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Genre Benders

I'm not certain I followed this exercise to the tee, but writing off-the-cuff is supposed to be uninhibited so I let the writing go where it wanted to go. I forgot to look at the clock, but I think I started writing at around 8:30 am and finished just before 10. I had to think for a few minutes for an idea for the first scene to form in my mind. When I finished it, I started right into the second without plotting a thing -- I just had 'comedy' in my mind. (I stink at comedy, btw. )

Here's the exercise offered by my comedy-writing idol Acme . Now SHE can write comedy!

Genre benders

There's a way to inject any genre in the main genre that your writing, and it usually pays off. Romantic Comedies can convey the horror of nightmare scenarios, and historical stories of all varieties can carry action adventure.

Write

What's the worst thing you can imagine happening now? Write it. Now look at the tone of it and see if you can add comedy, or drama, or action, or ... etc., etc.,

Try writing out the scenario in a few different styles.

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The contest deadline had loomed in the distant future like that speck of light floating in the darkness on a midnight road trip to Las Vegas. I wasn’t too concerned with the mild bout of writer’s block when I first read the prompt. Write a biographical or autobiographical story. The idea had popped into my head at once: I’ll write about the harrowing experience when I was kidnapped by rebel soldiers in the Central African Republic. Then the beginning blocked me. If I could just get the right opening paragraphs down, the rest would flow. Hell, it’d gush. Those memories lived in Technicolor relief on the landscape of my mind. Yet the beginning eluded me, and the days were drops of water falling one by one, slowly filling the month’s vessel, torturing me with increasing anxiety. Come on! It’s my story, I lived it, just tell it!

And then, just like that, it came to me. I was in the shower, where inspiration has an uncanny habit of striking me. Maybe it’s the warm water flowing down my head that relaxes my mind and unlocks creative doors? I don’t know, but today, I saw the perfect jumping off point for my story float before my eyes on the billowing steam of the shower stall. I gave the curved handle a hard counterclockwise twist and slid open the door on its railing so violently it rebounded and hit me as my foot hit the bathmat. I grabbed a towel and twisted it around my body as I dashed through the house and up to my office.

I felt rivulets of cool water run from my dripping hair and down my back. Every few seconds I heard a dull splot as drops fell from shorter strands that weren’t plastered to my head directly to the black with white polka-dot upholstered chair. Neither the cold on my wet body nor the sounds reminiscent of melting icicles distracted my attention. My fingers flew across the keyboard, striking the keys without mercy as the paragraphs flowed out of mind and across the computer screen. My heart pounded with elation. Finally, with just days to spare before the contest deadline, a blocked door had been flung open –

And then the screen was blue.

From top to bottom, left to right, royal blue glowed with seamless wrath. I stared at it, then I shot a look at my hard drive. The light was on, but clearly, something bad had happened. Goosebumps covered my wet flesh from under my hair to my big toe, and I screamed, “Nnnooooo!”

I’m a contest junkie. What can I say? I can’t get enough thrill of getting an entry in there and then waiting, waiting, waiting with delicious anticipation for the judges to announce the winners. It’s like, what? I know! It’s sort of like planning a big night out and going shopping the day before, looking for the perfect outfit. You know how you want to feel, what personality you want to present, so you hunt for just the right colors and styles, and all the while you feel the butterflies tickling your tummy. The preparation is as exciting as the outcome.

Well, this contest prompt posted, and the idea for a story lit my world like the morning sun. The problem was I couldn’t pinpoint where I should start off. I played it cool, waited a couple days for the wily opening to come out of its hiding place. Then a day turned into a week, and a week became two. The adrenalin rush I usually enjoy turned on me, and excitement morphed into stress.

With just days before the contest deadline, I’d all but given up. I’d shopped and shopped, but never found that perfect outfit. I peeled off the clothes I was wearing and stepped into the shower. As soon as the warm water streamed down my head, the perfect opening popped into my mind. I couldn’t let it evaporate like the steam filling the stall, so I turned off the water and jumped onto the bathmat. Grabbing a towel as I ran toward the door, all my concentration was on those words I held in my mind’s fist and getting them into the computer before they slipped free.

I was halfway across the living room when I froze. I clutched the towel to my front; a drop of water fell from a strand of hair and I felt it roll down the small of my bare back and into the crack of my buttocks. My husband’s friend cleared his throat and looked away, taking an awkward sip from his bottle of Miller Lite. My husband, whose twisted sense of humor was one of the reasons I’d been attracted to him when we first met, smiled with casual affability, though I noted the twinkle in his eyes.

“Oh good, dear, you’re home. I’d like to introduce you to our new neighbor.”