Humainologie Dialogue by email week of March 16

It’s raining coronavirus, so we’ll have to do our dialogues from home, by email. Keep in mind the purpose of our dialogues, in essence: to build group genius, trust, and mutual support (and thereby contribute to Calgary as a microcosm of healthy global community).

Dialogues by email have their own advantages, so we can lift the forum to new heights. Please contribute your ideas for how to do this. Here are two ideas for activities in the weeks or months (who knows?) ahead: Good Questions and (especially) Creative Writing.

1. Ask a good question of the dialogue network, inviting participants to share their good answers to your good question.

2. Do some creative writing (poetry or short fiction) and share it with the dialogue network. Flash fiction can be defined as a very short story, under 1,000 words; a short story can be defined as under 7,000 words. Send us a poem, a piece of flash fiction, or a short story. We have some very talented writers in our network, so don’t be surprised if these emails become a literary potluck. On March 4, our dialogue topic was creative writing. A flash-fiction writing game was (re)introduced to jump-start the process. I’ve modified it slightly and appended it below so that anyone who wishes to do so can use it.

I’ll send out a “good question” later this week. By next Monday I’ll send you at least one poem or short story, either one of mine or (better) one by someone else in the dialogue network. Or you can beat me to it and share your poem or short story directly with the network before then. Let’s stay in touch and stay active.

Arthur

The Jump-Start Flash Fiction Writing Game

If you want to accomplish something and are having trouble getting started, invent a game for that purpose. There are countless possibilities for inventing writing games. Here’s one we invented in 2018, for the purpose of getting anyone started writing fiction.

Flash fiction is defined as very short fiction, under 1,000 words for present purposes. The game below can also be used for writing a short story (under 7,000 words).

Write your piece of flash fiction or short story, mindful of the criteria listed below. If you want a team of (three) judges to each give you a score, there’s a scoring system for that purpose. We can set up teams of judges to evaluate your work if you are interested. Let’s get started writing.

Here’s the scoring system.

Scoring for each of the following ten domains is on a 2-point scale, so the maximum score is 20:

2 = easily meets criteria;

1 = marginally meets criteria;

0 = clearly does not meet criteria

T The story has a good title and is finished in the specified time.

W The word count in the story reaches at least the specified minimum.

E The story is entertaining (enjoyable).

M It is memorable. (An audience would remember it after one reading).

P It has a point OR a plot (and preferably both).

A It has action, adventure, or a character striving to accomplish something.

S It uses words related to the senses (sight, sound, touch, taste, smell).

H It has elements of humor, mystery, surprise, or conflict.

V It has a rich vocabulary or a style of writing that creatively enhances the story.

D It has dialogue or a point of view that adds interest.

The scoring system is designed to get participants past the inhibitions that prevent them from writing stories. The point is to generate a story, not necessarily to generate a good story. This is because a major obstacle to writing good stories is the inhibition that prevents us from writing any stories at all.