30/April/2024

Golly gee-bunny-whiskers.
It's April 30 and we haven't done the sestina yet. Rats.

Well, it'll have to wait. (Yes, I know. You are computer literate, and there are explanations all over the internet for that and any other form. It would have been so much fun, though.)

But I did have this other idea. 
What you need is a recurring character. Like Harry Potter and Dr Who and Miss Marple and Sherlock Holmes  and The Dead Man.
(Actually, The Dead Man is more of a form than a character. Or maybe he's a way of coming at things. Look up Marvin Bell “Dead Man Poems” some time. He has one thing in common with Sherlock and Bond and some of the others: fans wouldn't let their creators bump them off. Of course the Dead Man did have that extra problem of starting out DEAD.)

Anyway. The idea is to have something to easily pick up when you itch to write but haven't a clue, and put back down just as easily. 

Since this is just an exercise, to try out the idea for size so to speak: think of a story. One that your readers would probably know. Any story or storyline, or location. Adam and Eve. The Law and Order universe. Sesame Street. The White House. The Bloomsbury Group. The whole Grimms oeuvre. (You would not believe the places Red Riding Hood has been poemed.)

So. Let's for instance Red. 
Look for peripheral characters to visit. I'm especially liking Grandma right now. Poor old soul. She may be ailing now (dead, in some versions), but she's got a house in the “Woods”, and at least one offspring. Who knows? There may be prodigal Uncles. Is Grandma into anything…interesting.
You could make a chapbook from the tchotchkes in Grandma's sitting room. Every inch of the path Red walks is the Path to Grandma's house. Grandma. Does she even have a name? And what kind of house is it? 
Me, I might start with “The Courtship of Little Red’s Grannie.”

You. You pick your own storyverse. Look to the plumbing and insects and schools.