Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Your Essence

Prompt: Where your character is committed to a drastic or extreme change.

This story has been removed to be polished and redrafted to submit to competitions.  Wish me luck!

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Authors Note: This really is a very rough first draft of a story I want to flesh even more out on. I played with a few ideas of having the 'thing' about herself that she dind't like or felt made her less attractive and less able to have a relationship or a career - be a disability, make her some sort of alien, have a large birthmark or sorts.
Discrimination is discrimination - however we DO live with it every day - in no way is that saying that they are correct or aught be left well alone. However there are a number of discriminatory remarks or social interaction which occur within our own worksplaces that will stoop to for cheap laughs at the expense of a sensitive being.

What did you pick up as the 'thing' that held Ella back from being the best...actress, mother, lover, salesperson etc etc....

4 comments:

James Ashelford said...

Always a please to read your stuff, Annie, and you pose an interesting question.

For myself I thought the "thing" was a body issue: either weight or a gender-identity problem but that's because I've been reading articles and having conversations on those subjects the last couple of days.

On that note, it might be interesting to try and play with that ambiguity when you revisit the piece, concentrate fully on the reaction of others rather than the character's reality to allow an outlet for your reader's own perceptions on what makes a body "imperfect".

Yes, Reader Response Theory nutjob, right here, I hold my hands up. It was just that the ambguity grabbed me so much.

As ever, always a pleasure.

Mine own:
http://eclecticchair.wordpress.com/2009/07/03/fiction-friday-getting-committed/

Chris Chartrand said...

For a while I thought she may have been an android or cyborg, then shifted toward physical disability. I like the setting and the ambiguity of the piece. I hope you continue with it.

Jerald Jackson said...

Another good read. I think my impression was that what held her back was some non-specific dislike of her body. The cheesecake moment with the waitress provides the impression that weight is the overriding factor, but it's not yet clear.

Again thanks for another good story. I would like to hear more of this one.

Anonymous said...

A pleasant to read, smooth transformation from ordinary to extraordinary. Wonder if that might be our future.

see mine :

http://anandserpi.wordpress.com/2009/07/03/my-beloved/