My friend, the Filipina author Raissa Falgui, wrote recently: “Success! I wrote a story on a mythological creature that my younger son’s doing a project on. I gave it to him to read when I went to shower and when I got out, he was still reading instead of switching to Garage Band or games on my tablet. I call that a win!”
She was commenting on her post of a year ago when she had written: “For fourteen years, the main child reader I wrote for was my daughter, the oldest of my children. And I was delighted that she liked almost all the same books I liked, so naturally she loved all the children’s and YA stories I wrote. The adult ones that we allowed her to read, too! And the younger ones also adored the picture books I authored.
But now I have a tween who is picky about what he reads. It’s got to have mystery, action, adventure. He’s a 12 year old who also likes history but it’s got to involve war (the part with weapons and battles), something which we have a lot of YA of but for some reason no middle grade.
And I know this kid represents many boys who lose interest in reading past the early grades, so now I have to switch gears and think of something to write for him. I have been working on some historical stories, but I still fear the action will not be enough for him. I can write fight scenes thanks to once having done martial arts, but battles don’t really appeal to me. It’s something I’ll keep working on, though. For fifteen years I wrote for myself, an audience that was pretty much like me. Now I’ve got to widen my horizons.”
My writing prompt for you is to write a short story, under 500 words, say, that is written specifically for someone with very different interests and outlook to your own.
As an example, I wrote an 190 word story when we had new neighbours in Wales who were sure that I too would be bothered and annoyed by the constant tinkle of sheep bells day and night. Between our properties there was a sunken road lined both sides with trees. And whether because of this, or some other quirk of geography, the sheep bells were not audible from our land.
But I wrote a story to amuse them called “Dark Tenor” about a musician stranded in an isolated place whilst recovering after an accident, and plagued by the constant tinkling of sheep bells. I used a few words from Bob Dylan’s ‘Tambourine Man’ as my prompt.
(This also employed a line from a song an idea I mentioned in a previous Pensive here: I’d give the world to know…)
Who will you write for?
Picture credits: Unknown (perhaps AI) for War Scene from pixabay.com; Erwan Grey for Sheep with Bells at pexels.com.
