"All She Said Was Yes" Alternate Narrative Assignment

"All She Said Was Yes" Vicky Narration Assignment

Select ONE SPECIFIC MOMENT from the short story. It has to be something that actually happened, or a piece of dialogue etc. Use that as the beginning of your story. Meaning, literally retype it as your first sentence/paragraph. 

THEN, shift to an alternate version of that moment of the story from the POV of Vicky. Meaning, you are finally getting to let Vicky speak. 

Tell her story (can be with dialogue, thoughts, flashback, etc, but doesn't have to be her first person narration). Attempt to be true to her character and be true to Shirley Jackson's voice. (For example, I don't think all of a sudden she would apologize to Mrs. Wright, etc). 

Write between 4-6 paragraphs. You don't have to tell the whole rest of the story. Just complete that moment. 

I explained the assignment, then showed my sample first, which got them very excited about the possibility of writing.


Classwork:

I allowed students about 10 minutes in class to select their moment and begin brainstorming. I stressed it was more a characterization exercise than a pure narrative. It was a chance to let their curiosity guide their writing.

Process:

Select moment. Where does it begin and end? [Structure]

Think about the questions you yourself are curious about Vicky's character, this is your chance to answer them!

What about her character do you want to communicate?

Allusions/setting - what can you use both contemporary to 1960s and in the future to tell your story?


Sample - What prompted this was wondering what it looks like in Vicky's head when she gets visions. I also wanted to talk about the Red Notebook, as it is a key symbol and a plot device. Did she know it got destroyed? Probably. Why did she allow that to happen?

Finally I asked her if I could come in, because I had to talk to her, and she only opened the door wider and stood away, and I came in and she closed the door behind me and stood there waiting.

Well, I was waiting for the show to begin.

The slime of story that gloops into by brain, constantly drip drip dripping like a leaking pipe. This is my life. Drip, my mother's cheek torn by the bent gear shift stick as her face slams into it. Drip, a spider web of broken glass clotted with blood spun on the windshield. Drop, the wheels of a stretcher slamming on the blacktop as the coroner's wagon comes.

I am not even sure if I could have stopped it. This is an unsolved riddle. No one listens. To change the future is to bend the future, like crossing lanes from one oncoming car to another. Perhaps it isn't the car accident this week, maybe it's a stroke the next. 

I have seen it already, Mrs. Narrowman's fumbling. She is stupid and blind, but something in me stinks to her, like maybe how brimstone might cling to a Devil in disguise. But this is a Fairy Tale, I am the storyteller. I shall leave breadcrumbs for her to follow into the forest of her fate. She will sweep them away. I shall leave her Grimm's own book - the red splattered nightmare of how it all ends for Mr. Jones, what becomes of New York, what becomes of us all. The drip drip of Chinese Water Torture that will not turn off. Stains upon stains of vision in my brain, spreading like tree rings, all growing towards the knowledge of extinction.

Could the dinosaurs see the end? No. They craned their necks stupidly towards the bright light. And this woman will ignore it too. She will hold the notebook in her hands. Her narrow world has no way to read the language of water, blood, fire that seeps into me. It will be my gift to her, the chance to change the story to a happy ending. And she will burn the book. And she will doom them all to burn.