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Same Walk, Different Shoes

Nov 24, 2023

The community response to the “Same Walk, Different Shoes” project I proposed last week has been far greater than I ever expected. We have 50 writers signed up to participate! On December 29th, there will be 50 new short stories in the world inspired by the transformative life experiences of real people.

Now that I’ve got the attention of all these brilliant writers, I’m a little freaked out. It’s like I announced a party expecting no one to come, and now everyone’s showing up in an hour. Meanwhile, I have dirty laundry piled on the couch, and nothing but two sad beers and a half-empty jar of salsa that’s well past its expiration in the fridge.

Before the party starts, I realize I need to set the table for you, dear readers, and also for my guest writers who will be participating.

Not Your Typical Prompt

For non-writers and the uninitiated, a prompt is not just something you give ChatGPT when you want it to write your end-of-year review for your boss. Prompts have been the adrenaline shot writers have used since the first cave painter got writer’s block. Often prompts can be as simple as one word or a phrase with the goal being nothing more than a gentle nudge that urges the writer into a flow of their own imagination.

For this collaborative experiment, I’m using the prompt to a different end. I want to see how the prompt of an unknown person’s life-changing experience might coax the writer outside their walled garden. Writers are often accused of just writing variations on the same story our entire lives which might be a symptom of taking the old adage “write what you know” a bit too much to heart. I’m interested in what happens when we must reach to write a story about someone else’s experience. How might we inhabit that person? How does their story change when projected through our lens? What will the exercise teach us about ourselves?

In a world that has become ever more divisive and polarized, where there is no quarter for listening much less trying to understand a position different from our own, my aspiration for this project is to plant a few seeds in the rocky soil in hopes that they might grow into a little orchard of trees that bear fruit and roots that will be forever connected. That might be a bit too lofty but the way I see it, the worst thing that happens is we get a new collection of stories a few of which might be extraordinary.

It’s a Seedling, Not a Seed

Okay, okay so my metaphor is flawed. The prompt in this case will not be a seed of some unknown variety, but rather a seedling with recognizable leaves. Each writer participating will be entrusted with a seedling provided anonymously by another writer. So each participating writer will have two jobs to do here:

Write the basic facts about an event/experience that has changed who you are in some significant way. Include only what you are comfortable with when describing who you are but be sure it’s enough for your writer to understand the unique significance the experience had on you.
With the anonymous prompt you receive, you will have a month to turn it into a short story that captures the essence of the experience. It’s up to you how faithful you want to be to the prompt but remember, this story is not about you. You will be writing in the first person which makes you a part of it, but the point of the exercise is for you to inhabit someone else.

To ensure that everyone writing gets the same basic material to work with from the prompt, I’m providing a sample prompt that shows the format and a suggestion for the kind of information it might include.

A Sample Prompt

Who I was
I was a 13-year-old Persian-American girl, living in a small Southern town in 1989. I was painfully shy. I was a rule-follower and a pleaser. I was ashamed of my culture and my immigrant parents. All I wanted was to fit in.
Where I was
I attended a “lock-in” on a Friday night at the large Baptist church, invited by a girl I barely knew but desperately wanted to be friends with. There were over forty other teenage boys and girls there with four adult chaperones gathered to have “fellowship” by watching movies and eating pizza while sprawled on sleeping bags across the floor of a large, windowless rec room.
What happened
After the pizza, we were broken up into small groups to participate in a “sharing” session where each kid was asked to talk about their relationship with God. Having fled from Iran, my family was not religious. I panicked when it was my turn. I whispered that I didn’t believe in God then burst into tears. I felt the others in my group recoil from me. One of the chaperones stopped by and pulled me aside. I was asked if I wanted to go home but it didn’t feel like a question. I called my mother and she picked me up.
How it changed me
To this day, I cannot speak in an organized group setting without being reduced to tears. I have an illogical and unshakable fear of being exposed and ostracized.

The deadline for submitting prompts is:
Friday, December 1, 2023

I will use an app to randomly assign the anonymous prompts to writers and I will email them directly to the 50 participating writers. All writers have until Friday, December 29th, 2023 to complete their stories. On this day we will all publish them to our Substacks.

Our Cohort of Substack Writers

Here’s a list of links to the Substacks for all the fabulous writers who will be participating. Be sure to check out their work in anticipation of the new stories that will be coming your way before the end of the year.