Once Upon A Time
Posted: 5/21/2008
Written By: Matt
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I am not a golfer. I certainly enjoy a round of golf on a warm summer Michigan morning, but while I’m out there, I am under no delusions that I impress anybody.
I feel much the same way about writing. I enjoy writing, I do it for fun in my free time, but I have never been able to take a story from “One Upon A Time” to “The End” with any amount of grace or beauty. Somewhere around page three, my big idea dries up and things get sideways.
When I approach the fifth hole on the golf course by way of the bunkers along the third fairway, the fun of the game is gone. I’ll stop keeping score and try to find my fastest way back to the clubhouse. When I can’t keep a story together, I put the pen down, close the notebook, and find something less annoying to occupy my time.
But I have learned to play golf the fun way – the scramble. This is done with teams of four, and each player gets to lean on the others. At the tee, when the teams drive into the fairway, every player on the team gets to take their shot. But only the best one is used. From the point of that best shot, each player tries again, and only the best one is used. This continues until the players put the ball in the hole with a far better score than any of them would have had individually. Those drives that rustled the leaves and popped branches to the ground are left in the woods and the bad golfers like me get a full round of do-overs using the better shots of the better players.
And then, on that rare moment when I connect well and drive straight, my teammates congratulate me, decide my shot is the best, and all line up where my ball stopped rolling.
And I feel important.
Hence, Dan and I are pleased to introduce Story Improv, the best-ball scramble of the writing world. We aren’t so skilled at writing our own stories, so we invite you to write along with us. Some of the efforts won’t be so impressive (see my middle chapters of Dark Waters – problematic). Some will be solid and move the story well. Along the way, it will be fun and might just help us brush up on those finer writing skills that keep us from solidly getting to “The End”.
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