A truth everyone agrees on
Write it their way · 20 minutes · Published
Read this first
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters.
Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice (1813). Project Gutenberg #1342
The prompt
Open with a sweeping claim that everyone around you is expected to accept, stated as calmly as a law of nature. In a second sentence of the same long, balanced shape, show how one household quietly turns that claim to its own advantage. Choose a subject far from marriage: a parking space, a retirement, a new neighbour's dog.
Set a timer for 20 minutes.
Short version · 10 minutes
In ten minutes, write only the first sentence: one sweeping claim about your street, built with the same balance of clauses, and stop when it rings true.
The move
Write it their way. Take a passage you admire and write something else in its exact shape: same syntax, same rhythm, same movement, another subject.
Tags: imitation, rhythm and voice.
In a group
A way to run it with a writing group:
Blind vote. The texts are gathered without names, read and voted on. Then the writers make themselves known and the choices are discussed.
- Pride and Prejudice, read as five moments
- Pride and Prejudice: Darcy's letter as the hinge
- Pride and Prejudice, outlined chapter by chapter
Where the page goes next
Scrin is a home where pages grow into books: you keep writing, from an untitled line to a chapter, and Scrin keeps the rest.