And the Tree Said... (Saturday Writing Essential)

I rarely use a title that actually tells you what I’m going to ask you to do, but I did this week. I also had to postpone it because of several submissions made over the past couple of weeks that did exactly this.

Anthropomorphism (often called personification) is using human characteristics with non-human entities. Most often found in fables, fairy tales, cartoons, and mythology, it is also a valuable tool in humor and romance writing. One example of why I postponed this challenge is Rafia Shujaat’s wonderful  The story of an old rocking chair (Saturday Writing Essential).

This submission is a perfect example of a non-human having thoughts or telling a story.

This Week’s Challenge:

Write something where a non-human is talking or thinking; either telling the story or is the main character. Make it a tree, an animal, a rock, or anything else you can come up with.

Ideas:

The first deep-space colony ship, carrying five hundred humans in sleep chambers, is thinking about where she is going. She is designed to last five thousand years and is having a problem dealing with these humans that have to sleep throughout the voyage. Maybe she’s irritated that she has to wake them every hundred years so they can eat and exercise and then make sure they go back to sleep.

A crab sees (smells or senses?) a chicken-back tossed into the water near his home. Maybe he has a back-and-forth discussion with himself or another crab about whether he should go grab hold of the obviously easy dinner. (In case you’ve never gone crabbing, tying a chicken back or neck to a line and tossing it into the water is one of the best ways to catch crabs.)

The North Wind and the East Wind are having an argument resulting in tornadoes across some unlikely place such as Maine.

A perfectly smooth, circular stone is waiting for one of the boys to pick her up to skip across the lake. Little does he (it) know that, once skipped, she’ll (it’ll) be lying on the bottom of the lake forever -- never to be skipped again!

Watch Out For:

If you’re going to have a computer, robot, or android doing the thinking or talking, make sure that you follow logical thought.

If you’re going to have an inanimate object talking to a human, make sure you give it a mouth -- somehow.

Recap:

This week’s submissions were so cool. As always everyone took a slightly different approach and every one of them was wonderful.

Employee Evaluation (SatWe, August, 20th, 2010)  by Angela A.

Homework - Tell it like it is (Saturday Writing Essential)  by Brenda Youngerman

It's Attitude that Counts - Saturday Writing Essentials - SATwe  by Elsie Duggan

Life or Death Choices (Saturday Writing Essential)  by Ruthi C.

Mary, getting ready for her husband's return from work- Saturday Writing Essential  by Karen Irene B.

Parallels - SatWE - 2 contrasting paragraphs Saturday Writing Essential  by Abbie H.

Preditor or Prey (Saturday Gather Writing Essentials--8/21/10)  by Gary (Redneck’s Weight Loss Guide) J.

Sam in Survival School (Saturday Writing Essential)  by Len Maxwell

I’ll make my weekly mention of the fact that these writers worked hard to produce these stories and it would be very generous of you to read each one of them and please remember to click on the “recommend” for each of them. Thank you.

Submissions for Previous Week’s Prompts:

Fairy Tale (Saturday Writing Essentials, August 12th, 2010)  by Angela A.

SATwe....8/21/10....The Knotty Ottoman...Saturday Writing Essential  by Janice F.

Please note that I had some computer and Internet issues this week. I think there were a couple of other submissions to past weeks that I lost somewhere. If so, let me know and I’ll get them listed next week.

The Rules:

• Put this challenge statement at the beginning or end of your submission so readers will know what you’re supposed to do.

Challenge: Write something where a non-human is talking or thinking; either telling the story or is the main character. Make it a tree, an animal, a rock, or anything else you can come up with.

• There is a limit of three submissions from each member per day. If you’re extremely prolific, spread out your work and post only three submissions per day.
• Post to Gather Writing Essential.
• Tag your submission with SatWE.
• Include (Saturday Writing Essential) as part of your title.
• I ask that you make your submission(s) by Friday afternoon (PDT), September 3.

Good Writing!