In the summer of 1816, the eruption of Mount Tambora had filled the atmosphere with ash, and summer never came in Europe. In Switzerland, it was cold and dark in July.
A group of writers – including Percy Shelley, Lord Byron, and eighteen-year-old Mary Shelley (then Godwin) – were stranded indoors at a lakeside villa. Inspired by their stormy environment, they decided to try a challenge: each of them would write a ghost story.
Mary had been trying for weeks and struggling. Then one night, after a conversation about the scientific possibility of reanimating a corpse, she went to bed and couldn’t sleep.
She described what happened in her own words, fifteen years later:
“When I placed my head on my pillow, I did not sleep, nor could I be said to think. My imagination, unbidden, possessed and guided me, gifting the successive images that arose in my mind with a vividness far beyond the usual bounds of reverie. I saw – with shut eyes, but acute mental vision – I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together… What terrified me will terrify others; and I need only describe the spectre which had haunted my midnight pillow.”
She began to write what she described as “a transcript of the grim terrors of my waking dream.”
That transcript became Frankenstein.
Your Challenge
Locate the strongest feelings or sensations in your body.
Ask the feelings questions: what colour are you? How old are you? What is your name?
Listen for answers in the form of pictures, sounds, and increased sensations.
Now give that experience a body outside of your own. Turn it into a creature for a story.
Write about that creature. Your piece can be fiction, verse, or essay, up to 5,000 words. There is no lower limit.
To submit, send two documents to humanimaginings@outlook.com:
Your piece as a .doc, .docx, or .pdf, formatted in size 12 font, double spaced, with no additional spacing between paragraphs.
Your origin statement as a separate document, formatted however you like, not exceeding 400 words. You can include images if you like. We’re looking for any threads from your memory, physical experience, or emotion that went into the creation of your creature. Your response can take whatever form you like.
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