To Dream, Aye, There's The Rub...

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

original posting: Fri, 11 Oct 1996 23:30:20 EDT

"To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause...who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveler returns..."

Hamlet, III, i, 56, Shakespeare
From Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 16th Edition.

fardels? oh, well, we could look it up, but such burdens and loads are not worthy of our harried times, eh?

[For those who may be wondering--this is a simple exercise in the art of tall tale construction, sometimes known as writing. For our purposes today, we'll be picking a few bits and pieces by selecting a number from one to six (you may use dice if you like). You may use or abuse the exercise as you like, the instructor in the course isn't terribly formal about it...]

Let's see. Try taking one from the following:

1. There and back again. ...in which someone from our world ventures, falls, or is abducted into another more magical world.
2. Beyond the fields we know. ...those works which take place entirely in magic worlds, with no concrete links to our own time and place.
3. Unicorns in the garden. ...those tales in which magical and fantastic events occur in our mundane world.
4. That Old Black Magic. stories in which the everyday is menaced by the supernatural to inspire fright and horror are a class by themselves; alas, the unknown is still terrifying to most of humanity.
5. Bambi's Children. ...stories in which animals think, speak, and act with human intelligence...
6. Once and Future Kings, Queens, and Heroes. stories that have been handed down from time immemorial, the great legends of many cultures, which have been used by contemporary authors to provide new insights into the ancient myths or into our own time.

[categories from A Reader's Guide to Fantasy, by Baird Searles, Beth Meacham, and Michael Franklin, ISBN 0-380-80333-x]

Mix well with...

1. Health - fitness, ailments, liver, bile, or physical infirmity?
2. Fate - work, career, plans and goals?
3. Success - prestige, distinction, a name?
4. Life - ambition, illness, emigration, where does this life wander?
5. Head - concentration, self-control, independent, reckless, mindful?
6. Heart - the emotions, the feelings, sympathy, jealousy, happiness?

[palmistry lines borrowed from The Book of Fortune Telling by Agnes M.
Miall, ISBN 0-517-64730-3]

Season with a dash of fairy dust, blinking in the eyelids:

1. Ghosts
2. A talking non-human entity (animal, mineral, veggie at your discretion)
3. A moving part of a dead body (which one? you decide!)
4. Energy (flashes, mere shocks, or whatever your little spirit moves...)
5. Parasites, small insects, or even your local viral infection...okay, a mold or two will do if you really prefer fungi
6. those amazing marching machines, ticking their way into your embrace...with a scalpel?

So - one very sketchy category of story, one line of interest, and a dash of ugliness. Stir well, and think about where your protagonist would like to go (the back seat of a chevy? why?) and what your evil genius (the monster, mashed?) wants (a quiet coffin of its very own? with a view of the swamp? simply heart rending, eh, wot?).

Then write that tale of the darkness, enchant the evil spirits, and send it in to the contest! Only a few hours remain before sharp edge of time cuts across the deadline, so hurry, hurry, hurry, scrape your very own beast out of the dusty soul of the cemetary and let it go...

[this was an exercise as part of a contest, thus the deadline - but you can set your own!]

Fast Start?

From the shadows, bent, fetid, tumultuous and lonely, squealing and whistling now and then with exhilaration, it watched.

[You may use this sentence to start your work if you like.]

What dreams may come...

[was that a shiver running down your spine...or a ghastly finger from beyond?]