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August 19, 2008
WRITING PROMPT: Rewrite Your Parents' Lives
What if we could rewrite the life stories of our parents or of those we love?
That is exactly what Nobel Prize-winning writer Doris Lessing has done in her new book about her parents, Alfred and Emily.
This is a book of two parts. The first half is a work of fiction about the lives she wished her parents did have, a life filled with happiness and fulfillment. The second part is the real version in which she explores the unhappy lives of her parents as she actually knew them.
What Lessing has done is what many of us often think of when we imagine what if such and such happened instead of what really did happen. Doesn't each of us at times try to imagine our life in a different way? Who wants, for example, to accept a sad or bad story when what we really want to have is a happy, wonderful story -- even if it's one we have to make up?
The wonderful thing about being a writer is that you can use your imagination to create different worlds from what you know. If you're feeling unhappy in real life, for example, you might want to create a world in which you feel happy. If you are poor, you might want to imagine a story in which the characters are rich.
So, for this writing prompt, you have permission to change a story about your parents or yourself into something entirely different, the complete opposite if you wish. There is no one to stop you from creating the story that you really wanted to hear and read.
Please share your writings with us.
Posted by billz at August 19, 2008 12:45 PM
