Monday was a bit of a rough day for me. I had just come off of a blogging streak that had lasted a couple of weeks and I was completely out of content. The desire to write just wasn’t there and I didn’t know what to talk about.
I tried to force it by opening up a New Post window. I’d write a paragraph, hate it, then wipe it clean. I repeated the process a handful of times before reaching for my phone. Sometimes I like to skim through my photos and use them as inspiration.
I came to a photo that I took at Stowe Archers over the weekend. It was a photo of my cigar, taken while delivering bottled water out to the 3D Archery course before the start of our event. There was a giant foam Elk in the background and I thought it made for a comical picture to post on Cigar Noise.
Years ago, I remember reading a story online about a kid getting into a fight. As the story goes on, the character the boy was fighting got bigger and bigger. I think he started out at like 4 feet 6 inches and by the end he was 6 feet tall. It was a fun little piece of fiction and I’m not even sure why it sprung to mind but I was inspired to use the premise along with my photo.
I started typing then stopped. Maybe this piece of fiction I was dreaming up would be better suited for Stogie Review? Things have been a little slow over there lately and maybe I could use the fictional story as a way to create discussion in the comments?
I began building my story with a strong foundation of truth. I wanted to keep the reader thinking it was true, right up until I made a hard turn into what I thought of as complete bullshit. My intention was for the reader to see the lie and understand that my intention was to create fish story of sorts. I wanted them to conjure up their own story and outshine me.
The whole thing seemed so perfect. Readers would try and out do one another, telling outlandish stories and having a good laugh along the way. I had a problem though, people didn’t see the lie. What I thought of as a tall tale was too believable.
When the first comment didn’t come after a couple of hours, I texted my wife and asked her to read the story. Her response made me feel like a complete ass. “It is a very exciting story but it would have been better coming from you instead of having to read about it online. Do you realize that the Elk got bigger as the story went on? It started off at 6 feet and by the end it was 8 feet tall!”
Perhaps I should have exaggerated the lie? Maybe instead of an Elk (which do exist in small numbers in the western part of the state), I should have gone down the trail a little further and snapped a photo of the alligator we had set out? Maybe instead of nodding at me after picking up my cigar, maybe it should have spoke?
Like I said, I feel like an ass now that people haven’t picked up on it being fiction. It was fun to write though – I had a good laugh as crafted the action sequence.
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