The Value of Constraints, Round 2

The results from Round 1

Remember a couple of months ago when I participated in the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge Round 1 (to write an original short story of 1000 words max within 48 hours using the assigned genre, location, and object)? 

Some backstory: 4200+ writers participated, broken up into 120 groups of 35 writers. Each group had the same genre/location/object assignment, and three judges awarded points to 15 out of 35 writers. 

I received 0 points.

In other words, I did not place or rank in my group. 

Huge ego bruise! I thought I’d get at least a point or two - after all, I am a Writer, aren’t I? 

I had a moment of not wanting to participate in Round 2. What would be the point? It’s unlikely that I would go on to Round 3 (the top 5 writers in each group with the most cumulative points after Rounds 1 and 2 advance to the next round). Is it worth competing if there is no chance of winning? After sulking a bit and revisiting one of my all-time-favorite inspirational quotes, I looked at the positives: I met the challenge, I took on an unfamiliar genre (spy) and location (a fighter jet), I wrote a story. Could I write a story again? Even if “winning” is not on the table?

When I received my feedback on my story (worth the price of admission!), I felt better about my submission. One judge loved everything about it; the other two criticized the underwhelming ending and the complete lack of espionage, mission, or secrets being collected within the story. 

Fair. As someone who writes quiet, introspective, and emotional change-driven work, I can’t fault their criticisms.

And I’m reminded that opinions are subjective. A writer I know who published his first chapbook with a prestigious publisher told me he submitted it once and it was rejected; he submitted it again the following year without changing anything and it was selected as the competition winner. So, you never know who is going to like your work - or not.

Round 2 assignment

Assignments were posted at 11:59pm on Friday, August 12. Since that is well past my bedtime, I received my assignment when I got up the next morning: 

Genre: Historical Fiction

Location: A garden apartment

Object: A piggy bank

I breathed a sigh of relief at the genre, as it’s one I read! 

I sat at my computer shortly before 8am with a cup of coffee. I wanted to write a story about anthropologist Margaret Mead. Did she ever live in a garden apartment? I Googled. 

Turns out, she did! I had a story idea.

Process

Coincidentally, I had signed up for two different flash workshops on Saturday. I wouldn’t be able to work on my story for about 5 of the challenge hours.

So I researched until the first workshop. I was looking for actual facts on which to base my story. When did Margaret Mead live at 75½ Bedford St.? What would have been on her mind? I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what actually happened - until I realized that I would have to stop researching at some point and just MAKE UP something reasonably plausible. That’s what fiction is.

During the workshops, I used the prompts and writing time to flesh out my idea a bit. By the end of Saturday, I had a rough outline and lots of notes, and about 200 words written. 

Sunday, I finished a draft around noon, sent it to a couple of friends for feedback, took a couple hours away from it, and finished it up around dinnertime and submitted it. I feel good about it as a story, and after having responded to this challenge twice, I feel good about using constraints more regularly to help me write. 

Constraints as a tool

I have a hard time producing anything when I have space and time to write. But when given a time constraint, a word count, and a genre/location/object, suddenly it becomes easier to be creative? 

Coincidentally, one of the workshops I attended was led by the writer Helen Phillips. She’s the one who gave herself the constraint to write a story a day for two years - and each story had to be exactly 340 words. (Those stories became her debut book, And Yet They Were Happy.)

Another book I read recently is a collection where each piece riffs on one word from Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29.

And another recent favorite where the author found a stash of old photos in a Whitman’s Sampler box at an antiques market - and created a coherent story out of them.  

So, the takeaway here is: constraints WORK.

Here are some types of constraints you can play with - choose one or more at a time: 

• A form 

• A word count

• A time limit

• A topic

• A theme

• An object

• A location

• A work of art

• A first line/A last line

• A character/historical figure

• A situation

• A color

• A word that must be present/A word that cannot be used

• A syllable count

• A selection of random words

• Use only one sense

• Imitate the style/syntax/phrasing of another writer

Combine in interesting and unusual ways:

• “For two months I combed Andrew Lang's late-1800s fairy tales for sentences containing the word "ugly" or "beautiful". I took the resulting sentences and created a new fairy tale, the kind of fairy tale I wish I could have read as a child.” (From Tommy Dean’s interview with Sage Tyrtle)

• Write a short story in the style of an essay in Ross Gay's The Book of Delights, which is to say, one paragraph that describes a grievance in a highly specific, inventive, and vivid way, and a second paragraph that makes of that grievance something larger than the sum of its parts. (From Jeannine Ouellette’s Writing in the Dark workshop)

• Write an erasure piece -  take any source and black out the text, leaving only scattered words and phrases that combine to create a new work (see Poets.org’s definition and examples; I gave it a try earlier this year).

My challenge is to figure out which constraints in what combination will unlock something new and fun right now. What constraints (and combinations) are most useful for you? I’d love to hear what’s worked!