for obvious reasons. The “change” does occur close to puberty (what a fun convo that was). And female werewolves are super beautiful. Ok, I threw that one in there. You caught me. Just wanted to make it easier for you to picture me. In truth, we’re as pretty or yak as the next kid, which really sucks because you would think that being a werewolf would come with some kind of advantage.

I write contemporary fiction. It may be literary or funny or dark, but it’s still contemp. I do, however, read other genres, and for some reason it’s always surprises me when I love a fantasy or historical or anything other than contemp. It shouldn’t because it happens a lot. I guess a part of me feels that because I hate writing books about unicorns, I won’t enjoy reading them either.

I should expand here. I hate writing about flying horses, or talking hats, or serial killers or spies not because I think the topics are dumb but because I can’t. I just really don’t know how. I tried when I was younger–you know, when teachers made you write “creatively” for the writing assignment du jour–and the result would read something like this:

Janie walked up to the river and stared in amazement. She rubbed her eyes and blinked. Nope it was still there. Not a mirage at all. The water was brown. A chocolate brown. She knelt down and smelled it. Yep, it smelled sweet and delicious. And, what was that surrounding the river? Could it be a ring of creamsicles? She thought of her teacher’s words, “You just have to imagine.” And she did and it worked! But why did she imagine THESE things? After all, she was lactose intolerant! She couldn’t eat any of it! Then it hit her. Or he did. It was the evil nymph. She should have known.

Exactly. This is why I don’t write fantasy. Sure, these days, fantasy can be sparkling vampires or spells in a contemp world, but I think my brain just blocks anything where you have to make up too much. Not that the books I write are facts, but it’s easier for me to make up people who have been through hell than people who on top of being put through hell are magical too or part of some conspiracy. But, recently, I wanted to try. Wanted to get outside my comfort zone, stretch my brain. Maybe describing something I’ve never seen in reality could help me explore setting further or creating a character who possesses little of the ones I’m used to writing about could help with character analyses. I could even combine a slew of genres, like making up a story about a girl with a pet unicorn, living in 1692 Masachusetts during the Salem Witch Trials, who is being chased by a robot from the year 3000. The possibilities are endless.

I hate to do things on my own, though. Anyone care to try with me and write in whatever genre is outside YOUR comfort zone? I’ll even post your results, if you want. And, um, maybe I’ll post mine too if they don’t reek too much, or even if they do, why not? Embarrassment is good for the soul, or something like that. Let’s meet back here on Monday and share our progress. Be ready to post or you can send to me ahead of time and I’ll post for you. It’s on!