On a friend’s recommendation, I picked up the Gotham Writers’ Workshop guide, Writing Fiction. Having fallen too far off the fiction writing bandwagon, having slowly inched myself back towards it through the lesser demands of screenwriting, I hoped the book might push me the last few steps to once again cranking our short stories (or, god forbid, longer fiction forms).

A central aspect of the book are the multiple ‘your turn’ segments, chances for the reader to leap into action and ply ideas on (digital) paper. As I’m exceedingly lazy, I’ve realized I can likely recycle some of these exercises by posting them here. So, to that end, I give you my (completely unedited) five minute free-write, beginning with the supplied phrase ‘Sam wasn