Good morning, Bloggers.
It's that time of year again. Ghosts, clowns, vampires and lame versions of The Joker costumes have begun to make their annual appearances. Yup, it's almost Hallowe'en. So, to get you in the mood...
1. Follow the link below to read any short stories on the site. After reading it, comment on my blog post to let me know whether or not you found it effective and why.
www.ghostsandstories.com
2. Believe it or not, there is a writing contest that awards authors who pen the worst opening lines for an imagined novel. Read the info, courtesy our friends at Wikipedia:
"It was a dark and stormy night" is an infamous phrase written by Victorian novelist Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton at the beginning of his 1830 novel Paul Clifford.[1] The annual Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest uses the phrase as a signifier of purple prose. The original opening sentence of Paul Clifford is an example:
It was a dark and stormy night; the rain fell in torrents — except at occasional intervals, when it was checked by a violent gust of wind which swept up the streets (for it is in London that our scene lies), rattling along the housetops, and fiercely agitating the scanty flame of the lamps that struggled against the darkness.
The Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest was formed to "celebrate" the worst extremes in this style. The contest, sponsored by the English Department of San Jose State University, recognizes the worst examples of "dark and stormy night" writing.
That's right: cash prizes for really bad writing. You can check out some of the samples at http://www.bulwer-lytton.com/lyttony.htm
What I want you to do? Write your own brutal paragraph or sentence opening to a story. Make it awful. Painful to read. Simply "Level One" material. Keep spelling correct, but aim to use cliches, awkward comparisons, bizarre imagery. Have fun.
3. Once you've completed the above, please write one blog entry for today AND comment on at least one classmate's blog. Choose any of his or her posts to read and respond to. Your blog topic for today? Read it below or come up with your own topic.
Suggested topic: Things that make you go: YIKES! What scares you? I mean, really scares you--heights, spiders, clowns, irrational fears? Maybe you have one of these phobias-look them up; some are funny-- Arachibutyrophobia? Papaphobia? In any case, recall a time where you were genuinely frightened and tell us the story. You can make it all up if you like! Boo.
So I read The Attic and it was about how this boy went up to his attic to get the family's travel bags for a trip they were going on. His sister used to live up there but she passed on a few years back. When he was in the attic the door shu behind him and the lightbulb went out. He said it was very scary and the whole time he was trying to open the door her was scared. then the story ended with him getting out and asking his brother to go and get them. This "scary story" seemes very typical, and everything that happened (although it was shirt) it was vey predictable. It wasn't all that suspenseful. I didn't really enjoy it, but I empathised with the author because my basement freaks me out. Whenever I go down there I come and go as fast as I can.
ReplyDeleteAt first I was all confused because I followed the link and there wasn't any story, just a lame website introduction page. Then I thought, "oh, maybe she just wants us to pick a random story from the ghost stories list and make a comment on that one. So I read "House On The Corner" and it was really stupid. This person kept dreaming about this house in her neighborhood because it was so big and creepy. So she checks out the house and a sad little girl answers the door, says she lives there without her parents, then leaves. So then the person did some research about the house and found out it had been vacant for three years because the family was killed in a murder-suicide by their oldest son. The writer goes on to say that she was thoroughly creeped out. I'm not impressed.
ReplyDeleteI read a story called "Cemetary Ghosts". I was not scared... I was actually rather bored. It was very short and had very small detail about what had happened. The story went by very quick, and was not at all exciting. While reading this story I held an unimpressed facial expression - from beginning, to end. Least to say, I probably won't be visiting that website ever again.
ReplyDeleteDespite the unfortunate title, "Ghost In My Room" actually provoked the required goosebumps that are typically expected from reading such a story. In the first paragraph of the tale, the author tells us that he "had never experienced anything paranormal and was very skeptical to things that were supernatural." This statement always helps in horror stories. If the reader believes you to be a "believer" that pollutes the internet with would-be encounters, he or she is less likely to believe the story. This tale is told in first person throughout and effectively places the reader is his shoes: "The door opened to a crack and then swung back violently and stopped just before hitting the wall. I sat upright in my bed staring at the door scared out of my mind." The tone that the writer sets seems credible. The things that he writes about are tell-tale ghost actions and, with the Paranormal Activities movies, and others similar to it, it is easy to visualize what is depicted. One thing that could have been improved upon was the vocabulary and the writing in general. For an amateur, the writing was decent, but it also makes it abundantly clear that he is not a professional writer, which is good for him but not necessarily ideal for the reader. Although this story is the classic "ghost story", I enjoyed reading it and would recite it to my family on a cold, blustery night.
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