Wednesday, 30 April 2014

Writing exercise #1 - Fact or Fiction

 My name is Tony. I currently live in a village in the North of England. The population of the village is made up mostly of 'dinkies' - people with a double income and no kids. I stand out, as I am a single father; my son is called Wlliam and he is two years and four months old. I have some mental health issues, mostly depression and suicidal ideation, so our little family has a support worker who helps us out three times a day, seven days a week.

Our support worker is called Hayley and she is a little older than myself. She's a really kind woman and incredibly helpful. She lives in a suburb of the nearest city to us. On her estate the population is mostly made up of single parent families and retired people. Hayley doesn't have any children but she and William still get on like a house on fire. She helps me get William up and dressed and fed in the mornings, at tea time she helps me make our dinner and comes back a bit later to help me get William settled down for bed.


The brief for this piece was to write two paragraphs of between 50 and 100 words, one containing three truths and one fiction and the other containing one truth and three fictions. I over-did it a bit, because paragraph one contains five fictions, two truth and a half-truth. Paragraph two is mostly truths, except there is no William!


I've re-done this exercise, to bring it closer to the original brief. Here's my second attempt:

Kay is a 51 year old, unemployed woman who lives in Manchester. She has brown hair, hazel eyes and a cute nose. I first met Kay at our local library; we both work there on a voluntary basis, doing general library work like shelving books and working on the checkout desk.

You wouldn't think it to look at her, though she is pretty, but Kay used to work as a stripper. She told me this over dinner in a local restaurant, Orson's. I was pretty shocked and startled when I found that out, but I don't think it's changed our friendship. Kay works very hard at the library, but she can be a bit abrasive so she isn't universally liked by our co-workers. I guess you'd call her 'an acquired taste'.

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