Writing Prompt: TRANSPLANT
Visual inspiration + mental exercise to start your writing week
Everyone stands around staring at you like you’re some kind of freak. Just because you’ve landed where you clearly don’t belong. Grounded like a kid after flunking exams. A kid who was out of their depth from the gitgo. A kid who only took that class because daddy said so. Where’s daddy now? Not even in the picture, but you still can’t move. Unless.
Metaphortography Prompts are free visual and verbal writing prompts for inspiration and reflection. This is the Monday section of Aimee Liu’s MFA Lore. Our Wednesday section is Writer In The World, a curated collection of essays on the writing life by acclaimed MFA faculty and alumni. Writers in Conversation and other MFA Core essays on the craft and business of creative writing will drop each Saturday. Receive some or all of these newsletters by subscribing now:
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Tuesday, March 3 at 11 am PT
Well Published, Live: Short Stories with Rachel Khong
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TRANSPLANT
Oh dear. What happened? Something’s obviously wrong. You are literally a ship out of water. Looks like you’re plowing the sand, but you’re not actually doing anything. You’re just…stuck. What on earth put you here? Your own careless hubris? Your captain’s abuse? Or are you the victim of a tempest beyond anyone’s control? These questions must be driving you mad, you just want help getting out if this muck. Instead everyone stands around staring at you like you’re some kind of freak. Just because you’ve landed where you clearly don’t belong. Grounded like a kid after flunking exams. A kid who was out of their depth from the gitgo. A kid who only took that class because daddy said so. Where’s daddy now? Not even in the picture, but you still can’t move. Unless. This ground beneath you. This new terrain. It’s not water, but it’s supple. Warm. Receptive to touch. See how it cradles you? Sure, you’re a transplant, not made for this earth, but feel the sun on your haunches. Put down some roots. Use your imagine and work together. You know you’ll come up with something to get you moving again.
TRANSPLANT: Middle English transplaunten, from Late Latin transplantare, from Latin trans- + plantare to plant
1: to lift and reset (a plant) in another soil or situation
2: to remove from one place or context and settle or introduce elsewhere : relocate
3: to transfer (an organ or tissue) from one part or individual to another
4: to tolerate being transplanted
5 a: a person or thing that is transplanted
b: a manufacturing plant set up locally by a foreign company to save on shipping costs
Here is your writing prompt:
As you contemplate the image above, think of a time when you or your character felt transplanted. Write an interior 1st POV present tense monologue from that experience that incorporates:
What/where you left
Where you are now
Who/what caused this move
How much was voluntary, how much forced
How you’ve been received
What is most different here
What part of it is liberating
What part of it is terrifying
What part of it is simply confusing and exhausting
What part of it is exciting
What you miss most about your old life
What you don’t miss at all
What you plan to do next
How this transplantation has changed the way you see yourself
More mining of the Transplant metaphor that might be helpful to you fiction writers:
Culture Shock Can Wake Up Your Fiction
Back in high school I had a world studies teacher, a former nun named Joan Harden, who assigned a writing lesson that I’ve since come to treasure. She told us to describe America as if we were Martians arriving here for the very first time. That could mean, for example, writing about a coffee maker as if we had no idea what coffee was. We could use simple English, but no shortcut nouns — no Xerox or computer or telephone. We had to look at the world around us with completely fresh eyes, working backwards to reveal the function of actions and instruments, to make sense of how Americans interacted. Even a kiss had to be deconstructed in detail to reflect its cultural purpose. The goal was not to write science fiction but to discover just how much we take for granted — and overlook — because of familiarity.
Loreates’ Corner
I’m delighted to introduce you to a few of the wonderful stacks by writers in our community. Please read, subscribe, and share! And if you’re an MFA Lore subscriber with a great writing stack that I haven’t mentioned, please drop the link in a comment, so I can add you to our Corner.
Today I’m sharing posts by Loreates Joshua Irving Gershick and Amy Brown that relate to the Transplant metaphor—in very different ways!
Aimee! Thank you, so much! I'm honored.