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Choosing The Right Name For Your Story

In the publishing world, a good title is like a good opening paragraph: it should be interesting. At the very least, it should be appropriate to the rest of the piece. When you browse a shelf full of novels, or a collection of short stories, aren’t you drawn first to the more unusual titles? They probably wouldn’t ever make it out of the editor’s slush pile.
It’S Not What You Think (Short Story) Part 1/2 | Duration 5 Minutes 3 Seconds A title can have a hidden meaning, later revealed in the story. In fact, it has been said that most titles on bestseller lists are no more than three words long. And don’t worry too much about giving your stories titles that have already been used. Why run the risk of confusing a reader into thinking your story is someone else’s? If it isn’t (and even, sometimes, if it is), it can get changed. And history will show that changed titles are sometimes a good thing. Remember, it’s the first thing he or she sees of your work–and the editor who likes your title will begin reading your manuscript in an optimistic frame of mind.” and we writers need every advantage we can get. All materials on this site are the property of their authors and may not be reprintedwithout the author’s written permission, unless otherwise indicated. Would you rather your job resume say “salesperson” or “marketing representative”? An enjoyable short story or novel might never get read by the public (or, more to the point, by an editor or agent) if the title doesnÕt do its job. And remember this, too: the title will be what represents your work to the rest of the world, now and forever. It’s hard to tell a neighbor or a colleague about a story if the title’s too long and complicated, or hard to pronounce. Block says its title (which refers to spies, who love secrets) led some readers to believe it would be a romance instead. That should help you narrow the field a bit as you try to decide on the right title for your story. Often these are words that have a “double meaning,” and refer to more than one thing in a story. This kind of approach is of course not required to sell or publish your books and stories.

Marbleous Marbles! (My First Algodoo Marble Race) | Duration 6 Minutes 48 Seconds At least on that piece of literary ground, you’re on firm footing. If your title is fairly common, and doesn’t deal with the same subject matter as another story with the same name, you shouldn’t run into any legal problems. Besides, you don’t want the reading public (or your potential editors) to think you’re unoriginal. Whatever the source for your inspiration and whatever title you choose, remember that it needs to be a perfect fit for your story. Since changes are known to occur, should you submit several alternate titles along with your novel or story? But does the fact that the editor may change your title mean you shouldn’t spend a lot of time creating a good one of your own? This article may not be reprinted without the author’s written permission.

The Best Story Idea Generator You’Ll Ever Find by thejohnfox.com

It contains hundreds of story scenarios that should spur you to write. Change the gender of the character, or the gender of the person they’re in love with, or the location, or their job. Some people call story generator “plot generators,” because what they’re looking for is a whole set-up and climax and resolution. The water from the rain often floods the road and makes it difficult to drive in. He ridiculed her for being lonely, all she had was a pretty bird a blue jay. Suddenly the weather began to change and the road became unbelievably silent, the birds no longer pecked and the girl no longer breathed. The weather was calm until suddenly there was a change of the wind and the trees shook.

It’S Not What You Think (Short Story) Part 2/2 | Duration 8 Minutes 10 Seconds Her mother warned her to take a measure of safety and wear a coat lest she gets a cold as it was cold outside but she denied. I will be introducing 3-4 characters or possible suspects that could be stalking her. Of course, then you could progress to drugging her food to start the kidnapping, or carving words into her skin while she’s unconscious. He threatens to return to the mainland and destroy all their plans and their functioning airplanes. Not necessarily in a bad way, as some may be past loved ones or something. Or maybe you could do it if you really wish too and a child has a bad case of it and then the diaoreah spreads throughout the service. As a boy who has struggled with depression, anxiety, and struggling through a phase of insomnia he finds that being at university is improving his mental state. Theron is hesitant and tells her that he will not leave university but he will consider it once he finishes university. In the attempt to escape, his boyfriend and niece are killed in front of him. Theron agrees and he is taken to the past, where he saves not only his niece but his boyfriend and the little girl as agreed. The race to the top of the social pyramid/ the race for power 2. I really like the added religious aspects in some of them as it adds a lot more to the chracter. Im looking for any plot that includes the unliving, crime, governmental secrets, and an ending that isn’t too happy or sad. I would like it something that the reader will never forget, thought-provoking and a bit creepy. The mom wants a fresh start, so she and the daughter pack up and move to a town where the girl learns that change is everywhere and she needs to accept that. What is it, and how long does she keep it a secret from her boyfriend? Each prompt gives a character and a scenario, and asks a leading question that will get you started on fleshing out the storyline. The sole goal of this story idea generator is to inspire you to write, so don’t feel like you have to stay true to the prompt. The three terms below are often used interchangeably, but there are important differences between them. It’s trying to teach you a specific technique that you can use in a story you’ve already written, or in a story you have yet to write. In other words, they only offer an inciting idea, and not the outline of the full story. Not only a premise, but also how the story could develop, and the main problems of the characters.

Stephen King On The Craft Of Short Story Writing | Duration 4 Minutes 27 Seconds I don’t call this a plot generator because it’s character based rather than plot based. Write a few stories that this story gene rator gives you and see if you agree. She has a friend who finds the corpses to be very tasty he is a bird a vulture there was an experience when the girl was younger that made her silent and it shook her you don’t find out what it was until the end of the story. The girl is very feared by the demon who us trying to possess her. He has just started his career as a hairstylist at a popular salon. It is strongly alluded that his father has ties if not is an active member of an organized crime syndicate. He moves into his own apartment in the downtown part of his rust-belt city. She thought carefully planned it out on paper and took her measurements very carefully on how she was going to defeat him. The whole ground shook as one by one the birds began to change and form a puddle of black water, the water rose from the ground and became thick sticky tar. Suddenly a paper came out of nowhere and swooped down like a bird towrds her as if her prey was there. She was involved with someone that turned violent and went to prison for murder. Any advice/ideas of specific ways someone could stalk and cause her harm? We’re talking hackers, stalkers, people who get accessed via their digital footprint. Anyway, just a couple of suggestions, and thanks for raising the interesting idea. Back on the mainland they discuss what to do with their crazy brother. And through out the town and then a special elite team have to come and eradicate the plague. Now he is going to university, he knows he can finally be himself without worrying about being struck by the opinions of his family, and his homophobic brother.

Writing Fiction & Poetry How To Generate Short Story Ideas | Duration 2 Minutes 21 Seconds Little to his knowledge that there is an entire agency dedicated to the monitorization of people with abilities. Within the agency the there are a select few who want to leave the agency but instead decide to take it over. Instead, he decides to side with neither and he uses his powers to destroy the agencies defences and rescues everyone he loves. As he takes a moment outside the church, a man approaches him saying that he has the power to take him back in time to save his niece, but as long as he also saves someone for him. Your neighbors think you did some very very evil things to them, but really you didn’t and someone else did. Find out who’s behind framing you for the evil things & kill him so you don’t have the trouble anymore.

Marbles by betsyrobinson-writer.com

I don’t remember whose idea it was, but from that day on, we kept our respective marbles in our change purses — my marble meant that my mother was always with me, and vice versa. I put her rings and marble in my jewelry box, stuck a five dollar bill in the empty zippered compartment of her key case, gathered my dogs, and prepared to go clean out her apartment. My father was an atheist, my mother was an agnostic, and if you couldn’t touch it or see it or quantify it, they didn’t want to talk about it. And it released me — she released me — to believe in the unseeable, to touch the untouchable, to know the unknowable, and nothing has ever been the same.

Kew Gardens by americanliterature.com

The figures of these men and women straggled past the flower-bed with a curiously irregular movement not unlike that of the white and blue butterflies who crossed the turf in zig-zag flights from bed to bed. The man kept this distance in front of the woman purposely, though perhaps unconsciously, for he wished to go on with his thoughts. The elder man had a curiously uneven and shaky method of walking, jerking his hand forward and throwing up his head abruptly, rather in the manner of an impatient carriage horse tired of waiting outside a house; but in the man these gestures were irresolute and pointless. She saw them as a sleeper waking from a heavy sleep sees a brass candlestick reflecting the light in an unfamiliar way, and closes his eyes and opens them, and seeing the brass candlestick again, finally starts broad awake and stares at the candlestick with all his powers. She stood there letting the words fall over her, swaying the top part of her body slowly backwards and forwards, looking at the flowers. The snail had now considered every possible method of reaching his goal without going round the dead leaf or climbing over it. He had just inserted his head in the opening and was taking stock of the high brown roof and was getting used to the cool brown light when two other people came past outside on the turf. The couple stood still on the edge of the flower bed, and together pressed the end of her parasol deep down into the soft earth.

What Do You Think My Mother Experienced? (True Paranormal Scary Story From Reddit) | Duration 4 Minutes 15 Seconds Thus one couple after another with much the same irregular and aimless movement passed the flower-bed and were enveloped in layer after layer of green blue vapour, in which at first their bodies had substance and a dash of colour, but later both substance and colour dissolved in the green-blue atmosphere. The man was about six inches in front of the woman, strolling carelessly, while she bore on with greater purpose, only turning her head now and then to see that the children were not too far behind. It appeared to have a definite goal in front of it, differing in this respect from the singular high stepping angular green insect who attempted to cross in front of it, and waited for a second with its antenn trembling as if in deliberation, and then stepped off as rapidly and strangely in the opposite direction. Before he had decided whether to circumvent the arched tent of a dead leaf or to breast it there came past the bed the feet of other human beings. The younger of the two wore an expression of perhaps unnatural calm; he raised his eyes and fixed them very steadily in front of him while his companion spoke, and directly his companion had done speaking he looked on the ground again and sometimes opened his lips only after a long pause and sometimes did not open them at all. He talked almost incessantly; he smiled to himself and again began to talk, as if the smile had been an answer. He took off his hat, placed his hand upon his heart, and hurried towards her muttering and gesticulating feverishly. So the heavy woman came to a standstill opposite the oval-shaped flower bed, and ceased even to pretend to listen to what the other woman was saying. Then she suggested that they should find a seat and have their tea. Let alone the effort needed for climbing a leaf, he was doubtful whether the thin texture which vibrated with such an alarming crackle when touched even by the tip of his horns would bear his weight; and this determined him finally to creep beneath it, for there was a point where the leaf curved high enough from the ground to admit him. This time they were both young, a young man and a young woman. Kew, he felt that something loomed up behind her words, and stood vast and solid behind them; and the mist very slowly rose and uncovered. It seemed as if all gross and heavy bodies had sunk down in the heat motionless and lay huddled upon the ground, but their voices went wavering from them as if they were flames lolling from the thick waxen bodies of candles. Chinese boxes all of wrought steel turning ceaselessly one within another the city murmured; on the top of which the voices cried aloud and the petals of myriads of flowers flashed their colours into the air.

Story : The Marbles Life On Earth Is Short by turnbacktogod.com

You know the kind, he sounded like he should be in the broadcasting business. I know, some live more and some live less, but on average, folks live about seventy-five years. There is nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight. Perhaps it’s the quiet solitude that comes with being the first to rise, or maybe it’s the unbounded joy of not having to be at work. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work sixty or seventy hours a week to make ends meet. I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I took them home and put them inside of a large, clear plastic container right here in the shack next to my gear. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Barbara Trapido: Marble Angels by theguardian.com

Weeds had entangled themselves in the spokes and were clambering up the frame. I couldn’t place when she’d taken to the orange wig which at that moment was standing askew, and she looked a lot thinner and older. A female pug was currently billeted on the uppermost shelf of a bookcase with chicken wire covering its surface. She had several grouches about the modern world; a repertoire of set pieces. She promptly put them into her mouth and pitched the tooth water out of one of the holes in the window panes, on to the roof of the bay; her system for slopping-out. The books were returned, bestrewn with ash, dog hair and tea stains. Veronica, the proud virgin spinster, was always glad to have evidence of the wickedness of men. The attic staircase had been rendered inaccessible by a great tumble of over-stuffed bin-bags. After her expensive private education, she’d gone to work as a stable hand and then as a kennel maid, but during the war she’d developed the knack of rehabilitating bombed-out dogs who’d gone crazy during the blitz. Her own life story sounded like that of the blitzed-out crazy dogs. He’d pointed sternly to the graves of two children who had drowned at sea. The children had been instructed to stay in the nursery until they were summoned, but nobody came. After a while, she went creepy-creepy, back the way she’d come. The third and youngest brother became her closest friend and they saw what they could of each other during his periods of leave from the army. Increasing bouts of nausea meant that she’d begun to vomit almost anything she took in. Occasionally she’d come tottering up to my house tap-tapping on the window with a shooting stick. She liked human company in spite of herself, though any adult male person in the house always vanished with remarkable speed at the first squeak of the hearing aid. Veronica always wore the same clothes; a stinking navy anorak, peppered with cigarette burn-holes, and a pair of crackling rain-proof trousers over brown corduroy flares. Veronica was reported as a health hazard, which triggered a letter from the council announcing a date for inspection. Likewise, the rotting carpet underlay and the piles of mouldering newsprint. We heaved out whatever we could at moments when her back was turned and ferried the stuff in relays to the council dump. We ran out of time to confront the attics, but she passed the inspection all the same. Trousers merely slid off her hips, as the orange wig slid off her head. Veronica, by now, was falling asleep halfway through the set pieces. Veronica would hold on to see out the last of the dogs, but in the event, the peke survived her. After she died, the council instructed me to enter and remove official papers. Veronica was the filthy old dog lady who’d always pushed several pooches in a pram. We’d never been in close proximity before and she gave off a powerful odour. She wore a hearing aid the size of a slice of bread on a grimy cord around her neck; a thing that whistled and squeaked, and her sense of balance was gone. Open doors gave on to two ground-floor living rooms, each crammed with damp cardboard boxes and postwar babies’ prams piled high with scraps of ancient carpet underfelt and equally ancient newsprint. We went upstairs to the first-floor front bedroom where she spent the entirety of her day. Radio 4 was blasting out, distorting at maximum volume from a rickety bedside table. Piles of books stood everywhere, most of them unreturned library books. Veronica’s tobacco-brown dentures were leering at me from a glass beer tankard beside the radio. Veronica had had a difficult early life and had taken to the dogs. Afterwards she’d earned a crust by illicitly using her rented house as an unofficial boarding kennel. Viral pneumonia had carried him off on the afternoon of the previous day. Mother lay on the sofa more vaporously than usual, a helpless pregnant widow, indifferent to her children. He’d taken a short cut through a scrapyard which had required him to scale a 6ft wall. By this time she was barely going out, but she readily got pole-axed in the house. It took me over a year to realise that the plastic trousers were a defence against incontinence. Veronica said, scattering her slutty ash all over my sanded chevron floor as the beautiful fairy princess stepped out in her snow white gown. Having moved indoors, we scrubbed at ceilings, floors and walls. And wresting the saucepans from her proved more than a little difficult. Likewise the half-dozen defunct prams that clogged both “reception” rooms. Having once run out of cleaning cloths, we wiped down surfaces with wodges of bunched-up newsprint. She slept on layers of newsprint and wore nothing from the waist down. As her mind began its speeded-up decline, the little set pieces revolved in ever-increasing circles. Not even the bill for her rent which, having stayed constant through 40 years at £1 a week, had recently risen to two. Veronica set herself on fire, lighting matches in the under-stairs cupboard while attempting to insert a fifty pence piece into the coin gas meter. The main house was unaffected, though the kitchen was destroyed. The house smelled kind of different, the complex medley of rotting matter now subsumed by that of charred flesh. It was not so much a life-sized rag doll as a faked-up female child. She didn’t have a paper shroud and her grave is marked with her name.

August Heat by americanliterature.com

It showed a criminal in the dock immediately after the judge had pronounced sentence. The flesh hung in rolls about his chin; it creased his huge, stumpy neck. He stood in the dock, his short, clumsy fingers clasping the rail, looking straight in front of him. There seemed nothing in the man strong enough to sustain that mountain of flesh. I longed for the thunder promised by the great banks of copper- coloured cloud that hung low over the western sky. A man was sitting with his back towards me, busy at work on a slab of curiously veined marble. But though the face was the same, the expression was absolutely different. I could never make really a good job of a bit of marble like that. Artists have exhibitions: so do grocers and butchers; we have them too. At the end of every other minute he would drop his tools, wipe his shining head, and curse the heat. There was something unnatural, uncanny, in meeting this man. His wife was a cheerful little woman, with the flaky red cheeks of the country-bred. We resumed the conversation at the point we had left off. He got up, fetched a can from the porch, and began to water the flowers. If you go back home to-night, you take your chance of accidents. We are sitting now in a long, low room beneath the eaves. He himself is busy sharpening some tools at a little oilstone, smoking one of my cigars the while. I am forty years old, in perfect health, never having known a day’s illness. The feeling that his expression conveyed was not so much one of horror as of utter, absolute collapse. I rolled up the sketch, and without quite knowing why, placed it in my pocket. I must have walked five or six miles, when a small boy roused me from my reverie by asking the time. He sat there, huge and elephantine, the sweat pouring from his scalp, which he wiped with a red silk handkerchief. He greeted me smiling, as if we were old friends, and shook my hand. It would be all right in the summer like this; it wouldn’t mind the blasted heat. I was to tell you it’s for an exhibition, but it’s the truth. Atkinson finished his work, spat on the ground, and got up with a sigh of relief. We were both looking at the same thing, the two dates on the gravestone, and one was right. Her husband introduced me as a friend of his who was an artist. And they were small ones, too,” he added as an afterthought.

The Fiddler Herman Melville 1819 1891 by classicshorts.com

His person was short and full, with a juvenile, animated cast to it. Standard,” he gleefully cried to my friend, “are you not going to the circus? It seemed mere loyalty to human nature to accept an invitation from so unmistakably kind and honest a heart. The jokes of the clown he seemed to roll under his tongue as ripe magnum bonums. Why, the clown only comically grinned with one of his extra grins. But added to this was a quality not so prominent before: a certain serene expression of leisurely, deep good sense. What was sad in the world he did not superficially gainsay; what was glad in it he ! Suddenly remembering an engagement, he took up his hat, bowed pleasantly, and left us. You admire his cheerfulness, while scorning his commonplace soul. He who has a hundred times been crowned with laurels, now wears, as you see, a bunged beaver. To-day, from house to house he hies, teaching fiddling for a living. His complexion rurally ruddy; his eye sincere, cheery, and gray. Such genuine enjoyment as his struck me to the soul with a sense of the reality of the thing called happiness. Now the foot, now the hand, was employed to attest his grateful applause. Do you seek admiration from the admirers of a buffoon? Among crowds of others, we sat down to our stews and punches at one of the small marble tables. Though greatly subdued from its former hilarity, his face still shone with gladness. It was plain, then—so it seemed at that moment, at least—that his extraordinary cheerfulness did not arise either from deficiency of feeling or thought. His great good sense is apparent; but great good sense may exist without sublime endowments. Nothing tempts him beyond common limit; in himself he has nothing to restrain. No wonder genius declines to measure its pace to a fiddler’s bow. It was curiously furnished with all sorts of odd furniture which seemed to have been obtained, piece by piece, at auctions of old-fashioned household stuff. Sitting there on the old stool, his rusty hat sidways cocked on his head, one foot dangling adrift, he plied the bow of an enchanter. One who has been an object of wonder to the wisest, been caressed by the loveliest, received the open homage of thousands on thousands of the rabble. With you and me, the elbow of the hurrying clerk, and the pole of the remorseless omnibus, shove him. Once fortune poured showers of gold into his lap, as showers of laurel leaves upon his brow.

The Marble Statue by scaryforkids.com

It would make the ideal country home for our one-month stay. She came over every day to act as our housekeeper, cooking the dinner and cleaning up. There was a large, lonely church nearby and we loved to go there in the evenings, when the light was fading. Inside, the great stone arches rose into darkness and moonlight filtered through the beautiful stained-glass windows. It was the figure of a knight in armor lying on a stone slab, with his hands clutching a huge sword. For the first two weeks of our honeymoon, everything was lovely and relaxing. My wife wasn’t happy about this at all, because now she would have to cook the dinners and wash up the dirty dishes. Around ten o’clock, my wife said she was tired and was going to go to bed soon. No birds singing, no rabbits scurrying and not even a gentle wind rustling the trees. I turned on the lights and noticed her feet poking out from behind the sofa. Her head was crushed and flattened an her brains spilled out on the floor. The cottage was a delightful little stone building with just four rooms and the walls were covered in ivy. In one corner of the church, to the right of the altar, there was an alcove that contained a grey marble statue. In the dim light of the church, this marble statue seemed to be surrounded by an eerie glow. She announced that she had to go away for a few days, but she wouldn’t say why. Outside, the sun was setting and a fine white mist curled up around the house. I grabbed her hand and noticed there was something tightly clenched between her cold, dead fingers. I am pretty sure when he remarried again, he will bring the newlywed wife to this place, and left the door unlock again on the exact same night… that’s y old people always say, do u really know the person who sleeps besides u?

96 Things To Do When You’Re Bored by mydomaine.com

Dyer explains, “or using your mind in creative new ways now, you can ensure that you’ll never again choose boredom for yourself. That being said, we all have moments when time just seems to drag on. Challenge yourself to leave your cell phone in your purse or pocket. Don’t tackle a huge organizational project like your closet. You’ll thank me later when you have clean clothes to wear to the gym. Even if you’re not in the market for a new job, make sure it’s up to date. Cover a piece of cardboard with images and words you’ve cut out from old magazines. Use the ingredients you have on hand to make a scrumptious salad. The next time you start to feel bored, head to one of the places that sounded interesting and rewarding to you. Write a poem about how great your mom is, put it in a place where you won’t lose it, and present it to her next year. Plan a party because life is too short not to plan parties. Put together a care package for a younger friend or family member who’s in college. Write down what’s going on in your life and how you’re feeling at this moment. Learn something new or something that you knew at one point but forgot. Find a podcast you love, download a bunch of episodes, and binge them. Inventory your linen closet, entertaining supplies, or any other collections you may keep, like your handbags or shoes. Seek out a rose, botanical, or produce garden, and go be with nature! Arrange them in vases, and then enjoy the flowers in your home for the next week. Know what you’re supposed to do in the case of an earthquake, tornado, or hurricane. Impress the gentleman in your life with your skills the next time you go to a wedding. Memorize the street names for the five blocks surrounding your house in each direction. When you’re considering parenthood, pull out the list and look it over. Improv, calligraphy, hip-hop, tennis—commit to attending at least five sessions before you give up. It’s a bad idea to not clean your makeup brushes regularly, so grab them and dunk them in a large cup filled with warm soapy water. Sort, using the favorite button, and make a note of the images you want to print and frame. That hot new restaurant you’ve been hearing so much about? Mark your calendar, invite friends, and make a celebratory night of it. See if there have been any serious crimes in your neighborhood recently. He says boredom is a spinoff of procrastination and that you can eliminate it by doing something else with your mind when boredom strikes. The good news is that there are plenty of ways to make those moments of respite more meaningful (or at least more productive). Instead, choose something small and manageable—your underwear drawer, your pantry, or that crowded bookshelf—so you won’t be intimidated. Practice curling it with a straight iron, or get it damp and put those rollers in. When you’re finished, give the painting to a family member as a gift. Go ahead and make a friend, family member, or colleague’s day. Make her dinner, help clean her house, or simply just listen to what’s going on in her world. Let soak for an hour or two; then rinse under cold water until the water runs clean. Many cities have dodgeball or kickball groups that meet weekly. Book a reservation —even if the only one you can get is three months out. Find a shelter in your hood and see if it has any animals you might want to add to your family. If a few have occurred, take the precautions to make yourself safe.

Neil Gaiman by neilgaiman.com

It wasn’t the moon of this planet, of course, it was a real moon. Our place had a sun of sorts, but it was old, even back then. My father was consumed by my mother as soon as he had fertilized her and she, in her turn, was eaten by myself at my birth. Squirming my way out of my mother, the gamy taste of her still in my tentacles. That branch of the family was always given to exaggeration). What the unspeakable hells is there to do in this dreary dimension? Like great starfish-headed barrels, with filmy great wings that they fly through space with. He waved a hand vaguely in the direction of a small and dreary patch of stars. The parrot cocked its head to one side and squinted up at the magician. But those pointy-headed killjoys couldn’t leave well enough alone. Write it as it sounds), of nameless nightmare parents, under a gibbous moon. On some nights it filled over half the sky and as it rose you could watch the crimson blood drip and trickle down its bloated face, staining it red, until at its height it bathed the swamps and towers in a gory dead red light. I remember that on the night it finally exploded we all slithered down to the beach to watch. Which reminds me, did they remember to feed the shoggoth? I spent most of my time creeping up on things and eating them and in my turn avoiding being crept up on and eaten. I will not reach that stage until after my next estivation; your piddly little planet will long be cold by then). It meant that he did not intend to dine that visit, and that we could talk. I would cry, as the delightfully foetid charnel smells of the swamp miasmatised around me, and overhead the ngau-ngau and zitadors whooped and skrarked. Although perhaps badminton equipment would do almost as well). That’s an example of the way that languages change, the meanings of words. Now it’s just my little house here, latitude 47 9′ south, longitude 126 43′ west. Every time the magician did a trick the parrot would ruin it. Hordes of my servants, loathsome fish-men, swarmed over the sides, seized the passengers and crew and dragged them beneath the waves. It came lower, finally perching on a lump of nearby driftwood, and he saw it was the parrot. They tried to move the planet nearer the sun — or was it further away?

Sylvia Plath by poetryfoundation.org

In the ensuing years her work attracted the attention of a multitude of readers, who saw in her singular verse an attempt to catalogue despair, violent emotion, and obsession with death. It chronicles a nervous breakdown and consequent professional therapy in non-clinical language. The other, a rebellion against conventional female roles, was slightly ahead of its time. This language, this unique and radiant substance, is the product of an alchemy on the noblest scale. Her stormy, luminous senses assaulted a downright practical intelligence that could probably have dealt with anything. The poet’s early years were spent near the seashore, but her life changed abruptly when her father died in 1940. She survived the attempt and was hospitalized, receiving treatment with electro-shock therapy. So, though death itself may have been a side issue, it was also an unavoidable risk in writing her kind of poem. Her elements were extreme: a violent, almost demonic spirit in her, opposed a tenderness and capacity to suffer and love things infinitely, which was just as great and far more in evidence. She saw her world in the flame of the ultimate substance and the ultimate depth. Poets have often spoken about this ideal possibility but where else, outside these poems, has it actually occurred?

Donald and Ivana Trump’s Divorce: The Full Story by vanityfair.com

Trump had seemed fidgety that night, understandably eager to move the dinner party along so that he could go to bed. They were posed in imperial style, as if they were a king and queen. Ivana had had so much publicity that she now offered interviewers a press kit of flattering clips. In recent years, they never seemed to touch each other or exchange intimate remarks in public. Maybe all the public posturing was beginning to get boring, too. How was she to know that there was another way to live? He would lie on his bed, staring at the ceiling, talking into the night on the telephone. He was already fodder for the dailies and the weeklies, but he was desperate for national attention. The line between a con man and an entrepreneur is often fuzzy. They were at the height of their ride, and it was plenty glorious. The air was redolent with the fragrance of oleander and bougainvillea, mingled with the slight smell of mildew which clung to the old house. Often he wore a business suit to his table; his only concession to local custom was to wear a pink tie or pale shoes. They had become less like man and wife and more like two ambassadors from different countries, each with a separate agenda. That club called me and asked me if they could have my consent to use part of my beach to expand the space for their cabanas! She had learned the lingua franca in a world where everyone seemed to be using everyone else in a relentless drive for power. She had taken to waving to friends with tiny hand motions, as if to conserve her energy. The frames did not contain family pictures, but magazine covers. Although she had negotiated four separate marital-property agreements over the last fourteen years, she was suing her husband for half his assets. Ivana had hired a public-relations man to help her in her new role. Then, as now, he was all cheeks and jaw, with a tendency to look soft in the middle. Trump is a head swiveler, always looking around to see who else is in the room. It was the place where flight attendants hoped to find bankers, and models looked for dates. Donald was trying to make time in the world of aesthetes and little black cocktail dresses. His suits were badly cut, with wide cuffs on his trousers; he was a shade away from cigars.

The Most Dangerous Game Richard Connell 1893 1949 by classicshorts.com

The world is made up of two classes–the hunters and the huntees. An evil place can, so to speak, broadcast vibrations of evil. Rainsford, reclining in a steamer chair, indolently puffed on his favorite brier. Off to the right he heard it, and his ears, expert in such matters, could not be mistaken. Somewhere, off in the blackness, someone had fired a gun three times. He strained his eyes in the direction from which the reports had come, but it was like trying to see through a blanket. He lunged for it; a short, hoarse cry came from his lips as he realized he had reached too far and had lost his balance. He struggled up to the surface and tried to cry out, but the wash from the speeding yacht slapped him in the face and the salt water in his open mouth made him gag and strangle. A certain coolheadedness had come to him; it was not the first time he had been in a tight place. He wrestled himself out of his clothes and shouted with all his power. He heard it again; then it was cut short by another noise, crisp, staccato. With his remaining strength he dragged himself from the swirling waters. He flung himself down at the jungle edge and tumbled headlong into the deepest sleep of his life. Sleep had given him new vigor; a sharp hunger was picking at him. The hunter had his nerve with him to tackle it with a light gun. They pointed along the cliff in the direction he had been going. But as he forged along he saw to his great astonishment that all the lights were in one enormous building–a lofty structure with pointed towers plunging upward into the gloom. The stone steps were real enough; the massive door with a leering gargoyle for a knocker was real enough; yet above it all hung an air of unreality. He let it fall, and it startled him with its booming loudness. The revolver pointing as rigidly as if the giant were a statue. He was dressed in uniform–a black uniform trimmed with gray astrakhan. Another man was coming down the broad marble steps, an erect, slender man in evening clothes. Rainsford sprang up and moved quickly to the rail, mystified. He leaped upon the rail and balanced himself there, to get greater elevation; his pipe, striking a rope, was knocked from his mouth. Desperately he struck out with strong strokes after the receding lights of the yacht, but he stopped before he had swum fifty feet. There was a chance that his cries could be heard by someone aboard the yacht, but that chance was slender and grew more slender as the yacht raced on. He did not recognize the animal that made the sound; he did not try to; with fresh vitality he swam toward the sound. He was almost on the rocks before he saw them; on a night less calm he would have been shattered against them. Jagged crags appeared to jut up into the opaqueness; he forced himself upward, hand over hand. All he knew was that he was safe from his enemy, the sea, and that utter weariness was on him. When he opened his eyes he knew from the position of the sun that it was late in the afternoon. But what kind of men, he wondered, in so forbidding a place? Eagerly he hurried along, now slipping on a rotten log or a loose stone, but making headway; night was beginning to settle down on the island. He came upon them as he turned a crook in the coast line; and his first thought was that be had come upon a village, for there were many lights. His eyes made out the shadowy outlines of a palatial chateau; it was set on a high bluff, and on three sides of it cliffs dived down to where the sea licked greedy lips in the shadows. He lifted the knocker, and it creaked up stiffly, as if it had never before been used. There was a medieval magnificence about it; it suggested a baronial hall of feudal times with its oaken panels, its high ceiling, its vast refectory tables where twoscore men could sit down to eat. I was lying in my tent with a splitting headache one night when a terrible thought pushed its way into my mind.

Tricked Into Wife Swapping by 4freestories.com

Only minutes later, my face still flushed, we pulled next to another truck. Jimmy was ready to try something new and asked me about going to a shoe store somewhere out of town, dressed in a short skirt, wearing nylons and sheer panties. Jimmy worked hard, and he was the winner for the sales dept. The boss, his pretty wife and all the other winners and their spouses. We accepted, and had a scuba lesson that afternoon, so we would be prepared for them in the morning. We talked about it as we dressed for our private romantic dinner on the far side of the island. He said his wife and he have had separate dates with another couple. Richard came over to me and led me the bed to sit and have something to eat, he pulled the cart up, and poured some champagne for us and feed me a piece of shrimp. Pressing against me, he unhooked the clasps on my dress and slowly lowered the zipper. He pulled me off the bed and to my knees, he stood and held my head, and told me to undo his pants. In a few days, the vacation was over and we all flew back home. Richard said he and his wife had talked about flashing, and swapping before, but never seriously thought anything would happen. My husband told him his fantasies were similar and we talked about once in a while. He brought up flashing again and finally convinced me to try flashing my panties to a truck driver. Richard, the boss, spent time with everyone there and asked us if we would join he and his wife for scuba diving the next day. Saying it might be fun to fool around a little, maybe go dancing, a little flirting could be real exciting. Jimmy got on the phone, after he hung up he said they want to take us out to dinner. Richard came down and said his wife wasn’t ready yet, but we had to get to the restaurant soon or we would lose our reservations. He was very charming and said he was glad his wife was late, because he wanted to get to know me better. After a while, he said he was concerned they haven’t arrived and left to phone the hotel. It was beautiful, their love for each other grew because of it. But to hear about it later from your loved one, well it isn’t jealousy then, it is sharing. He leaned over and kissed my neck again, then put his arm around me, pulled me closer and briefly kissed me on the lips and waited for me to respond. Then he slid his hands all the way down my back as he continued to kiss me even more passionately and cupped my ass checks with both hands drawing me tightly against him. Still without a protest from me, he pulled my arms through the straps, and off my shoulders, my silky dress was ready to fall to the floor. Jimmy’s boss sat me in the chair near the bed and knelt down between my legs.