tell us a story
Tell a story
Today is National Tell A Story Day and as that is the case, we thought we should all tell a little story. Whether you write a series of hellokoos or break form for this prompt, it is entirely up to you. Try and make it a true story about you or your friends or family but dress it in novel techniques and exaggerate the main points to their furthest extent. We are going to read all of your stories next week on an Instagram live. If you don’t want us to read yours, that is okay, just leave a little note at the bottom of your story. We can’t wait to read them to the hellokoo community.
Techniques
Some techniques often used in novel writing include:
Red Herring - diverting the readers attention away from an important item or disguising something innocent as guilty
Foreshadowing - a warning of a future event. Subtly suggesting how a story may end long before it is meant to. For example, a character might be to scared to jump off a diving board and it has negative consequences and later on, she might be in a life or death situation requiring a large leap.
In medias res - Begining your story in the middle. This is done often in flash fiction writing due to the space you have.
Backstory - Give backstory details on things that are relevant and important to the story
Cliffhanger - Leaving the plot unresolved. Letting the reader use their imagination to figure out what might have happened.
There are dozens of techniques people use. Style also comes into play. Alliteration and overstatement for example.
Short story collections to try out
Stories that go the extra mile
Stay with us here. S is a book borrowed from a library by two people. It has the book text as well as a story in the margins that is a conversation between two people. It also features extra elements like postcards, decoders and newspaper clippings. It is a lot to process and get through but if you’re thinking of something different, this is the place to go.
House of leaves is also more than one story. It is the documentation of a movie inside of a diary with commentary at the bottom of the page. It is wild and not for the faint hearted. It falls into the horror category and is one of a kind.
Bringing it back to haiku
Genny Chen and her summarising of novels as haikus. You can check out the full thing HERE and below is an example of her work. Maybe we could try this too.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Roald Dahl
A factory tour
Goes terribly wrong because
Children are awful
HAPPY STORY DAY!
Shavasana
She lies on her yoga mat and tries to follow the instructions:
„You do not have to do anything, let you breath flow. Be one with the mat“, whispers the yoga instructor softly.
The smell of incense almost takes her breath away. And this is supposed to be relaxing? I have to gag from this stuff. Great, I’m not even good at relaxing, this day is going just great.
Her alarm had gone off at six-thirty, but she wanted to stay in bed for a tiny bit longer and boom, 25 minutes had passed. No time for coffee or a toast with jam, meaning also no visit to the toilet before class. Damn, then I will have to go in the middle and in this fancy yoga studio they really frown upon people leaving the room. "Yoga with an Ohm" is much too expensive for her, but she needed to splurge on something, with everything else going to shit.
A gentle breeze sneaks out of her behind. Oh no, I hope it doesn’t smell. Now, breathe in and out extra loudly to drown out the sound. Ok, good. These yoga pants are so tight at the waist. She got them ages ago at a discount store and they are not as fancy and elastic as the ones with the elegant patterns on the gazelles to her left and right.
"Put your hands on your belly, feel the air moving," whispers the instructor. She obeys dutifully and her fingers get caught on the little roll of fat above the waistband. Like dough that sloshes over the muffin tins. She sighs loudly, much too loudly and can feel the disapproving looks even with her eyes closed
She slides back and forth on the mat trying to find a more comfortable position. This cheap thing never stays nicely flat on the ground but rolls up. She feels like she is being eaten by a carnivorous plant that is slowly wrapping her in bright green fangs and closes her eyes more tightly.
Shavasana, the corpse pose. Just relax for a few minutes, then back to reality. First I have to call the lawyer, the letter with the documents for the divorce arrived yesterday and there is still a lot, no actually everything is still unclear. Then talk to that nasty guy from human resources, then...
Her thoughts are all over the place. In the distance, as if through a thick pillow, she hears a soft gong. Exhale.
"Come back into the room," whispers the yoga teacher. "Keep your eyes closed, be aware of yourself."
Hey, that worked. The mat feels soft and firm at the same time, the pants no longer pinch and even the fabric has relaxed and feels very nice and smooth.
She sits up, everyone sounds a shared OOOHHMM only then she slowly opens her eyes and blinks. Huh, why am I sitting by the window? I squeezed myself into the back corner earlier. She looks down. The mat shines in a rich orange, her legs are clad in petrol blue leggings and don't look like her legs at all, but much much longer and slimmer. She looks around confused. What the F? The room empties. In the back, in her corner lies an abandoned bright green half-rolled up yoga mat.
She slowly gets up.....
transformational
close your eyes and leave the room
yoga makes new you
We sat in the parking lot at the fertility clinic and prayed.
Three years of my wife peeing into cup, tracking her ovulation, telling me when we need to get busy in the bedroom. Three years of disappointment. Late periods. Unusual sensitivity in her breasts. Painful cramps, probably stress-related. Crying. Screaming. Therapy. Three years of friends and family members announcing they’re pregnant. We helped plan baby showers. We gave likes on Instagram. We wrote congratulations cards.
“Dear Jesus, give us babies.”
I squeezed her hand.
“We can do this,” I said.
The waiting room at the fertility clinic had tall windows that looked out to the riverfront, portraits of beautiful babies being coddled by happy parents, and an inspirational quote about flowing with grace by ‘artist unknown.’ The receptionist offered us Perrier while we waited for our appointment. I wrote a haiku on my phone. My wife stared out the window, watching families play in the park by the water.
Our friends are pregnant
(Again) I put on a smile
When is it our turn?
I thumbed through the welcome packet, excitement and apprehension pouring over me. Three years. We were finally going to get some answers to our fertility questions. I was nervous what those answers would be and how much it would cost us. What if we have no chance of getting pregnant and the doctor pressures us into an expensive procedure that does nothing but get our hopes up? I have never had much faith in doctors.
A nurse came out to the lobby. My wife lit up when the nurse asked if she was pronouncing her name correctly. Ka-My-Lee.
“You have a beautiful name,” the nurse said. “We’re so happy you chose our clinic for your fertility journey. We are going to take great care of you. Doctor Edwards is ready to see you now.”
“Thank you,” Kamaile said.
Doctor Edwards was tall and slender. He wore dark wash jeans and black cowboy boots with his lab coat. His hair was dusty grey and balding in the middle. He took out a notepad and pen, drawing three dots in a staggered line that resembled a graph.
“Thomas and Kam-Mile,” he said. “I understand you have been trying to get pregnant for three years. You need a little help. Kam-Mile, your weight is a concern.”
He looked down at his notepad.
“This is your BMI,” he said, pointing at a dot on the page. “You are in the obese category. To increase your chances of getting pregnant, I recommend losing around thirty pounds. That would put you in this category here.”
He drew lines to connect the dots.
“What would you recommend to a person in a smaller body?” Kamaile said.
“Do you mean someone with a lower BMI?” he said.
“Sure,” Kamaile said.
“It would depend on the person,” he said. “Your body is risky.”
I was so tense that I was shaking. I bit my cheek to keep myself from cussing him out. I wanted to tell him to take that stupid notepad and shove it up his ass.
“What studies do you have that show losing weight helps women get pregnant?” Kamaile said.
“There are many studies,” he said.
He drew a circle.
“This is your ovary,” he said. “Up to fifty percent of infertile women have had endometriosis. Sometimes endometriomas attach to the ovaries. There is a chance that part of your ovary was removed when you had your surgery.”
He drew a circle within the circle.
“We will do an ultrasound to look at your reproductive organs and see if everything is functioning properly,” he said. “Thomas, if you are ready to do your semen analysis today, we have an on-site collection room.”
In the exam room, Kamaile undressed from the waist down and sat at the edge of the table while Doctor Edwards prepared the ultrasound. I had a sinking feeling in my chest. What if the problem is me? Doctor Edwards made awkward small talk while probing her vagina. He asked her about her career and where she went to college. I took out my phone and opened the web browser. What percentage of men are infertile? What supplements can I take to improve semen quality? How often should I be having intercourse when trying to conceive? Kamaile stood up from the exam table and put on her clothes. Everything appeared to be normal with her first test.
"I'll pay for our visit," Kamaile said. "You go ahead and do your semen analysis. Meet you in the car."
I shut the door to the collection room and locked it. I set my semen analysis cup on the edge of the sink and unfastened my belt. On the wall, hung between two lounge chairs, was a painting of a school of sperm swimming in a flower-like formation. There was a generic side table in the corner with a stack of dirty magazines. Opposite the chair was a lifeless TV, which I could only presume was for viewing porn. It was odd because there weren’t any DVDs. Something about the small vial of lube the nurse gave me made me feel uncomfortable. I threw it in the trash bin. I unzipped my pants, closed my eyes, and imagined the warmth of Kamaile's body against mine.
I sealed up my sample and left the clinic.
Notes:
BMI is not an accurate measurement of health. BMI was developed in the 1830s by Lambert Adolphe Jacques Quetelet, who was searching for a universal average man. It was later adapted by insurance companies, and then the medical community, but only because it was more convenient.
Women who are obese and struggling to become pregnant are often advised to lose weight, but studies find that there are no fertility benefits from weight loss.
Infertility affects 1 in 8 couples trying to conceive. In at least half of all cases of infertility, a male factor is a contributing cause.
(Dr. Edwards is a made up name and details of our clinic have been changed)