Forced to Write on a Prompt

Tips on Storytelling

Sorry I haven’t posted for a couple weeks. It’s been crazy around here. I’m back now, though.

Sometimes I get asked to write a story about a specific theme or topic. I find this to be the most frustrating way to go about writing a story. It is easier for me to write about whatever pops into my head than it is to write on a prompt. For example, I recently had to write not one, but two!!! Thanksgiving themed stories.

What I do in this situation is…

First, I cruise through my memories and see if I can remember something from my own life that would work for a story. I’m looking for humor so I think of things that went wrong, or funny incidents around the Thanksgiving table, or other events in my life not connected to Thanksgiving but which I could “throw tinsel” on.” Throwing Tinsel on a story is a phrase me, Andy Offutt Irwin, Regi Carpenter, and maybe others, use to describe taking an existing story that is not about a particular theme, and changing a few elements so that it fits the topic. Turning a birthday party into a Christmas party, for example.

I could come up with no memories I could turn into a Thanksgiving story.

Second, I make lists. Lists of Thanksgiving foods: turkey, casserole, sweet potatoes, canned cranberries…

Of Thanksgiving themes: Pilgrims, Native Americans, Pilgrims bringing Small Pox…

Of Thanksgiving activities: cooking, eating, watching football, drunk uncles, dogs getting into the food… My dad used to cook turkey Bird in the Hole style. That’s when you cook a turkey in a hole in the ground. Could I use that?

Of People I associate with Thanksgiving: my mother, my grandmother, my mother-in-law, my wife, Pilgrims, Myles Standish, my cousins, my siblings…

I just keep on making lists until I bounce into something that resonates.

Third, I go to the internet and search engine things such as, ‘Thanksgiving Traditions,’ ‘History of Thanksgiving,’ ‘Other Countries that Celebrate Thanksgiving,’ ‘Names of the People on the Mayflower,’ ‘Thanksgiving Wedding Themes,’ I was getting desperate.

Take any route you can think of folks. Ideas come from crazy places. Also, you don’t want to write the same old tale that’s been told a thousand times before. Try to approach the theme from a new, unexplored direction. Research helps. Because I write tall-tales, I like to have actual facts in my stories, especially weird ones.

Generally, after I have done all of that I have at least some germ of an idea. Hopefully. Maybe. Please, Dear God? I need this story by Wednesday.

Once I latch on to something I ask myself, “Is this a stand alone story, or do I want to place it in my Halfdollar realm of stories?” Halfdollar, for those who don’t know, is the town a lot of my stories are set in. If I set it in Halfdollar I know who the characters can be. If I set it outside Halfdollar I don’t have to worry about Halfdollar canon. Both have their advantages.

I started with this little bit from my research. I know I want it to be a conversation, but I don’t assign speakers to the dialogue yet because I don’t know who is talking. I just rough it out. These are the real names of some Mayflower passengers.

“Some of those folks on the Mayflower gave their kids funny names. A few examples of the children on the Mayflower are Remember, Love, Wrestling, Oceanus, Desire, and Resolved. Oceanus was born during the voyage, which is where his name comes from.”

“Desire is an interesting name for a Puritan.”

“Wrestling Desire seems more appropriate.”

“I wonder if Love and Desire were a couple.”

“Or Desire and Resolved.”

“You think Love, Wrestling, Oceanus, Desire, and Resolved are funny names, but your friends are named after an insect, an amphibian, a cow, and a valley full of ferns?”

I looked at Skeeter, Toad, Charolais, and Fern Dale. “I guess it’s all relative.”

“What happened to those people?”

“Most of them are dead now. It was in the 1620s.”

It didn’t go anywhere. I couldn’t figure out how to turn that into a story. However, I don’t ever throw bits away. It could be useful somewhere. Just because this bit didn’t get used in my Thanksgiving story, doing the writing is an important part of my process. You have to start somewhere. And as frustrating as it can be to start over and over, I have learned that it almost always leads somewhere.

I do all of these brainstorming ideas in a single document. I write a few paragraphs, skip a few lines, start again. I have faith that eventually something will start rolling. Once I get a story going I may well scroll back up and copy bits or segments from the false starts to put in the new story. The finished first draft of this story is about six single spaced pages, but the document is about eighteen pages.

I tried another idea. When I was a kid we had communitywide Thanksgiving dinners to help folks in need, and the lonely, have a place to eat and socialize. At those meals we played games, like a cake walk. I wrote:

We had a cake walk at every Thanksgiving community dinner. In a cake walk, there is a table with a bunch of cakes on it, and then a circle on the floor made up of pieces of paper with numbers on them. You walk around the circle until the music stops and then you stand on the nearest number. Someone pulls a ping-pong ball with a number on it from a bowl and says the number out loud. The person standing on the number drawn gets to go to the table and pick a cake. It’s a game invented by bakers who couldn’t decide if they wanted to play musical chairs or bingo.

There were chocolate cakes, yellow cakes, German chocolate cakes, pineapple upside down cakes, and a three-tiered wedding cake.

The three-tiered wedding cake is funny, but I couldn’t figure out why a wedding cake would be there. Nor could I come up with anything funny at a cake walk beyond a food fight or somebody tripping. Those themes are too trite and used for my tastes… Unless I’d had a good idea about a food fight or somebody tripping. Then I would have gone for it. I asked myself, “What if you were wearing ice skates, doing the cake walk on a frozen pond. If a bunch of kids are skating round and round a table of cakes, on the ice, you’d eventually cut through the ice. Like a can opener. If that happened, the table could start to sink and the adults could yell, ‘Save the cakes…’” I liked it, but again, I couldn’t get it to go anywhere.

I wandered back to the Mayflower children’s names idea and thought about who could be having the conversation. And things started to happen.

What if Ulrika was in the conversation? Ulrika is one of my newer characters. Ulrika is from Sweden. She is Sheriff Hasbro’s niece and had come to America for the year as an exchange student. Ulrika is a useful character because she isn’t from my town, or my country. Ulrika can ask simple questions no one else would, which gives me lanes to travel heretofore unbulldozed. I excitedly put Ulrika in the Name conversation. It didn’t help. But then Ulrika, wonderful young woman from Sweden, all on her own, unbidden by me, asked:

“I know the basics, but what exactly is Thanksgiving about?”

I said, “Well, Thanksgiving started because the Pilgrims came to America on the Mayflower to escape religious persecution. But they weren’t doing great. They were starving, but managed to catch a turkey, which should have only lasted one family one day, but somehow it fed the whole village for eight days. On the last day, when the turkey was all but gone, two little girls were gnawing on the wishbone of the turkey and when it split in half one of the little girls cried, ‘Oh how I wish we could have enough food for the winter.’ The next morning there were stockings miraculously hung from every family’s mantle, full of enough food for the season. And thus The Miricle of the Thanksgiving Feast and the wishbone were created, and we celebrate it every year.”

“Huh,” said Ulrika. “It’s almost as if you conflated the events of the first Thanksgiving, the origins of Saint Nicholas, and Hanukkah.”

“History is complicated,” I said.

“Later,” Skeeter added, “they accused those two little girls of being witches and burned them at the stake.”

And I had something I could work with. I couldn’t figure out how to make it the beginning of the story. It was definitely an internal passage, so back to the same questions I always ask myself. “Where were we?” “Who was there?” “Why were we there?” “Why are we having this conversation?” “Where were we going?” And then this was ushered in from beneath my typing finger (the rest of this article is the story I wrote):

In 1876, Cory and Darcy Standish of Halfdollar, West Virginia, visited The United States Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia and learned about Myles Standish. In a fit of patriotism they decided they were related to ol’ Myles of Mayflower fame and thus named their next child Myles. Myles Standish of Halfdollar, West Virginia, was proud of his name and named his first son Myles, as well. To distinguish the two apart, Myles senior decided not to call the younger Myles “Junior,’ but instead called him ‘Half Myles,’ as kind of a joke. Half Myles Standish married a woman from Europe. They named their first son Kilometer because she preferred the metric system. Kilometer Standish and his wife had a daughter that they named Milli. Milli married a man named Stephen. Milli and Stephen had a child whom they named Frank, to put an end to it all. And Frank eventually had a son whom everybody calls Skeeter…with whom I was arguing in the backseat of a Ford Econoline van.

“You’re not related to Myles Standish!” I said, “You’re just related to a guy named Myles Standish. My mom’s maiden name is Armstrong. She has an Uncle Louie. That doesn’t mean I’m related to Satchmo.”

“Sorta,” he said.

“No,” I said.

“I’m head of this Pilgrim crew because I am related to Myles Standish,” Skeet insisted.

“No you’re not!” I said.

And then Uncle Deebo slammed on the brakes. Uncle Deebo was driving. It was his van. He was the last of seventeen children so his family had a lot of Econoline vans. He stopped right in the middle of the road, threw the van in park, opened the driver’s side door, ran across a field, tried to jump a barbed wire fence, failed, fell into a muddy marsh, and was floundering around, possibly developing hypothermia. (The idea of him falling in the mud and getting hypothermia is a direct by-product of the idea about doing the cake walk in ice skates and falling in the pond. Process people…process.)

Skeeter and I had this argument every year at Thanksgiving because every year we had a Thanksgiving parade. Just about everyone under age eighteen dressed as Pilgrams and marched in the parade. At the end of the parade, riding in the back of a pickup truck and tossing out candy, was Sheriff Hasbro in a turkey costume. I don’t mean a Magic-Mart quality turkey costume. I mean an Elton John quality turkey costume.

Every year, after the parade, our town through a communitywide Thanksgiving dinner so that folks who couldn’t put on a big spread, or who would have otherwise spent the day alone, could get together and eat. It was largely a covered dish affair, but the church supplied the turkeys.

My dad was the minister and he was in charge of cooking the turkeys. Dad is a good cook. Just not in the kitchen. He is an old-time Boy Scout and can cook anything well over a fire. I don’t mean well-done. I mean good.

Because we often had upwards of two dozen turkeys, Dad cooked the turkeys Bird in the Hole style. Bird in the Hole is a turkey cooked in a hole in the ground. But don’t call it Ground Turkey because that is something entirely different.

For Bird in the Hole, you dig a hole about three feet deep, and three feet wide, wider if you are cooking multiple turkeys. You then burn a fire in the hole for twelve or so hours until you have a solid eighteen inches of coals. You prep the turkey and then you wrap the bird in layers of tin foil. You dig all but about six inches of coals out of the fire pit, put the turkey on those coals, then fill in around and on top of the turkey with the remaining coals. You then fill the whole hole with dirt and let the birds cook for ten or twelve hours. After which, you dig it up and eat it.

You could smell the cooking turkeys for a mile around. One year, a bear came and dug up and devoured six turkeys. The adults decided someone needed to stay up with the bird hole all night long. It was decided that that was a perfect job for the Youth Group. Send a bunch of kids outside to fend off the bears and keep the turkeys safe. Who cares if a kid gets eaten by a bear?

Because we were cooking two dozen turkeys, the Bird in the Hole hole was really big. Like twelve by six feet. Once you put the dirt back on top of the coals, the dirt got toasty warm. Warm enough that we could spread a ground cloth over it, then roll out sleeping bags and sleep comfortably.

Ulrika was from Sweden. She was Sheriff Hasbro’s niece and had come to America for the year as an exchange student.

“I know the basics, but what exactly is Thanksgiving about?”

I said, “Well, Thanksgiving started because the Pilgrims came to America on the Mayflower to escape religious persecution. But they weren’t doing great. They were starving, but managed to catch a turkey, which should have only lasted one family one day, but somehow it fed the whole village for eight days. On the last day, when the turkey was all but gone, two little girls were gnawing on the wishbone of the turkey and when it split in half one of the little girls cried, ‘Oh how I wish we could have enough food for the winter.’ The next morning there were stockings miraculously hung from every family’s mantle, full of enough food for the season. And thus The Miracle of the Thanksgiving Feast and the wishbone were created, and we celebrate it every year.”

“Huh,” said Ulrika. “It’s almost as if you conflated the events of the first Thanksgiving, the origins of Saint Nicholas, and Hanukkah.”

“History is complicated,” I said.

“Later,” Skeeter added, “they accused those two little girls of being witches and burned them at the stake.”

Ulrika asked, “And why do you guys sleep on the cooking turkeys?”

“I’ll take this one,” Skeet said. “To protect them.”

“From what?” asked Ulrika.

“The Devil Turkey,” Skeeter said.

“Oh my,” said Ulrika. “The Devil Turkey?”

“For years and years,” he continued, “the bones from the eaten turkeys were thrown back into the fire after the meal, so generations of turkey bones ended up burned to ashes in this very hole. One year, lightning struck this very spot and when the smoke cleared, a giant ghost-like turkey had arisen and hovered over the hole. It was eight feet tall, had a ten-foot wingspan, and red, glowing eyes. It announced, ‘I am the Devil Turkey and will return to avenge the death of all of these turkeys!’ and then poof, the Devil Turkey disappeared.”

“Scary,” Ulrika said, “almost as scary as The Great Pumpkin.”

“Wait,” Uncle Deebo said, “I, I, I have never heard that story.”

Which wasn’t surprising because it had never been told before. But Uncle Deebo was gullible, superstitious, and tended to believe ghost stories. Uncle Deebo wasn’t our uncle. He was a year younger than us, but everybody in town called him ‘Uncle.’ His mom called him Uncle Deebo. His nieces and nephews called him Uncle Uncle Deebo. Ulrika did not call him Uncle because she was his girlfriend and that would just be weird.

“Will The Devil Turkey come tonight?” he asked.

“No. Well, probably not,” Skeeter said. “I think you have to summon it.”

“How do you summon it?” Uncle Deebo asked. He was nestling closer to Ulrika.

“You say, ‘Devil Turkey’ three times. Like this, ‘Devil Turkey, Devil Turkey…”

“Stop!” Uncle Deebo said, lunging to cover Skeeter’s mouth.

Somebody started a car way down the road. It was too far away to hear, but way off we saw its red break lights shine.

“Look,” said Ulrika, pointing at the lights, “I think I see the Devil Turkey’s eyes.”

A shaken Uncle Deebo said he was going to sleep inside the church, but he came out in a few minutes, saying he saw the Devil Turkey’s eyes in the church. We discovered later that someone had left the sound system on in the fellowship hall and two red lights were illuminated.

Ulrika held poor Uncle Deebo in her arms until he fell asleep, and then she, his own girlfriend, shook him awake and said, “Deebo! Deebo! Wake up! You’re having a nightmare. Talking in your sleep.”

He hadn’t been.

“What did I say. You said Devil Turkey three times. You summoned him in your sleep!”

We all had a good laugh. Except Uncle Deebo, who did not go back to sleep.

In the morning, safe from bears and Devil Turkeys, we went into the church and put on our Pilgrim costumes, climbed into Uncle Deebo’s Econoline van, headed toward the staging place for the parade, Skeet and I arguing over Myles Standish.

Uncle Deebo slammed on the brakes. He stopped right in the middle of the road, threw the van in park, opened the driver’s side door, ran across a field, tried to jump a barbed wire fence, failed, fell into a muddy marsh, and was floundering around, possibly developing hypothermia.

Once we got our wits about us, we looked around.

Up ahead of us there had been a minor accident. Sheriff Hasbro, who had been on his way to the parade, was standing in the middle of the road, waving his arms, stopping traffic. The light was glinting off his red tinted sunglasses, and he was wearing his Elton John quality turkey costume.

Poor Uncle Deebo thought The Devil Turkey was there to get him. Now Uncle Deebo was stuck in the mud.

I said to Skeeter, “You have to go save him.”

“Why me?” he asked.

“Cause you’re our leader.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are. You’re related to Myles Standish.”

Skeet huffed and said, “I’m not related to that Myles Standish.”

the end

It’s sounds better out loud, but I like it.

All right y’all, that’s it for this lesson.

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Bil Lepp is a professional storyteller and is available for storytelling, classroom and corporate events. He does workshops, too!