Family Is The Best

Anne Bernays and Pamela Painter — What If? Writing Exercise for Fiction Writers prompts

The Exercise —Stay away from the following word packages. They signal to the smart reader that you lack freshness and are an uninteresting writer.

• Better than ever
• For some curious reason
• A number of...
• As everybody knows
• She didn't know where she was
• Things were getting out of hand
• It came as no surprise
• It was beyond him
• Needless to say
• Without thinking
• He lived in the moment
• Well in advance
• An emotional roller coaster
• Little did I know

The Objective - To purge yourself forever of stale and/or imprecise language.

The above is just information for me to remember not to do anything with. Every once in a while, I catch myself doing this. Like that? Now, I will remember this, right? Probably not. Sharing with whoever reads this for a fiction tip.

On to the next tip:

The Exercise - Write a description in which the sentences are variously built. The subject should not always be the first word; some sentences should be longer than others. Read aloud the work of an author you admire and see how he or she accomplishes this. It's all right to imitate.

The Objective - Prose is both utilitarian and decorative. Unless you're deliberately reaching for a flat, monotonous tone, you should try for variation in the sound of your prose.

It wasn't too long ago that it was the big day for my daughter! She was married to a man from Alaska. A man she had met through a matchmaker program. Her new husband had three children, and she had one. Once they met online, they would talk day and night.

After the wedding, they moved to Alaska, and that was difficult for me, especially when the babies started to come. I do the best I can to keep family close. If anyone is even thinking about moving to California, I remind them that it is predicted to fall into the ocean.

I remind them how the roads fall down, with the cars on them, when there is an earthquake, and that it may burn up with all of the fires happening there in the last several years.

She will remind me when I start talking like that, "Mom, you know I stopped using that match-up program until the very end. The time when I opened it up to the world. I wasn't happy with the matches in the area I was getting. There was no one that I was interested in close by. And you know Alaska is beautiful!"

Alaska is beautiful, and I don't want to live there. And I don't want my children or grandchildren living there either.

Today, they still talk day and night. They now have eight children and six grandchildren. It is amazing how the time has gone by so fast. The young ones at the time they got together are now adults with beautiful, creative, smart children of their own.

It is a grandmothers perogative to include that kind of embellishment when it comes to her great-grandchildren. And most often it is the truth. They are all back close to home. Her family is the one to live the closest to us. My daughter, son-in-law, and their eight children and six grandchildren all live within 30 miles of us.

Our other six children live in the state, with only 2 grandchildren and a great-grandchild living in other states.

Our time together is most often spent both enjoying the outdoors and each other. Getting together over the holidays means we play games, catch up on what everyone is doing, talk about missing the ones that couldn't make it, and talk about what they are doing in their life too.

We love our big family. My three children are the ones who get together with us, separate from the actual holidays, but sometimes close to Thanksgiving and Christmas.

My husband's children are city kids and get together when we go there for meals and gatherings. We will be at a grandson's birthday soon, and we go to a granddaughter's dance recitals and some other's sporting events.

Family is the best! And now, I need a rest!

Note: I know this is a fiction prompt, but this is what came to mind. Maybe because I was just reminiscing with the hubby about how fast time goes.