There were five of us. We formed a story-writing group. Our efforts were inspired by the game of Telephone. Each of us would write and illustrate a 30-word story. This story would be passed on to another, who would fabricate the story's subsequent chapter. This process was repeated until each story had five short chapters.
Here was my contribution:
My 30-word story is intended to be a parody of fantasy tales that involve made-up names, third-person narrative, and beautiful gardens in distant lands. I intended the low-brow punchline to contrast the beautiful Mediterranean imagery and decorative floral flourish.
One of my peers provided the next chapter in Saeros's tale:
Aidan may have observed the style of my story; the intentionally twisted variation on typical young adult literature. He advanced the story by adding a conveniently-placed all-powerful villain. I consider this to resemble my original theme because it makes fun of how, in fantasy literature, the greatest villains in the universe tend to manifest themselves to the average and unbecoming protagonist/chosen one.
Aidan keeps the ironic momentum going by implying that our protagonist has just spit on the head of an evil lizard god. In doing so, Aidan has just set up the story for conflict. This could be considered the inciting incident of the story. I am reminded of the occasion where, in Harry Potter, Fred and George bewitch snowballs to bounce off the back of Professor Quirrell's turban.
Next:
Who is Marillo, you ask? In this game of Telephone, each author had access only to the work of the author directly prior to him or herself. Aiden did not reference the main character by name. Thus, Tabitha has no means of knowing that the original name of the protagonist was "Saeros". Interestingly, Tabitha found a new fantasy-genre name for the protagonist. "Marillo" is every bit as exotic as Saeros. In comparison to the menacing title "Mulathius, the name "Marillo" sounds rather oaf-ish. One wonders if Tabitha intentionally or subconsciously chose the name of the character to evoke the idea of his weakness and submission to the evil lizard.
Tabitha's tale transitions fluidly into existence from Aidan's contribution. Aidan presents the appearance of Mulathius abruptly, and Tabitha starts with Mulathius addressing the main character by name, as would any ominous and archetypal omnipotent villain. Mulathius's brevity of speech corresponds with Aidan's original god archetype concept. Because, of course, when you are all-powerful, you don't need to say a lot. Tabitha had only a few short words to describe Mulathius's appearance, but she chose to describe his eyes. We already know that Mulathius is a lizard, so the eyes are the next best choice. In fantasy stories, it is the eyes that are often the window to the soul. The use of the word "gleaming" immediately connotes intelligence, but a hard and ruthless intelligence, like sharpened steel.
The straight cut to the expression of Marillo's worship reinforces the idea of Mulathius's power. There is no hesitation. Marillo sees Mulathius and immediately knows that the lizard must be worshiped. The statement, "Marillo would worship him", could also be construed, not as Marillo's decision to worship, but as Mulathius's decision to seduce Marillo into worship. Regardless of the interpretation, this simple sentence convey's Mulathias's power. Without directly stating it, the impressive nature of Mulathius's presence is made crushingly apparent.
Next:
Barrett had to work off of the knowledge that Marillo was going to serve Mulathius, and that Mulathius was a demon. Mulathius's status as a demon implies innate powers, and it seems that Barrett decided to base the plot of his chapter on these implied powers. Strange events are happening as a result of Marillo/Saeros's encounter with the demon/lizard god, but there has been no game changing event yet. Thus, this chapter could be considered to be rising action.
The statement, "he wasn't cold" implies that the reason for Marillo's shaking is not due to temperature, but instead due to supernatural influence. This once again implies Mulathius's effect on Marillo. Within the context of the earlier installations, the reader knows that Mulathius's god status is influencing Marillo.
However, reading from this chapter alone, without the context of the earlier installations, the reader no longer knows the reason for Mulathius's influence. Marillo might be desiring Mulathius because Mulathius is a cheeseburger. The original natures of Saeros/Marillo and the lizard god have now been lost in this game of Telephone. The writer of the next addition of the story will not know that Mulathius is a lizard god, nor that it is Marillo who is subservient to Mulathius and not vice versa.
The final installment:
The story takes a sudden twist!
Yet, the "fantastique" tone of the story has been preserved. It lingered through the prior installment in the form of the exotic names and the apparent use of magic. The perpetuated "fantastique" vibe of the story is at the root of this turn of violent devouring. Were this a realist tale with no pre-established outrageous elements, it is unlikely that one character would eat another.
The sentence "Marillo looked up at Mulathius longingly" was originally intended to communicate Marillo's worshipfulness. However, that detail was not included in the installment prior to this one. The source of Marillo's longing was left up to the imagination! Who was to say the source of the longing was fear? The assumption of longing due to hunger is entirely justified!
Of course, such lapses in continuity are anticipated in this assignment, and here we see the humorous consequences of such a lapse. When placed within the context of the prior chapters, we see a reversal of power that doesn't make sense; the supposedly weaker Saeros/Marillo abruptly has decided to devour the mighty lizard god!
Conclusions:
This telephone-esque exercise was a fine example of how the genre and style of a story can be perpetuated, even if the various chapters of the tale are written blindly by different authors. As readers, we can easily discern the familiar components of our favorite genres. As writers, we percieve those familiar components and are able to incorporate those components into our sequel. It's almost compulsive. We don't want to write something that goes against the established theme or tone. As a testament to this, some aspect of the original tone was preserved within each mini-series written by our group.
Aidan: The first thing that comes to my mind about this assignment is its organizational difficulty. It would be simple enough if it were done all at once and in person. However, for our group at least, the virtual element became problematic. Whether from technical difficulty, or the kind of miscommunications that occur in virtual conversation, we experienced confusion. In my case, this was creatively restricting because I spent more time stressing over communicative errors than thinking about artistry or collaboration. As far as the work that was done, I found it to be challenging because there is no sense of control. However, it does prompt one to be more economical in the use of language. I found that to be a valuable experience in making less words mean more.
Tabitha: We’ve repeated frequently that creativity loves constraint, and in these short story exercises, I’ve found that to be the case. There’s something really challenging and yet freeing about having to communicate plot, character, theme, and ambience in 20 words, ten words, six words. It’s intriguing to build off other's ideas in both written and visual form, and actually reminded me of group writing for films or television shows. However, in this particular assignment, the communication and technicalities tripped our group up a bit. In Totems without Taboos:The Exquisite Corpse, DJ Spooky speaks of breaking down “the linear flow of ideas between people.” The at-times confusing form of this assignment made it a bit hard to do that, and it sometimes seemed as if we were creating an unwieldy, passive Frankenstein, a painfully self-aware and pointless monster, instead of the one that haunts Mary Shelley’s novel purposefully. It’s an elegant art form, however, the very short story, and feels like a language of its own. To learn it feels essential, but the path to doing so can be hard to navigate.
Trevor: These story sequences were exercises in entropy both in the interpretation of them and organization to do them. Writing and compiling the stories became a weird mission of preservation. There was an odd weight of lineage and legacy to respecting the last story and passing on something understandable and inspirational for the next while trying to write something decent. It’s an odd way to play the surrealist game DJ Spooky told us about, turning the Exquisite Corpse into a preservationist exercise. A truer playing would have veered into the irreverence of something like Axe Cop’s childish, self-contradictory bliss nightmare.
Barrett: Throughout the entire assignment, I was most fascinated by the way my story seemed to evolve. It made me realize that whether or not we intend to apply the “Exquisite Corpse” idea to our art and our stories, historically, it is bound to happen anyway. Do not all stories and ideas become embellished and drawn out over time? The organization of this assignment was inevitably a disaster. Not in the ideal sense, perhaps, but in the realistic carrying out of it. I’m still not sure if it was all done correctly at this point. But I tend to believe that is part of the process and certainly part of the art. Confusion is only compounded into the spontaneity of our responses. In fact, disastrous collaboration is often what spawns cherished art. The somewhat humorous example of the ruined Ecce Homo fresco in Spain comes to mind. It developed from ancient art to bizarre reconstruction attempt to template for memes. This assignment allowed us to just taste that process and be aware of doing so.
