Welcome back for the twenty-ninth day of Writober. We are in our final days looking at the fifth universal fear: fear of extinction. Today we’re looking at fear of predators.
Fear of predators is hard-wired into the human psyche from cave man days, but today, a human is as likely to be the predator as a bear or mountain lion, or more so depending on where you live.
The wolf is a traditional predatory figure in stories such as “Little Red Riding Hood” and “The Three Little Pigs.” In more recent story telling the Dragon , or the more than ginormous shark, tends to be the alpha predator.
Rhetorical Device: Extended Metaphor
These final few days, we’re putting all our techniques together. We have sounds, syllables, words, phrases, lines, stanzas, and rhythm to play with as we write. We can use all of these tools to create an extended metaphor. With an extended metaphor, a metaphor is presented and then the entire work continues to present the connections and argue how one thing is another thing.
Fighting Fear of the Blank Page: How are you feeling about that blank page? Is it still taunting you? What if you give that page a beat?
Write to a beat: I have a drum kit and played around with playing simple beat patterns and then trying to make my words fit that day’s beat. Here are a couple posts where I was playing with that idea:
The Warm-up Week: Creating New Systems
The Week in Review: Reading, Writing, and Abstraction
*Quick Note about links in this post: I am an amazon associate, so most of the links in my post will take you to amazon products. If you buy from these links, I will make some pennies which will help me pay for this site and my creative endeavors.
OctPoWriMo
Poetry Toolbox
These are quick exercises that I hope you’ll do every day. We will build on these exercises throughout the month.
- Word list: Write down the first ten words you think of when you think of fear. Any words at all. Anything that comes to mind. Then choose your three favorite and say them aloud a few times until you hear the accented and unaccented syllables (if more than one syllable) and notice the duration of each syllable. (Inspired by Frances Mayes’ list of a hundred favorite words in The Discovery of Poetry)
I created this Excel Spreadsheet for you to use to collect and explore your fear words.
2. Sensory Imagery: In your journal or a word processing file, fill in these lines as quickly as you can. Notice they are slightly different from last week. You may want to revisit one or two in more detail if you’re inspired and have time.
I will never see
I will never hear
I will never carry
I will never smell
I will never follow
The death of
The grief of
I will never taste
The texture of
I will never witness
I will never touch
(Inspired by a week one exercise in the poetry chapter of The Portable MFA in Creative Writing)
3. More Sensory Imagery: Ask yourself sensory questions about fear of predators.
4. Choose a poetry collection: Why do you think the poems are ordered in the manner they are? Do you agree that it’s the best possible order, or would you have changed how the poems were presented?
Poetry Building
Extended Metaphor Take a look at What is Extended Metaphor? from Masterclass.com
Example poem: Today we’re looking at The Death King by Anne Sexton, copied here from poemhunter.com for educational purposes.
The Death King
I hired a carpenter
to build my coffin
and last night I lay in it,
braced by a pillow,
sniffing the wood,
letting the old king
breathe on me,
thinking of my poor murdered body,
murdered by time,
waiting to turn stiff as a field marshal,
letting the silence dishonor me,
remembering that I’ll never cough again.
Death will be the end of fear
and the fear of dying,
fear like a dog stuffed in my mouth,
fear like dung stuffed up my nose,
fear where water turns into steel,
fear as my breast flies into the disposal,
fear as flies tremble in my ear,
fear as the sun ignites in my lap,
fear as night can’t be shut off,
and the dawn, my habitual dawn,
is locked up forever.
Fear and a coffin to lie in
like a dead potato.
Even then I will dance in my dire clothes,
a crematory flight,
blinding my hair and my fingers,
wounding God with his blue face,
his tyranny, his absolute kingdom,
with my aphrodisiac.
How does this poem make you feel? What stands out to you? Who is the predator in this poem? Can you pick out which rhetorical devices Sexton uses in this poem?
Today’s prompt: Write a poem exploring the fear of predators using an extended metaphor.
Form: If you’re looking for more of a challenge, write your poem as a villanelle.
Writober Flash Fiction
Write a story with a beginning, middle, and end with conflict that leads to change in less than a thousand words (no minimal word count) inspired by one of the images in the Extinction folder of the Writober 2024 Pinterest board. How does fear of predators affect your character?
Novel Prep
Now is a good time to think about how you want to tell your story. Will you be telling the story linearly? Or do you want to reorder your scenes?
Who will be telling the story. Will it be in first person from your MC’s point of view, or from your antagonist’s point of view? Or are several different characters telling the story? Or will the story be in third person with the narrator perched on the MC’s shoulder? Or several characters?
Is the story finished and told in past tense, or is it ongoing and in the present tense?
Halloween Photography Challenge
Take a photograph that depicts predators or fear of predators and link to your photo in the chat.
Get Moving
Now that you’ve read all the prompts and have all these ideas running around in your head, it’s time for motion. Some suggestions:
You need a goat for this one:
Experience Writing 
Writober – Predators – Ladyleemanila
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