{"id":3511,"date":"2020-06-07T10:33:13","date_gmt":"2020-06-07T16:33:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/?p=3511"},"modified":"2020-06-06T10:06:00","modified_gmt":"2020-06-06T16:06:00","slug":"the-escalator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/2020\/06\/the-escalator\/","title":{"rendered":"The Escalator"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Many years ago, I took a continuing education in\u00a0creative writing at Rice University<\/a>. I never took another one, until recently when I got it in my mind to try again.\u00a0This time, I wanted to look for\u00a0an online course.<\/p>\n

Despite most online courses these days centering on coding or engineering, I found an online creative writing course, focusing on plot development, on Coursera from Wesleyan University<\/a>. Because I’m not a paying student on Coursera, I cannot submit my writing,\u00a0so I’m going to\u00a0share it here.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0assignment from Week 1 is called “The Escalator”. The instructions are below, but the goal is to move the plot along by the use of certain words, like ‘tiger’ and ‘appliance’. It feels a little contrived, but actually these action words really help move things along.<\/p>\n

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Assignment: The Escalator<\/h3>\n

Write a scene of 250-350 words featuring a character with one concrete\u00a0want<\/strong>\u00a0(a table, a moose, a toothbrush, anything physical is fine!) and one\u00a0weakness<\/strong>. Use these two features to drive the action of the plot. Set up the story where\u00a0every other sentence<\/strong>\u00a0is a rising action. To help you come up with rising actions, use one word from the following list of twelve words in each sentence that has a rising action. In other words: Write your first sentence introducing your character. Make the next sentence a rising action using one of the following twelve words. Write your third sentence, which may introduce the weakness, then write your fourth sentence with a rising action that includes one of the remaining eleven words you haven\u2019t used. And so on.<\/p>\n

    \n
  • trick<\/em><\/li>\n
  • memory<\/em><\/li>\n
  • aboard<\/em><\/li>\n
  • tiger<\/em><\/li>\n
  • pretend<\/em><\/li>\n
  • carrot<\/em><\/li>\n
  • appliance<\/em><\/li>\n
  • cage<\/em><\/li>\n
  • rings<\/em><\/li>\n
  • crow<\/em><\/li>\n
  • filthy<\/em><\/li>\n
  • explode<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    You must use at least 6 of the 12 words, but you are encouraged to challenge yourself to use as many of the words as possible while still meeting the word count.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

    \n
    \n
    \n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

    Submission: Gold Ring<\/h3>\n

    Abby had recently started a new job after a long period of unemployment. As she found herself in the jewelry department of Bloomingdale\u2019s, she could feel a small part of her <\/span>explode<\/b> with pride that she had finally secured full-time work and start living again.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    In the past, Abby had purchased earrings or a necklace to celebrate a new job, but since she wouldn\u2019t get paid until the end of the month, she didn\u2019t have the money to buy anything new. She tried to <\/span>pretend<\/b> eagerness in buying the set of pearl earrings the sales girl was showing her and smiled when she looked in the mirror.<\/span><\/p>\n

    As she looked around she noticed the jewelry department wasn\u2019t that busy, but it wasn\u2019t that crowded. She had an idea to somehow <\/span>trick<\/b> the sales girl and get the jewelry \u2014 by stealing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    She\u2019d never stolen before and could hardly believe she\u2019d formulated this idea on her own. But after those many months of unemployment and self-doubt \u2014- pinching every dime, and eating rice and lentils every night \u2014- she finally felt like she\u2019d escaped her <\/span>cage<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Well, she told herself, if she was going to possibly get caught stealing, she wanted to make sure it was worth it. She moved around the glass cases like a <\/span>tiger<\/b> stalking prey, making notes in her head of pieces she liked and didn\u2019t.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Finally she came to a case of rings and asked to view them closer. When the rings were placed in front of her, she cocked her head like a <\/span>crow<\/b>, this way and that, trying to eye both the sales girl and the rings.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    The ring she chose to try on was a simple ring of rose gold and opal. She admired how it looked on her finger and tried to remember the moment to form a <\/span>memory<\/b> in her mind.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    She hadn\u2019t figured out exactly how she was going to steal it and began to feel her confidence waning. Suddenly, what had been a loud murmur at the other end of the jewelry case <\/span>exploded<\/b> into a commotion. A well-dressed man and woman began to yell and scream, hurling <\/span>filthy<\/b> insults at each other.<\/span><\/p>\n

    All of the sales attendants immediately hurried over to the couple, including the sales girl who had been serving Abby.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    Like a <\/span>tiger<\/b>, Abby pounced at her lucky opportunity. She put her ringed hand in her pocket, picked up her bag and began quickly walking, almost running, towards the door.<\/span><\/p>\n

    Just as she reached the door, she heard a voice call out to her, \u201cOh, Miss! <\/span>Oh, Miss!<\/span><\/i>\u201d. But Abby didn\u2019t stop.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    An attempt at a plot development technique called “The Escalator” — from an online creative writing course, focused on plot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3639,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,1,343],"tags":[575,336,520,574,360],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3511"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3511"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3511\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3712,"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3511\/revisions\/3712"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}