Story #9: 3-5 page story with a character “swerve” or “turn”--or Story in Imperative Mode

Story #9: 3-5 page story with a character “swerve” or “turn.” Read Bernard Malamud’s “The Model,” and notice how partway through the story the power dynamic changes from the artist having power as employer painting a nude, exposed woman, to the model taking power from the artist, turning the tables. Notice also how the question of whether the artist is in fact simply a pervert hiring a nude or actually a painter dispassionately painting a model is problematic in the story. He seems to admit that he’s not a real artist, but then chooses to paint her face after she leaves, as if the painting were really the point of the visit. Thus there is a swerve, turn, or arc in his character, depending on your interpretation, and also in her character, from passive, dispassionate model, to active, angry, passionate avenger, from model to artist. Write a story in which you suggest a character is one sort, but then reveal him or her to be another partway through the story, in which you have a balance of power shift from one character to another, or in which the character develops along a character arc, changing from beginning to end of story.

Story #9 (2nd Option): if the previous exercise doesn’t inspire you, try this: read Lorrie Moore’s “How to Become a Writer” and Junot Díaz’s “How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie” in Doubletakes. Notice how each story is told entirely in the imperative mode, like a cookbook: do this, do that, go here, put that there. Try either rewriting a story you have already written in the imperative mode, making whatever changes you think necessary in order for it to work, or write a new one in this mode.