Leading a Writing Group - Session 11

In this session we went over the idea of flashbacks, where we go to an earlier time in the story. Then I introduced the prompt, a very difficult prompt to do off the cuff with a short story, time travel (and the crowd goes "Ooooohh").

The eight-year-old wrote about a time machine that went wrong. There were bunnies involved. She intended it to be a horror story, but it didn't come out that way. In the story she broke the fourth wall, meaning she talked to the reader as a reader, which was pretty awesome.

The eleven-year-old had someone walk to the other side of a river, and crossing that threshold threw them back in time. He included some nice details like the main character getting out of bed with messy hair.

The thirteen-year-old had an interaction between three young siblings: Jack, Katie, and Josh. The youngest one, the seven-year-old, pushed the wrong button in the time machine. There was some confusion between grey and red. Maybe some color blindness was involved.

The thirty-year-old wrote:

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They both looked at each other, and then back at the mirror.

The mirror didn't show a reflection, at least not one of now. They watched as their mother walked across the room. Both of them turned around just to make sure she wasn't really there. She wasn't.

"Do you think it's like a recording or something?" Billy asked, partly to himself, partly to Joel, and partly to the grand mysteries contained in the cosmos.

"It must be." said Joel. "I think that's mom when she was making spaghetti yesterday."

Billy seemed to relax. "Yeah, that's it. It must be like a tablet that you hang on the wall or something."

"Let's play with it!" said Joel, as he bounded over to the wall, half climbed onto the cabinet, and grabbed the mirror.

"Noooo!" yelled Billy. He saw the mirror slip in Joel's grip. Saw it wobble. Saw it begin to fall. He dove.

Joel reached out to try to catch the mirror as it was pulling away from his hands.

Billy's left hand touched the mirror's surface at the exact same moment that Joel's right hand touched it. It felt cold, like grabbing ice with your bare hand.

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Billy stared at the paper. He felt slightly stunned. His pen slowly slid across the page at a crooked angle, then onto the table. His hand came to a natural stop just before it slid off the table. And Billy started reading the paper, his paper. The paper that he wrote yesterday.

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I think it came out well.

Later in the day the eight-year-old and I went to the open mic night at Hackley Public Library. Here's me reading this story:

And at that same session, here's me reading some of my poetry, followed by my student reading a couple of poems by Maya Angelou:

Overall, an excellent day.

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Read more of what Jeff deems worthy of attention at: http://www.JeffreyAlexanderMartin.com