{"id":4509,"date":"2007-06-15T00:25:19","date_gmt":"2007-06-15T05:25:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com?p=4509"},"modified":"2007-06-15T07:20:26","modified_gmt":"2007-06-15T12:20:26","slug":"55friday_the_on_1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/2007\/06\/15\/55friday_the_on_1\/","title":{"rendered":"55Friday: The “One Sentence Story” Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

I hadn’t logged in to my del.icio.us<\/a> for a while; when I did so today, one of the “popular” links on the main page caught my eye.<\/p>\n\n

One Sentence – True stories, told in one sentence<\/strong>. [link<\/a>]<\/blockquote>\n\n

Since I’m the resident doyenne of fast fiction<\/a> (ironic, innit?), I was predictably and immediately interested.<\/p>\n\n

As soon as I thought, “This might be fun for 55Friday<\/a>,” your torment was assured. Last week, we had as many haikus as we did examples of nanofiction, so I know you like to change things up a bit. Oh, and to those who wondered out loud why we do this writing-thing\/expressed how you’d like to see less<\/em> of these posts on SM, I have three things to type:<\/p>\n\n

1) Others actually love what you dislike.<\/p>\n\n

2) It’s a tradition<\/a>! We’re desi, we love rituals and routines!<\/p>\n\n

3) As one of you put it in a very kind email:<\/p>\n\n

I noticed that you haven’t posted a 55Friday<\/a> topic in a while. I hope you didn’t discontinue it. I love 55Friday because it’s the only time during the week when I’m creative. One day a week, I get to feel like I’m living up to that ever-present new year’s resolution to “write more”, so please bring it back if you can.<\/blockquote>\n\n

So, please ignore this if it doesn’t have any effect on your knickers and move on to something which will– and that’s solid advice for every<\/em> post you wrinkle your cute little nose at, not just 55Fridays.<\/p>\n\n

Okay, back to one-sentence wonders. The most significant difference between this and our typical 55s<\/a>? These are supposed to be true, real, non-fiction<\/strong>. I chose a few from the site, to inspire you and help demonstrate what to do. Most of these were plucked from the “Best of” section.<\/p>\n\n

I don’t wish that I had Jesse’s girl…why did he find a woman like this:<\/p>\n\n

Jesse<\/a><\/blockquote>\n\n
She’s ruined half of my music library for me.<\/blockquote>\n\n

Since these are true stories, this one made my heart crack:<\/p>\n\n

zot<\/a><\/blockquote>\n\n
I am heart-sick because, like many parents of children with profound disabilities, my most secret and unspoken prayer is “Dear God, please let me outlive my child.”<\/blockquote>\n\n

This (since they’re supposed to be true!) is just wrong \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n

Adam<\/a><\/blockquote>\n\n
The pedestrian looked concerned, as he bounced off the bonnet of my car.<\/blockquote>\n\n

The following reminds me of my little sister; though she<\/em> pretends to scribble in the air to quickly figure out which her right<\/em> is, instead of doing what’s below.<\/p>\n\n

Jabberwocky<\/a><\/blockquote>\n\n
I know 18 digits of pi and can recite the quadratic equation, but I still need to make an L with my hand to find out where left is.<\/blockquote>\n\n

This could have been written by one of my closest friends, a quondam lawyer and current SAHM:<\/p>\n\n

ilinapde<\/a><\/blockquote>\n\n
I always thought I’d be a type-A career woman my whole life, but there he was on my chest, squirming, blinking, crying, clutching my little finger with all his might.<\/blockquote>\n\n

If this IS a true story, wow:<\/p>\n\n

countedx58<\/a><\/blockquote>\n\n
How fitting it was that my best friend’s abusive husband died a painful death from melanoma of the rectum.<\/blockquote>\n\n

Have a bit o’ humor:<\/p>\n\n

Erik Wennstrom<\/a><\/blockquote>\n\n
It was one of those exams that you absolutely must pass if you want to continue in the program, and I failed the set-your-alarm-clock-properly portion.<\/blockquote>\n\n

THIS is for the most unsuitable girl I know:<\/p>\n\n

dooya<\/a><\/blockquote>\n\n
Recently I realized that I waste my life on the internet … and published this insight in a blog.<\/blockquote>\n\n

Kinda poignant:<\/p>\n\n

denton<\/a><\/blockquote>\n\n
\nI want to hold her to stop her tears, but I know my girlfriend would not appreciate that.<\/blockquote>\n\n

And a final pinch of humor:<\/p>\n\n

zooey<\/a><\/blockquote>\n\n
Only later did I realize that the taxi driver wasn’t making an obscene gesture, but rather, trying to inform me that I had left a box of takeout on the roof of my car.<\/blockquote>\n\n

See? Wasn’t that swift and yet satisfying? \ud83d\ude42 Some of you are intimidated by the prospect of writing 55 words which contain an entire story<\/a>; maybe creating something zimbler, like one sentence<\/em> will free you from your fears.<\/p>\n\n

Here, the silk ties which will bind your hands, if you so desire:<\/p>\n\n

All stories must be one sentence and one sentence only. Yes, there are ways you can write a gramatically correct sentence that goes on and on and on (hello, semicolon!) but please keep it reasonable. The idea is to tell a story from your life in as little space as possible.<\/blockquote>\n\n
The best One Sentence stories are ones that give the reader a clear picture but also leaves them thinking, “I wonder what happened after that…”<\/blockquote>\n\n
Try to avoid starting your story with “One time…” or “I remember when…” and other similar crutch openings. [link<\/a>]<\/blockquote>\n\n

If you love what you’ve done and care to submit it to the actual “One Sentence” website where I pulled all of today’s examples from, click here<\/a> and paste away.<\/p>\n\n

And finally, our standard fine-print:<\/p>\n\n

Obviously, you may ignore this new kink in our virtual writing-orgy and 55 away<\/a>, especially if you prefer creating<\/em> fictional stories vs. retelling true ones. We’ll love you and your nanofiction just as much, I promise. The point is to write, right? \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I hadn’t logged in to my del.icio.us for a while; when I did so today, one of the “popular” links on the main page caught my eye. One Sentence – True stories, told in one sentence. [link] Since I’m the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[33],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4509"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4509"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4509\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/sepiamutiny.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}