NationStates Jolt Archive

No, it's not the start of a bad joke (although the result approaches that). No, I recieved this phrase on a slip of paper from my creative writing teacher. He crafted this and another dozen or so such random phrases and wanted us to stretch it out into a full story. Well, I did, and it's pretty painful to look at. Not that my idea was bad, but... you know. execution and all that.

So, no, I'm not searching for homework help. I already finished the assignment. I just wanted to see what the more creative literati of NSG might make of such a phrase. Bad puns, fables, diatribes, etc. Whatever you want. Go nuts!

(Note: you can thank me for the poor starting sentence. If I had grabbed the right slip of paper out of the hat, I could've ended up with a sentence about cannibalistic extraterrestrials. :()

Anyway, I've got to get off to class soon, so I'll check back later and see what you come up with...

(Tho I suspect this'll be buried with no responses on page 5 by then...)

I hated it when my English teacher would start us off. I work much better on my own. Especially creative writing.

Oh, that wasn't even the best part. The best part was when we had to:


go to class
copy down the last sentence of our story on a piece of paper
pass each of these papers two spaces down the table
use the sentence you get as the start of a brand new story which we had to start writing immediately
randomly toss in "flower gardens", "gaping head wounds", and "hail and gale-force winds" at our teachers discretion, as we were writing it
wrap the story up given only thirty seconds of warning


Oddly enough, the story I wrote there was surprisingly normal. :p

its either the star wars bar or one of those big-city sex clubs where they have strange names for every preference.

what did you do with it?

what did you do with it?

I started out trying to make it into a fable, but couldn't find the right moral to convey. So then I turned it into a sort of psychological metaphor -- the three characters represented three facets of a fourth character's subconscious. Throughout the story they chafe and argue and fight, leading to trouble in the person's life, and when they reconcile, everything's alright. I left the person purposefully vague, and you only experience his/her life through anonymous quotes.

It was an interesting idea, but I think I botched the execution of it. The whole thing just sounds trite when I read it. Especially the last sentence -- "It was a song of reconciliation that spoke to them all." Ugh. I pity the poor soul that had to use that to start a story...

It could have easily been made into a story about three men.

"Turkey" was and is (though to a lesser degree) slang for a silly, stupid person.

"Bear" is a very hairy man.

That would have made it much easier, I think.

I started out trying to make it into a fable, but couldn't find the right moral to convey. So then I turned it into a sort of psychological metaphor -- the three characters represented three facets of a fourth character's subconscious. Throughout the story they chafe and argue and fight, leading to trouble in the person's life, and when they reconcile, everything's alright. I left the person purposefully vague, and you only experience his/her life through anonymous quotes.

It was an interesting idea, but I think I botched the execution of it. The whole thing just sounds trite when I read it. Especially the last sentence -- "It was a song of reconciliation that spoke to them all." Ugh. I pity the poor soul that had to use that to start a story...

they can only expect so much out of a rushed story based on a stupid first line. its great that you could do anything reasonable with it at all.

i suppose the sex club would have been inappropriate for a class assignment anyway.

A turkey, a bear, and a fortune teller walk into a bar...
You'd have thought the fortune teller would have seen it coming..

A turkey, a bear, and a fortune teller walk into a bar...

And that was on the script. I realized at that point that the country was fucked. This is what passes for education. Bored incompetents wasting the time of the possibly competent. Christ, I'd better make sure they don't check this for plagiarism; even though the south koreans will be plagiarizing their way to billions tommorow with the 'new' apple iPhone. Which apple can't even release becuase they plagarized the name. (Not to mention that the word plagiarized was plagiarized itself).

Well, as long as the so called english teacher is happy. God forbid I should learn something useful. Like parts of speach, or cases.

Got to keep the unemployment lines clear though, I suppose.

Well, as long as the so called english teacher is happy. God forbid I should learn something useful. Like parts of speach, or cases.Or how to spell 'speech' ;)