- Invitation Status
- Writing Levels
- Intermediate
- Adept
- Advanced
- Preferred Character Gender
- Male
- Female
- Genres
- Fantasy, Modern, Magical, Romance, Action, Urban Fantasy
This was an interesting exercise that my professor asked us to do this week. He read us a short story, "A Brief history of My Failures with Women" by James Cagney, which I would have linked here if I could find it on the internet. It's a list of 15 different women the guy had failures with, and at first it's light hearted and humorous. It gets to his teenaged years and it's puppy love stuff because well, he's a teenager, but then his mother gets included into the list. He speaks of how she dies because she's taken off the ventilator, and how the aunt comes into the house taking down decorations, pictures and flowers then suddenly there's an "Aha!" moment from the reader. Perhaps that was why he failed so badly with women, because his mother was dying?
Basically despite it being a list, as a reader you could find out bits and pieces about this person's life. So your exercise - which is the same assignment I'm doing this week in class - is to write a a Top 10 List of things in your life, and it has to have a theme. Don't know what it will be about? Lemme throw out some suggestions for you.
Top 10 List of Failures at Work/School/Life/Romance/Food
Top 10 WTF Moments
Top 10 TMI Moments
Top 10 Liars/Truths I've told.... And Got Away With
Top 10 Things I've done Wrong/Or Right as a Parent
All I ask is that you reveal to me and the readers a part of you that the everyday person wouldn't see. Give me that diamond in the rough feeling. Oh and also don't give me just a sentence or two per item. Elaborate on it, why did it make it onto this list? Think of it like writing a little blurb.