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Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Four lies and a truth

Fiction writing is nothing more than telling lies that sound like the truth.

This is closer to a word prompt than a full fledged writing prompt but I thought it was a good lead in to what I'm sending on Thursday (and I already used the word prompt up by mistake on Saturday!)

Instinctively we all know how to make lies sound true. The key is in the details. You may have played this as a get-to-know-each-other game at some group gathering. Write down 5 stories about yourself, only one of which is true. Then people try to guess which is the true one.
  • In all my 30 years of driving, I have never driven an automatic. I've only driven manual transmissions which I learned on a 56 Chevy Impala.
  • The afternoon before my last final of my senior year of college, I was run over by a car and ended up in the hospital for a full month.
  • When I was 8 years old, I wasn't paying attention at the top of the ski lift and my ski tip got caught and I fell flat on my face off the lift. Fortunately it wasn't far but it was embarrassing!
  • I liked Spider-Man 1 so much that when Carl had Kathryn out at work all day, I paid for it once at a multiplex theater and just stayed and watched it two more times.
  • The very first new car my father bought was a Chrysler New Yorker which caught fire in the driveway the day he brought it home.
Which one's true?

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