Coffee-break writing: Strange

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20 October 2023
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Make dramatic sense of something odd or weird in this week’s creative writing exercise

First, mine your memory banks for something weird or strange that has made a deep and lasting impression on you. It might be a song, a picture, a story, and event. It might be an overheard conversation, or a fragment of speech. It might be something you saw in passing, or a newspaper headline, or something that happened to you.

Now, make that strange and singular thing the subject of a story. No matter now inexplicable it may be in real life, give it a past, present and possible future. Create a sense of logic round it. Make some kind of sense around the strange thing.

Then, begin to write your story or poem.

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