Here’s a really engaging and powerful piece of short prose by Isaman Cann (Michelle Jones) published in Star 82 Review, one of those long-running journals that flies under the radar and keeps publishing excellent writing year after year:
https://www.star82review.com/12.4/cann-running.html
This story struck me when I first read it, in early January, because the arrival of a New Year has often – in the old tradition – prompted people to make New Plans: to introduce new habits/regimes/objectives, to start a new health kick, or to explore new experiences. And Cann’s micro – although not about New Year as such – amused me because it was exploring a different kind of mindset, an ‘anti-heroic’ or ‘anti-achiever’ one. The narrator is at a stage in life when they feel like it’s “time to generally lower the standards”. I loved how, after this initially amusing tone, the story ended up somewhere quite existential and poignant by the end, in only a few lines.
This piece also got me thinking about the different ways in which we can get to know the main characters in our writing – especially when we are working on a novella-in-flash (or any piece of long-form fiction).
In this piece, the narrator is talking about their relationship with exercise, specifically running in this instance. This is a way for the character/narrator to convey to the reader their relationship with their body. And it’s also a way for the character to convey their relationship with themselves.
For your novella-in-flash, have you thought yet about how your main character feels about their physical self? About their experience of their own body?
Invitation #1: Why not do some freewriting (in first-person POV) about this aspect of your main character’s identity – their relationship with their physical self?
Invitation #2: How might your insights into your main character’s experience of their own body be threaded into the chapters you’ve already written/planned for your novella? Take some time to brainstorm some notes.
And once you’ve done some freewriting, here are some prompts you might use to get going with a story for your novella-in-flash, following Isaman Cann’s story:
INVITATION #3: WRITING PROMPTS:
Use one of the following prompts to create a story/chapter/scene for a novella-in-flash. (Or to produce a poem, short story, or piece of creative non-fiction.)
- Write about a character’s absolute loathing of some kind of physical activity! What might this be? As you write, really lean into that loathing! Relish the language and detail with which they describe their dislike of it, and through this convey to the reader how the character feels about an aspect of their physical identity.
OR:
- Write about a character’s love of sport – any sport you can think of. (Depending on your character, perhaps the more unusual the better?) Are they an armchair sports-fan, or do they go to watch professionals/other people engage in this sport, or do they participate actively in the sport themselves? How does the sport make them feel? What values (good or bad) does the sport embody, and what is the character’s relationship to these values? (OPTIONAL: Does the sport have specific clothing, equipment, locations or rituals associated with it? Have fun with how your character feels about any aspect of these!)
OR:
- Write about a character who is – in metaphorical terms – “running from [something]”, as Cann’s narrator confesses they are doing. In what way(s) are they hiding? Do they find consolation, or does their avoidance of feelings lead to challenges?
OR:
- Maybe your main character doesn’t enjoy exercise, or is unable to move easily – what do they do for self-care, or to cultivate moments of joy? Relish the description of them engaging in this, or looking forward to this, and what it means to them.
OR:
- Write a scene where your main character hugs themselves. For what reason? Where and when are they doing this? Is a crucial someone present or absent?
OR:
- Write about a character who tries out the same new experience every day for several weeks. (This could be at any time of the year.) What kind of experience? (Depending on your main character, perhaps the more unusual the better?)
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