Hallowe’en is nearly here. Perhaps we should write a poem or story with Hallowe’en in mind. What about writing a story where something impossible happens? If you want us to believe your story, you need some really good, ordinary detail.
Just imagine, you have to prove that you were at the park yesterday afternoon. If you just say, ‘I was at the park and there was a girl there.’ We may or may not believe you. If you say, ‘I was at the park by the bridge and I went on the swings. There was a girl there wearing a bright pink beret She kept calling to her little brown and white terrier. I think she was calling it Mr Pickles.’ I think we are going to believe that bridge and the pink beret and the brown and white terrier who may or may not be called Mr Pickles.
Once you have made us believe in the scene and the characters in it, then we are likely to believe you when a teapot flies past or Mr Pickles starts telling jokes.
Here’s the challenge. Tell a story in which a pumpkin speaks -you could have more than one pumpkin. They might speak to each other or begin to sing in chorus. They may be in a field, or on the kitchen table where you are hollowing them out. Can they speak before they have a mouth, or is it the mouth that makes it possible? Your job is to set the scene so we really believe it and then let the pumpkin start the conversation. Maybe it rudely interrupts, or whispers comments, or shouts to the pumpkin across the road. Tell the story. Make us think it really could have happened.
Writing Box 