Creative Writing Challenge: Time Distortion

NaNoWriMo is only one and a half months away! If you haven’t already, it’s time to kick your creative side into gear! One of my favorite classes as an undergraduate in the Humanities B. A. degree was Creative Writing with Professor Marcia Denius. It revolutionized the way I viewed the writing process.

Today I am going to challenge you to complete a “time distortion” piece, a challenge first posed to me by Professor Denius. There are four sections to this challenge:

The Sentence.

Write one sentence that depicts the most crucial “action” of the story.

The Paragraph.

Expand upon the sentence. Provide the reader with an idea so to place and context.

The Scene.

Finish writing the scene in which the action takes place. You do not have to write a full story; just see that the action is completed.

The Time Distortion.

By “Time Distortion,” I mean slowing the story down completely. In the example we read in Creative Writing, the author spent several paragraphs describing the exact feeling of getting shot. Even though the action occurred in a matter of seconds, time was slowed down to give the author the space needed to fully build upon the feeling and consequence of getting shot.

Pull out your notebook, put up your feet, and get writing!