Tag Archives: a writer's life

Great Balls of Fire! A getaway pegacorn happens!

Last week I found two Sunday writing prompts. Let’s see what they have for me today:

Poetic Bloomings‘ PROMPT #334 is “It Happens” and Mindlovesmisery’s Menagerie‘s Sunday Writing Prompt is “Great Balls of Fire”

I thought I would combine the prompts and was mid-freewrite with the ideas, but then something happened. 🙂

A photograph of an inflatable pegacorn, white with rainbow mane, wings, tail and horn on a blue lake.
Pegacorn leashed by Maria L. Berg 2021

Flying Free on the Slightest Breeze

I ran to save a pegacorn. It happens.
I jumped up and ran to my dock
expecting to intercept
but it surprised me

It didn’t stop. It flipped
in a flash, floating
on a slight breeze,
landing halfway

to the neighbor’s dock
It eyed me and its escape
one more flip
then gone

I sprinted through the weeds
ignoring the bushes grown together
I found footing over the sharp
wet rocks and leaped

over the watery gap
to the wobbly planks
in time, just in time
to grab

that mythical horse’s
horn and deliver
it to a thankful mermaid
ready for a flying adventure

An open rose with yellow, orange and red petals
Great Balls of Fire by Maria L. Berg 2021

Here’s the original poem of somewhat combined prompts:

Fireballs Happen

The great ball of fire commands the day
burns up the clouds for full display
brightens the blues, the greens, yellows, and pinks
and heats up the ant invasion

The great ball of firing neurons attenuate
to every black speck, ready to hate
the second it moves, obsessively out for the kill
if only this year it could end

The great ball of fire from ant-filled wood
each crackle a hope lifting my mood
they burned, they burned the entire glorious day
diminished, but never gone

As I admire the great balls of fiery rhododendrons
each tattooed blossom aflame in summer, my neurons
burn with hope that the bomb of toxins I desperately set
in the bathroom will push back

No! Destroy the enemy, so I may some day
bake and bathe undisturbed under the
great ball of fire in the sky

Revising at the Scene Level

Fixing It – photograph by Maria L. Berg 2021

In my last post on revising a short story, I mentioned the many things a scene needs to do:

  • have a goal
  • have a conflict
  • have an action that leads to a new goal
  • character development
  • world building
  • reveal new information
  • provide sensory information
  • have a grabber or payoff

For my revision, I assigned each of these scene needs a letter, and starting with the final scene, worked backward through my story, evaluating each scene. Here’s an example:

Scene 14: Maria’s POV after feeding in the town [one of my MCs is a Mexican-American named Maria (not me 😉 )].

G – To leave town
C – a farmer tries to help her, grabs her wrist
A – She uses aspects of the chupacabra to get away
D – She feels / wields the chupacabra’s power, misses old life
W – describes the nearest town to the river
N – Maria can bring out the chupacabra for defense when scared
S – sounds: door slams, whistling; texture: grimy
P – She hurt the farmer to get away

This quick analysis of each scene did wonders. I completely deleted one scene and combined two others. I discovered areas that needed more description and sensory detail and a section of exposition that I was able to show in a scene. I had printed out a more detailed “Deconstructing a Scene” worksheet I created a couple years ago, but I didn’t use it because this system worked. I plan to use it as part of my revision process in the future.

After analyzing each scene, I typed in all my changes, saved the draft and let it rest.

But the Distractions – photograph by Maria L. Berg 2021

I found joy in editing a different, shorter story while letting this one rest. In that story, the main issues were filter words. It really helped the piece to remove sensory filters: saw, heard, and felt. I also added specific details like “mahogany” instead of wood. By the time I finished revising the story, I enjoyed reading it aloud. The words felt good in my mouth.

Doin’ the Work – photograph by Maria L. Berg 2021

I brought the feeling of accomplishment and the specific issues I found in the shorter story to the next phase of revision: paragraphs, sentences, and word choice which I will talk about in my next post.

How is your revision is going? Have any tips or tricks?

Any questions?

Please share in the comments.