PROMPT:

Build a work of art or an artifact into your text. It could be high or low art. A velvet Elvis a movie or a Gold Finch. You could use it as a structural device, as Delmore Schwartz does in "In Dreams begin Responsibilities," where a silent movie becomes the vehicle for the narrator to move through the history of his parents' relationshionship, or a quest object and governing metaphor, as Donna Tartt does in her eponymous novel. It should be meaningful to the larger story, magnifying its themes or story. Start by describing the art object in a way that illuminates an aspect of your story other than the work of art itself.

Further Reading:

In Dreams Begin Responsibilities by Delmore Schwartz

excerpt from The Gold Finch by Donna Tartt

© Elizabeth Gaffney 4/19/2021