A Writing Sample and Practice Exercise From Writer's Meeting

Last week at my writer's group, we did a writing exercise, which we do every other week. One of the guys brought in personal ads from the book, "Man with Farm Seeks Woman with Tractor." It is a collection of newspaper and journal personal ads from 1727-2004. We were to use these ads as a writing prompt and write something.

I chose to answer one of the ads.

Here is the ad I chose:

Monster seeks damsel. Hungry Beastie desires voluptuous damsel for chasing about, carrying off and general "distressing." Beastie passionate and gentle. Would love to have YOU for dinner.

Here is my response:

Dear Mr. Beastie,

I hope you don't mind if I call you Mr. I don't want to offend your monster sensibilities by being too formal, but being a lady it is my nature. I found your request for a damsel to distress quite intriguing. You see, for years I have been waiting for my knight in shining armor to come and rescue me. But in this modern world, with all of its many conveniences, women have a great deal of autonomy and have little need of rescuing. What is a girl to do? Being carried off by a monster may be just the solution to my problem. So, if you do not mind being slain by whatever brave knight that comes to my rescue, I would be delighted to make your acquaintance.

Affectionately,

Damsel in need of distress

And the monster responded:

Dear Ms. Damsel,

A Challenge! Just what I have been looking for. It has been many years since I have had to fend off would-be heros from my prey…er I mean, female companions. I gladly and heartily accept. Would love to meet over coffee to discuss general terms of capture and attempted rescue. If, however, your knight-errant fails in his quest for your hand, heart or any other body part, perhaps you would consider honoring my initial request.

Yours affectionately,

Beastie

OK, so I know its really goofy and has no literary value whatsoever, but it was fun to write.

This style of writing exercise is called using prompts. Someone gives you an idea, a word or a phrase and asks you to use some element of it in whole or part and write a story. The contest I entered last year gave us a starting phrase, "The fire burned..." and we had to write any story we wanted in less than 1500 words that started with that phrase.

This is one example of the kind of writing exercises we do at our writer's meetings.