Going into the process of writing our short stories, I was a little intimidated. The last time I wrote a story was in seventh grade, and it was about a time-traveling psychic rodent who had to save the world from an evil army of Roombas. The highlight of the story was an epic chase scene between hero Speedy Gonzalez, who was driving a golf cart, and evil mastermind Curious George, who was driving a souped-up tractor. While it came very close to winning a Pulitzer, I realize that Mr. Allen might be looking for something a little more sophisticated this time around. Never having written a short story in the style of Cathedral or the slightly more disturbing style of Boys, I was at a loss for ideas (other than my awesome screenplay idea, which is too complex to fit into a short story).
When Mr. Allen told us that we were to write a "story fragment", I initially thought that it was a waste of time to write things that would probably not even be in my actual story. However, when I sat down to write it, it was surprisingly easy and useful. I think it's a great technique to just put down ideas and not worry about how good they are. This allowed me to keep my thoughts flowing and write the whole thing in less than an hour. If I had tried to write a good (or even decent) short story the first try, I would have had to stop and edit myself so many times that I probably would have strangled my own creativity. Next time I have to write a short story (or maybe even a different kind of writing), I will be sure to utilize this technique to help avoid writer's block.
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I felt the same way when we started talking about writing short stories. When I was younger, I always tried to start novels that I thought would make me rich and famous. I had really big aspirations, but a very small amount of patience; most of these future Pulitzer winners never made it past a few pages.
I also really have enjoyed Mr. Allen's ways of writing, just freeing your mind, and then editing and going deeper later. I also love the feeling that we don't have to come up with a full story on the first try, it really making writing the whole story much more fulfilling and meaningful.
I did the same thing when I started looking for a story fragment- I looked at the last time I wrote. I found a vocab story from seventh or eight grade that I had liked at the time, and I took about four and a half sentences from it. However, I already had an idea, and that made expanding my fragment a lot easier.
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