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STARS

STARS is our way of showing off the talent displayed on the boards at Fiction 99. Each month we choose one lesson and search for the best posted assignment in each study group that follows the requirements of the lesson exactly. No easy task, I can assure you! Talent abounds at Fiction 99 and there is just sooo much to choose from. Students are asked for permission to submit their selected assignment to the editors of T-zero, receive feedback on their submissions from the editors and have a chance at seeing their assignment published on the pages of T-zero. While we certainly wish we could show them all to you, we think you'll enjoy the one assignment that really caught our fancy. I think you'll agree, this STAR really shines!

Lesson of the Month: Characterization - Character development through dialogue

Requirements: Create an interview where the is our way of showing off the talent displayed on the boards at Fiction 99

This Month's Selected Assignment:
"Characterization - Interview Rewrite -- DISCLAIMER: Some strong language & a few $6 words!"

Author: Pyro
Study Group: The Andre Norton Room

"Of all the consarned, freeble-thoatin', dad-blasted.!"

"Pardon, sir?"

"It's this damned workshop, Abraxas! They want stuff so. elementary! I feel like I'm back in high school freshman English Comp!"

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that they mis-title all the assignments, give misleading cues and then, when you submit something that is (if you'll excuse my humble opinion) a cut above the ordinary, they alternately ask you to submit it to the E-zine and tell you it ain't what they assigned!"

"Perhaps then, you are reading too much into the assignments, sir?"

"I guess! But what they want me to do is to write a friggin' interview!

"The consarned title is Characterization and they spend the first several paragraphs giving you ideas of what characterization is. WHICH IS WHAT I WROTE!!! And it hasn't a FLIPPIN' thing to do with the actual assignment!"

"And you paid how much for this course, sir?"

"Um, I, uh."

"Point to them sir."

"Abraxas, I hate it when you're right!"

"I know, sir. Say! I could interview YOU!"

"Eh? What's that?"

"I could be the interviewer and you the interviewee!"

"You know what Heinlein said about nosy questions?"

"What was that, sir?"

"He said: "Go to hell!" or other insult direct is all the answer a snoopy question rates!"

"But, sir, as a stockbroker, don't you interview others on a daily basis?"

"And your point is?"

"Well, sir, you should know how to write an interview simply enough. And if you don't know who or what to interview, perhaps I could interview you! What do you do with prospects that won't answer your questions?"

"I show them the freakin' door!"

"Well, since you wish to be uncooperative with the Mentors."

"I'M uncooperative??? What about those titles on the assignments. those long-winded intro's to the assignments that have nothing to do with what you're supposed to write??! Um, why are your scales turning that funny color?"

"Hmmm, I see sir. Um, I'm about to belch."

"Wha? OH SHIT!. Let me open a window first!"

"BRRRRRAAAAAAAACCCCKKKKK!"

"Whew! Did you HAVE to eat onions, Abraxas? My god, dragons have bad enough breath without adding to it."

"Sorry sir. Now, shall I interview you?"

"Hell no!"

"But it would be the assignment sir!"

"Yeah, but I'm not comfortable with revealing a lot about myself!"

"Well, then you could interview ME sir!"

"We did that in the introduction."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"Hmmm. Well, sir, I could ask you about your religio-philosophical beliefs."

"I think everyone here knows I'm an ex-Catholic turned combination Presbyterian/Druid/Solipsist."

"But do they understand what that means, sir?"

"Probably not."

"Do you mean to say, sir, that you are a disestablishmentarian?"

"You mean an anarchist? Hell no!"

"No sir, a disestablishmentarian is one who opposes an established order."

"And that's a friggin' anarchist! I'm not one of those."

"Hmmm... OK, then, you're more of a dissident then, sir?"

"That might be a little more accurate, in an amusing sort of way!"

"OK, we agree on that then."

"Yes, and you can get your friggin snout out of the dictionary! Why are you in the "dis" section anyway."

"Oh, um, no real reason, sir!"

"Yeah, right. What are you doing on the computer, Abraxas?"

"I'm in my on-line cooking class, sir!"

"OK, as long as you aren't fooling around with that stupid workshop of mine!"

"I wouldn't dream of doing that, sir. Um... Could you, at least, explain what a Solipsist is?"

"Sure! It's a person that believes the only things that can be known are what one directly experiences. That the self is the only real thing that exists."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that the world, for the most part. or for all part as far as I know, exists only as a figment of my fertile imagination. If you're a writer, you create your own little worlds and are a God of sorts. The characters follow their own destinies, but an author creates their world. Therefore, most writers have to be solipsists to a certain extent. So, who is to say that the deity or 'creator' that many out there worship isn't just some frustrated author taking a freakin' online writers workshop???"

"Surely you jest, sir!"

"I do not! Prove to me you exist!"

"To quote an existentialist, 'I think, therefore I am.'"

"I'm hoping that didn't sound half as stupid to you as it did to me!"

"The question you ask, sir, is unwinable and therefore moot."

"Exactly!"

"Exactly what???"

"Exactly the point of Solipsism! Or to put it another way, 'Why Worry?' See what I mean?"

"Hmmm. You mean, Don't Worry, Be Happy?"

"Yes! Don't let the characters ruin your life! You wrote them!!!"

"Hmmm. that gives me another idea for your interview, sir!"

"What's that?"

"Well, there are several of your potential story-characters out in the multi-dimensional waiting room that you could interview!!"

"Maybe later."

"So, you aren't going to do a rewrite?"

"Naw, it would be a waste of time. Margaret would just tell me I didn't do it right again!"

"Well then, may I go back to my on-line cooking class, sir."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever!"