2008 Woodie Awards
Brain Thinky Stuff
How 'bout Them Apples?
Phil Garrison
Issue date: 2/1/02 Section: Features
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All throughout our education, we are taught to make sure that anything we write has a strong beginning and ending. You need an opening that grabs the reader's attention and a closing that wraps up the story nicely and leaves the reader with a good memory of what has taken place. Additionally, as attentive readers, we are supposed to recognize the various characteristics and qualities of the main characters. Screw that! In a show of defiance, I shall now eliminate the need for both of those. Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you only the middle of a story, written in second person present tense, meaning that YOU are the main character. It makes sense that no character is easier to understand than yourself. [Two notes, this is not part of some larger story that I am writing. As will soon be apparent, I probably should not be writing at all. Also, descriptive words are purposefully kept to a minimum. Because the main character is you, you can visualize the appearance of the setting and characters.] Here goes nothing.
into the bucket nearby. However, you aren't sure, so you look again. Inside is your significant other's ring that has been missing ever since the night when you had thrown the party and all the problems started.
"Oh no. I have to return this," you think to yourself. How exactly it had gotten all the way over here was hard to say. Your friends get wild sometimes, you guess. You put it in your breast pocket for safekeeping.
You then exit your room and see your ever-idle parents in your den, sitting on the couch, satisfying their maws, watching the television with the volume set far too loud. The nausea from the medicine rears its head again at the sight and you run quickly back to the bathroom, thinking you might vomit. Your parents have not even noticed your presence, for they are fat and oblivious.
At the toilet, you shudder a little bit, but no heaving or anything. As you lean over that little pond of miracles, you think, "At least I don't have to clean up after myself. Not this time, anyway."
into the bucket nearby. However, you aren't sure, so you look again. Inside is your significant other's ring that has been missing ever since the night when you had thrown the party and all the problems started.
"Oh no. I have to return this," you think to yourself. How exactly it had gotten all the way over here was hard to say. Your friends get wild sometimes, you guess. You put it in your breast pocket for safekeeping.
You then exit your room and see your ever-idle parents in your den, sitting on the couch, satisfying their maws, watching the television with the volume set far too loud. The nausea from the medicine rears its head again at the sight and you run quickly back to the bathroom, thinking you might vomit. Your parents have not even noticed your presence, for they are fat and oblivious.
At the toilet, you shudder a little bit, but no heaving or anything. As you lean over that little pond of miracles, you think, "At least I don't have to clean up after myself. Not this time, anyway."