Framing a Story

For the next assignment, we were given a phrase, and then told to make a 5 frame story with the help of the phrase. Simple enough? But one of the frames had to be a frame from the the shadow assignment. This simple twist was enough to derail any idea that initially entered my mind.

The phrase I was given to work with: The one who flew over the cuckoos nest

After quite a lot of thinking, and many chocolates later, I thought of a simple poem to go along with my story. This also happened to be my first crack at writing a poem.

There was once a man named Jonquil

Who wanted to paint his masterpiece somewhere tranquil,

So he went to place called Julep

Where he could paint a field of tulips,

He drew all day till night

Overnight a storm had destroyed the tulips fields with all its might,

Seeing the fields bare of his beautiful muse, Jonquil was horrified

Such was the shock that the thought of painting had Jonquil terrified.

The next part is the best bit. We put all our frames in a box, and each person pulled out 5 frames each and we went about making another story with the same phrase.

Here's what I came up with,

There was once a girl who followed fashion religiously. The latest fashion headline read, "Thinner than skin is in!" She went to The Master to try help her fulfil her wish of becoming thinner than skin. The Master agreed to help out, and went looking for a potion. He found a potion and gave it to her in the form of a lemonade. She quickly drank it and suddenly there was a flash of light, and she turned into a wisp of smoke. The Master sat back and smiled, pleased he could fulfil her wish.

The Universe was slowly coming to an end. As The Creator looked up the Universe slowly tearing itself apart, he heaved a sigh of relief. He had finally retired. As he looked back at his long past, he reflected on the biggest mistakes he had made. Fashion, he thought, was a big mistake. But then he remembered something even worse. Sour lemonade. Absolutely diabolical, he thought.

I loved making these small stories and poems up within the given limitations. They say control kills creativity. I disagree. Control enhances creativity. It gives a chance to truly push the boundaries and come up with something stunning.