Although common writing wisdom holds that regular practice is the only way to develop fiction writing skills, there is very little scientific research on creative writing beyond the boundaries of the elementary school classroom and psychiatric settings. In fact, so little seems to be known at all about writing outside of an institutional setting that it is said that personal development in this area is either largely individual, the result of some mystical experience or a consequence of hearing voices. Never the less, common wisdom should be held accountable and the spirit of experimentation will do just that.
The Chrysalis Experiment is a commitment on the part of three writers to test writing wisdom by composing a short story every week during 2011 in the hopes of honing their skills. Every Monday a prompt will be posted by one of the Experimenters and every Friday one of the Experimenters will post their story. Stories will be under ten thousand words and intended only for development of writing quality, style and clarity, rather than for publication or public entertainment.
The Experimenters would like to invite any and all writers with similar goals to participate. It is hoped that The Chrysalis Experiment will become an inclusive community where participants may hone their skills as well, generate content for their own blogs and test possible critique partners or beta readers in their effort to improve larger works.
Blogging Schedule
- Mondays: new prompt goes up
- Thursdays: wrap-up of previous week's prompt by the prompter
- Fridays: Friday feature, a story written by one of the three Experimenters
- Saturdays: Story pick #1 for the week
- Sundays: Story pick #2 for the week
About the Experimenters
Trisha lives on "the remote West Coast" of Western Australia, as an INXS documentary once referred to it. She loves reading, drawing, singing/guitaring, listening to music, eating, travelling and, of course, writing. Her stories have spanned numerous genres, tenses and points of view, and she loves not knowing what the heck is coming next.
Jennifer is, perhaps, not the world's most self aware writer. She started writing a princess-based soap opera in the second grade and has been making up stories ever since. Despite this--and the number of people telling her that she was either a writer or a visitor from another planet--she didn't realize how significant writing was to her until a few years ago. She grew up in the LBC, reads maniacally, plays Iron Chef the way some people play video games, loves ice skating and dogs that look like wolves.
Winter is a ne'er-do-well gangster reminiscent of Bonnie and Clyde. She is an intergalactic pilot of ships that harvest sun energy. She is a special operations agent unable to feel emotion. She is suppressed by communism. She is a 26-year-old male. And, as you may have guessed, she is a strong proponent of first-person fiction. (Mostly, though, she is a slightly-off-the-mark high-schooler from small-town East-Coast USA who overuses-hyphens-all-the-damn-time. And she has an overactive imagination, and a hyperactive sense of irony.)
