Author: literallystories2014

All Stories, Historical

Week 378: A Failed Attempt at Method Writing. And a Successful Saturday Special For Decoration Day

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A Failed Attempt at Method Writing 

I recently streamed a documentary about the Stanislavski “school of acting”–aka, “The Method.” Like all other artistic endeavors that get over, there’s a bunch of pretentious pontificating associated with The Method (which first got big in America about seventy-five years ago). Once you get past all the verbiage and “pillars,” the Method is mainly investing your own emotions in a character, to “become” the role you are playing. If the character is supposed to be sad, think of the day your hamster died and act accordingly. 

To illustrate this the documentary showed clips of “mannered” performances from the 1930’s–those in which stage-like performances were filmed because talking film acting had yet to be invented. These were compared to James Dean and Marlon Brando emoting. To be honest with you I smelled plenty of ham baking in the early Method film performances. Marlon must have really loved that hamster named “STEEELLLLA!!!” But who am I to criticize?

Anyway, it got me thinking about bringing the Method to writing. I experimented with bringing forward a memory of someone I hated and attempted to use the emotion in fiction. 

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Fake Teeth Yarn by Kiersen Clerkin

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Listen officer, kids die all the time, you know. Trust me. And seventeen isn’t that young. But his blood tasted like mine, that was a surprise. So was his walk; wobble really. Monnie told me he needed a few more, “Get it girl,” that’s what she said, and she said it just like that, like her lips were dripping with sticky spit and she was slurping it back up. I couldn’t, not just then, couldn’t give him what he need.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Half Broke and Fully In by Josiah Crocker

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It didn’t take long before I regretted everything. By then it was too late. I cast a look back at the events that had landed me here in this moment and saw nothing but weeds. Overgrown brush and dry mud cracking under the low winter sun. A life left without watering.

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All Stories, General Fiction

The Lady has a Following by Tom Sheehan

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Gawkers galore, that’s what followed her around, at any corner, on any walk, never mind the beach in a thong outfit nearly disappearing itself. Men of all ages, for their own reasons, guesses, imaginations, rallied to the cause, we all can readily believe. many women, too, who wondered what they themselves could do with her carriage, like seeing is believing from the word “Go,” or “If I had that bod, I’d be a god of the ward.”

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller

Valentine’s Day Massacre by Doug Hawley

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Special Report To Stumptown Magazine by Elmer Jakes February 10, 20xx

I was at her bedside when Ginger Smith uttered her last words.  “Why did Ted do this?  I thought that we loved each other.”

Ginger didn’t know that Ted Hamer didn’t do it.  He had died before she had.  The real murderer of Ginger and Ted was Phil Jenks the billionaire owner of Fallpark, the famous maker of greeting cards and romance movies.

The why and how of Jenk’s crimes are mostly known, and the missing pieces can be filled in with reasonable certainty.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Gabby Gets Some Colour in His Cheeks by Antony Osgood

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He knew he’d reached middle age when his legs defied him each morning and when an afternoon snooze became a requisite for a good day.

Gabby abases himself before post-lunch Sabbath dreams. But when he wakes he thinks he is beside himself, caught off-kilter, unbaked, unfinished. It’s like someone’s drawn his outline and not coloured him in.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Low and Behold by David Lohrey

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I tried playing it cool, but Malik knew I was pretending. We pulled out onto the highway at his usual speed, churning up a cloud of sandy dust. After a few minutes, he said, “You enjoyed that.” I said nothing. He looked at me, which was rare. So, I said, “I know you did.” Silence. I felt myself pulling a face, my childhood pout. I tried to stop. A good ten minutes later, Malik slowed considerably. I actually thought something was wrong with the car. Then, he began talking in a voice I hadn’t heard before. He started confiding in me.

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All Stories, General Fiction

About Uncle Story by David Henson

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When somebody in town sneezed —pop! — they disappeared before you could say gesundheit. That’s one of the bedtime stories I remember our uncle telling Lucy and me. I think I was five or six. Lucy is a year younger. His name was Trevor, but we called him Uncle Story. His tales always had a simple moral. For example, some kids made fun of an old lady who sneezed so she put a hex on the whole town. Uncle Story said we should always respect our elders.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Historical

Midwife Legacy by Tom Sheehan

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On his twentieth wedding anniversary, and pondering various presents he might acquire for his wife Amanel, Viktor Drovnovich, a land manager in the eastern section of Pskov Province, scanned the offerings in Karpenko’s store front as he headed home from a three-week separation. The trip would take him two days, with a night spent at Madame Estelle’s Inn on the Tver road to halve the journey. He looked forward to that stop, for he left Madame Estelle always carrying good will and good spirits, warming him up for the return home.

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All Stories, Crime/Mystery/Thriller, General Fiction

There’s No Bars in this Town by J Saler Drees

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We were bored when we started drinking and bored when we got too drunk and bored when we stole Adee’s pickup and drove it down to the riverbank. What a joke. We laughed the whole way, that forced, bored kind that sounds like a fraud. How we mused, won’t this be funny when Adee gets off her shift and finds her truck gone.

Since no one ever locked their cars, or their doors, stealing came easy. Only problem in a town this small, you’d get caught. Didn’t matter. Stealing was more a game than a necessity, so catch us if you can, Adee.

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