Chameleon Cues

Are you a budding writer with a gift to share? Or maybe you just like showing off your vocabulary (“It is painfully obvious that this window is the victim of vetrination!”). Whatever motivates you, I would love to showcase your writing here! So send in an original piece or a response to the prompts below and I will feature your work prominently on this site!

Chameleon Cue #1: Muddle O’ Movies

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Rugrats? Cider House Matrix? What do you suppose

would happen if you left two of your favorite movies in the pocket of your jeans and they got chucked in the washing machine together? Explain how you think they might run together and what interesting mutations combined characters and plots could take on.

Chameleon Cue #2: Quit Playing Games With My Royal Scepter

A local radio station here in Jacksonville was promoting a contest to win tickets to a Backstreet Boys concert, saying something to the effect that “One year ago, the Backstreet Boys conquered the world.” This prompted the nightmare of trying to picture that actually happening in my head and I still haven’t stopped shuddering. So you tell me: what do you think the world would be like if it was ruled by this collection of squeaky clean popstars? Feel free to get as humorous with the notion as you like, or as serious.

Chameleon Cue #3: Shakespeare in Space

“To enter hyperspace or not to enter hyperspace? That is the question.” Pick your favorite writer or literary figure and imagine him/her in a setting that seems unlikely at best. For instance: Hemmingway at a feminist rally? Bilbo Baggins (of The Hobbit fame) playing professional basketball? Or maybe Huck Finn living in the lost city of Atlantis? Give me an idea of what you think life would be like for that individual in this place and what he/she thinks of their surroundings.

Chameleon Cue #4: Behind the Muses- The REAL Story of Cinderella

Take a familiar fairy tale or nursery rhyme and do one of the following:

a) Act as an investigative reporter and tell the shocking and grim (or is it Grimm?) truth about the tale.

b) Retell the story from a minor character’s perspective. For example, give us a deeper insight into the mind of Little Red Riding Hood’s grandma. Did she REALLY like Red, and what were her personal thoughts on the incidents in the story?

OR

c) Give the story a new ending. Maybe one of Cinderella’s ugly stepsisters

actually wore the same shoe size and thus married the prince instead

of the syrupy sweet heroine. Or maybe that braggart of a gingerbread man who taunted others with his rhyming challenge did not meet a tragic end, but successfully survived his encounter with that last hungry predator and had his lyrics sampled by Puff Daddy, inflating his ego further. (“Run run as fast as you can… Now get funky with it!”)

Send in your Chameleon Cue responses with the subject describing which

cue (1-4) you responded to. For my e-mail address- and again, your reading comprehension has been sorely tested if you don’t know this by now- click the picture below.