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The nondescript fellow trudged down the dusty lane that led to nowhere. He had never even given this part of life a thought, he only knew the ostentatious side and not this dry and miserable part he was going through right now. He was not only bitterly poor, but crazy, crazy according to what people said. He had concluded it was pointless to argue with them. He was crazy. Yes, crazy to death. He let out a loud guffaw and listened to his own voice reverberate in the distant foliage like a hooting owl. He had been walking like this for five days now and no one had bothered to ask him who he was, perhaps, they also thought he was crazy. He had met a few hikers on the way and as soon as they saw him from afar, they quickly switched lane as though they could sniff that there was something ethereal about him. Yet, he knew in his heart that he was in his right mind. Most of the times, at least. Except for those special times when he lost control and his body played puppet to some poltergeist. But then, that was not his fault, at least, not entirely his fault. And that was why he always had the hood of the beige jacket he wore over his head. He never let anyone see his face, not that he could himself could remember what he look like, but, he preferred to keep his identity, from himself and from the world. He had no idea where he was going but he had resolutely decided that he would lay his head somewhere this night, no matter the cost. He had been trekking for so long now and he was so drained that he was not quite sure whether he was flying or levitating, he just couldn't feel his legs any more.
His stomach was beginning to roil and churn like a rogue wave in the atlantic; it did not mean he was hungry, in fact, it was some sacred obligation even more important than food which he had to fulfil. His small torso heaved heavily, hard life, and thought he'd better get started before he wound up in some mundane position. He patted the hip pocket of his rust-red Bermuda shorts, the metal object was still there, it would have to pass for a knife, since he did not have one yet. He veered out of the road into a narrow bush ridden path that led to what he wanted. It was just a matter of minutes before his new owners came for him. He preferred to refer to them as his new owners, because they just came abruptly, took what they wanted and just left again. If he did not want to be at their mercy now, he had to find what they wanted quick.
The leave-ridden path wound into an overgrown bush path, then, into a thick forest, his steps increasing geometrically as his heart rate. Trees sped past his view as he broke into a run, wading through thick growth of shrub as though it was empty space.
In one blurry instant, a long brown snake glide past right in front of his running steps, probably escaping on hearing the sound of crunching vegetation. He was not sure how he was able to balance his momentum and his stopping potential. All he knew was that the next moment, the serpent was in one hand and slamming it into the earth several times. The snake was quite dead by now and the knife in his hand had already done justice to its head, all that was left was to suck. But he had never liked or in the least, eaten snake meat, he did not kill it because they wanted the flesh, they wanted it for something else. He was in a frenzy now, and his eyes was reeling from a pain resulting from the million high-pitched voices in his head. They were all saying different things at the same time. It was too unbearable, but if he did not supply what they wanted, he would die. He knew because they had told him before that on the day he stopped running errands, his head would implode like a watermelon.
Hastily, he tossed away the knife and raised the serpent in both hands, the bloody open gut aimed at his mouth. He slurped on the warm red fluid as it flowed into his mouth, some spilling down his neck and jacket. His heart first seemed to pause for a dizzying moment before resuming at a steady rate. Even the heavy throbbing in his head began to clear off and his bleary eyes return to focus, then he realized he had been glaring into the sun. He squinted and looked away, squeezing and sucking out the last drops of life from the homiotherm like tasty time. It now dawned on him that the blood tasted a tad different from the others he had tasted, although he knew that even if it tasted like acid, he would have taken it anyway. His hands consciously felt the warm callous scales of the dead reptile as he dropped it. It was not until he dropped it that he realised that the greenish piece of rope he had just sucked life from was quite long, from his estimation, about 4 feet. Horrors! How had he killed it? With worms crawling all over his body, he flinched from the bloodied carcass and raced away, crashing into shrubs and small trees as though he were been pursued by a leopard.
He did not stop until he hit the dusty road and considered himself well beyond the woods. As he bent over by the side of the road asphyxiating and thinking about his crazy and inexplicable encounter with death, he realized he had not retrieved the metal blade with which he had severed the head of the serpent. He quickly pushed the thought aside. What the heck? He would have died from a single scratch from that snake's fangs and here he was thinking about some sissy knife.
He cast away his backpack and sank to the earth in despair, his shorts fold snagging dust. He pulled back his hood for the first time in many days to reveal his once smooth and ruddy complexion. He did not need anyone to tell him he now looked like a scarecrow. Scarecrow or not, he did not give a fig any more, although he sat in the middle of the road, and an angry sun was beating mercilessly on his scraped scalp. All he could think of was a better way to die. This blood-hungry phenomena was already beyond his control. Whenever the pangs came over him, his lost control over his senses and all movements in his body became subject to some unseen force. The strangest part was death had eluded him on the many occasions he had tried to kill himself, including times when he had come in contact with wild animals like a few minutes ago. He touched around the nape of his neck to feel the deep impression that the noose of a hang rope had impressed on it some days ago when he had tried to hang himself. He had simply dozed off and woken up on the ground with a sharp pain in his left buttocks. That was all and it was scary enough to put him to death, but he had not died. It was mysterious. He had never heard of any one unsuccessfully hanging themselves. May be it was in line with the promise of the voices that if he served them well, they would consider him and give him the gift of immortality. He grunted and looked frightfully over his shoulder at the woods he had just escaped from. If the life of immortality would be this miserable, he would rather die. In times like this, he was often afraid to die, but there was no better option than that. He roused himself from the dust-bath and adjusted his hood properly over his head. He would give dying one last shot. He had to succeed this time.

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....and here's the concluding part of chapter 2

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sorry i have not been active here. Nepa has been very unfriendly this few days, and i ve been quite beesy with some queer stuff. but i gat one here.

[quote author=G-50 member]Thanks! I should start again sometime soon.


Thanks! Your advice is very practical and hands on.[/quote]and just in case, if you need any help , there's this article i prepared for short story writing. you could just look it up....
https://www.nairaland.com/1255650/introduction-prose-writing-how-write

princesa: that bit is true, am gonna stop lazying about and write me a story, the storyline is there but the zeal is lacking

don't forget about me request ok?

That's the true Spirit! I wish you the best. As for your request, I got you.
Yours till Niagara falls.

Hydronium: Okies. I'll give that a thought. It'll take some time though...

but while at it, why not try your hands on a couple short stories? Amazingly, most, perhaps all (in my humble opinion) novels develop from short stories.

princesa: how about writing a full fledged novel, how do we go about it considering the fact that you dwelt on short stories only

Okies. I'll give that a thought. It'll take some time though...

princesa: just in the nick of time, i was thinking of suggesting to one of our gifted writers here to open a 'writing class' thread here so as to enlighten us wanna be's

you tried no doubt, but pls extend the knowledge to other fields of prose writing if you can, let it be like a class with materials, internet links, examination and all to aid we the readers.

anyway kudos to you!

The pleasure's all mine.
But, if i may ask, what other branch of prose writing might you be interested in?

An0nimus: Short and concise. Thanks OP

you're welcome brov

Stop wondering! put your hand to the plough!

olashas: Nice write up

Thanks ma'am. I really do appreciate. I'll continue with chapter 2 in a lil' bit.

luvmijeje: Op thanks.

you're welcome ma'am

Mobsync: Thanks for this, bookmarks for future reference.

you are most welcome, amigo.

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....and here's the concluding part of chapter 1.

Conclusion
- You don't have to write your short story in order. If you have an idea for a great conclusion, write it down.
- Don’t tell, but show.
- Give your book to trusted friends and relatives and let them know you want their true reviews which you must be sure to consider.
- Encourage yourself a lot
- And after all’s been said (written!) and done, have a shot at publishing.

Some useful handy tips
- Nothing can help you “learn” how to write a good, short story better than reading good short stories. Notice the style and how they have used the small amount of words to their advantage. Choose authors that you enjoy; choose some of the “classics,” as examples and if you can, find some well-known authors. Pay attention to how the authors develop their characters, write dialogue, and structure their plots.
- Collect ideas for your story. Inspiration can strike at any time, so carry a notepad with you wherever you go so that you can write down story ideas as they come to you.
- Use few characters and stick to one point of view.
- Limit the time frame as much as possible.
- Write a Catchy First Paragraph.
- Be selective. As with poetry, the short story requires discipline and editing. Every line should either build character or advance the action.
- However much you experiment with form, something has to happen in the story (or at least the reader has to feel as though something has happened). Things like conflict and resolution achieve this effect.
- As with any type of writing, the beginning and the end are the most important parts. Make sure your first and last lines are the strongest in the story.
- The first sentence of your short story should catch your reader’s attention with the unusual, the unexpected, an action, or a conflict.
- Begin with tension and immediacy. Remember that short stories need to start close to their end.

Elements of a short story
The major elements of a short story are as follows:
- Character in Short Stories. A character is someone or something that takes part in actions depicted in the short story.
- Setting (brief but poetic and vivid)
- Plot (as simple and interesting as possible)
- Conflict (intense but one)
- Theme


How to get started
- Read, Read, Read a lot!
- Look out the window; the whole world is a story, and every moment is a miracle.
- Write on a regular, daily basis. Sit down and compose sentences for a couple of hours every day — even if you don’t feel like it.
- Keep tabs on the world about you with the aid of notebooks. Notebooks are “incubators,” a place to begin with overheard conversation, expressive phrases, images, ideas, and interpretations on the world around you.
- Collect stories from everyone you meet.
- Keep the amazing, the unusual, the strange, and the irrational stories you hear and use them for your own purposes.

Hello dear nairalanders, as the title implies, this article is mainly to enlighten on the art of prose writing which happily can be absorbed in no time, as with most things in the realm of knowledge . i wish you the best in your strife for excellence


Introduction to prose writing
Prose writing is a branch of creative writing that spans through the aspect of flash fiction, short story (for children and adults), novella and novels. Creative writing is a process of writing or developing a story from a given material which could come either from the imagination of the mind or from a given source.


Short story writing
What is short story? A short story is work of “fiction or imagination” that is usually written in “easily understandable grammatical structure” with “natural flow of speech”. A short story is meant to be read at a single sitting and therefore it should be as direct and brief as possible. Because of directness and brevity, a typical short story has very little action and hardly any character development. However it must provide a snapshot of life – typically a decisive moment that may lead result lethal to the character in one or other form.

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