by Lawrence Coates | Jan 16, 2015 | Short-Shorts, Techniques of Fiction
I decided I should write this post while my story is still up as the winner of the Barthelme Prize for Short Prose, given by Gulf Coast. I’ve been teaching a techniques class at Bowling Green State University for more than a decade, and one exercise I’ve enjoyed has been the common image story. I got the idea from an anthology that came out in 1992, The Wedding Cake in the Middle of the Road. The conceit of this anthology is that every story included should include that element, a wedding cake in the middle of the road. Some fine writers, like Charles Baxter and Ann Beattie, contributed. The exercise is quite simple. As a group, we brainstorm about some image or notion that seems a bit unusual, off, and yet compelling. It should be something that at least suggests that a story is needed to explain it. Then, by the end of the semester, we all have to write a short-short that includes the image. I’ve arbitrarily defined a short-short as 1000 words or less, though my own exercises have generally been shorter. Here is a partial list of prompts my classes have come up with over the years: Chandelier in a vacant lot Raggedy Ann in a swimming pool Bricks in a baby carriage Baby doll in a wheelchair A bat inside a purse Panties in a pine tree Trombone in a shopping cart Lobster in a Laundromat This is one exercise in Techniques that I always do along with my class. It’s fun and challenging, and as I often tell the MFA’s, having some formal requirement...