Waiting
by
Peggy McNally
Five
days a week the lowest-paid substitute teacher in the district drives her
father’s used Mercury to Hough and 79th, where she eases it, mud
flaps and all, down the ramp into the garage of Patrick Henry Junior High, a
school where she’ll teach back-to-back classes without so much as a coffee
break and all of this depressing her until she remembers her date last night,
and hopes it might lead to bigger things, maybe love, so she quickens her pace
towards the main office to pick up her class lists with the names of students
she’ll never know as well as she has come to know the specials in the
cafeteria, where she hopes the coffee will be perking and someone will have
brought in those doughnuts she’s come to love so much, loves more than the idea
of teaching seventh-graders the meaning of a poem, because after all she’s a
sub who’ll finish her day, head south to her father’s house, and at dinner,
he’ll ask her how her job is going, and she’ll say okay, and he’ll remind her
that it might lead to a full-time position with benefits but she knows what
teaching in that school is like, and her date from last night calls to ask if
she’s busy and she says yes because she’s promised her father she’d wash his
car and promises to her father are sacred since her mother died, besides it’s
the least she can do now that he lets her drive his car five days a week toward
the big lake, to the NE corner of Hough and 79th and you know the
rest.
***
Write a single sentence story about a day in the life of one of your characters. Give the character conflicting desires. (In "Waiting," she wants to take care of her father and she wants a romantic relationship. These desires are in conflict.) Put the character into what for him or her is a normal, ordinary situation, but make it vivid with lots of detail. Using one sentence write about the day. Try to stretch the sentence out without violating rules about grammar and punctuation.
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#2
Turn your #1 story into six six-word stories.
#1
Pre-writing
Think of someone you've seen in school whom you don't know well but are intrigued by.
Think of someone you've seen outside of school whom you don't know well but are intrigued by.
(You might want to describe the characters before starting to write your story. You might not.)
Think of something--tangible or intangible--that the school character wants.
Think of something--tangible or intangible--that the outside of school character wants.
(You might want to write down what each character wants before starting to write your story. You might want to discover this as you write your story.)
Put the two into a situation in which the two desires are directly or indirectly, explicitly or implicitly in conflict.
(You might want to describe the situation and setting before starting to write your story. You might not.)
Writing
Write a short short story (200 - 1000 words) about what happens with the characters in the situation.
**********************
#2
Turn your #1 story into six six-word stories.
#1
Pre-writing
Think of someone you've seen in school whom you don't know well but are intrigued by.
Think of someone you've seen outside of school whom you don't know well but are intrigued by.
(You might want to describe the characters before starting to write your story. You might not.)
Think of something--tangible or intangible--that the school character wants.
Think of something--tangible or intangible--that the outside of school character wants.
(You might want to write down what each character wants before starting to write your story. You might want to discover this as you write your story.)
Put the two into a situation in which the two desires are directly or indirectly, explicitly or implicitly in conflict.
(You might want to describe the situation and setting before starting to write your story. You might not.)
Writing
Write a short short story (200 - 1000 words) about what happens with the characters in the situation.
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