December 18th, 2009 / 6:30 pm
Craft Notes

Writing Prompt: Vanish

070709_r16385_p233Say you’re writing about someone who is not around. Say you are writing about someone that some others have lost in one way or another. (There are so very many ways of losing someone.) As I see it, you have two ways of approaching this.

The first image illustrates one way of doing it. (Image by Charles Cohen.) Someone can disappear and leave a gaping hole shaped just like themselves.

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This second image is by a Seattle artist named John Haddock. It is also a picture of someone who is not there. Haddock takes images from the web—pornographic images—and erases the nude figure from the image, replacing it by drawing the patterns of the bedspread, the color of the wall, the features of the room. After the character has been erased, the hole has been filled in.

Try them both. Write something about a person who is gone. In one version, leave the gaping hole. In the other, fill the hole in so it is almost like the person was never there.

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17 Comments

  1. rion

      I love these….

  2. rion

      I love these….

  3. Kim T

      I will try this. I have been waiting until the end of finals to write. Thanks for sharing your expertise!

  4. Kim T

      I will try this. I have been waiting until the end of finals to write. Thanks for sharing your expertise!

  5. Sean

      Add the porn star back?

  6. Jessica Y

      I just wanted to point out that you used the phrase “gaping hole” twice in a post mentioning pornographic images.

      That is all.

  7. Jessica Y

      I just wanted to point out that you used the phrase “gaping hole” twice in a post mentioning pornographic images.

      That is all.

  8. I. Fontana

      i’ve done this, or close enough, with a particular emphasis on the paintings on the walls of the motels. the pillows are also interesting. a lot of leopard pattern. ‘alt-porn’ features messier rooms, sometimes extensive writing on the walls.

  9. I. Fontana

      i’ve done this, or close enough, with a particular emphasis on the paintings on the walls of the motels. the pillows are also interesting. a lot of leopard pattern. ‘alt-porn’ features messier rooms, sometimes extensive writing on the walls.

  10. Matthew Simmons
  11. Matthew Simmons
  12. Matthew Simmons

      Whatever floats your.

      Penis.

  13. Matthew Simmons

      “photo by hipster boyfriend”

  14. Matthew Simmons

      Whatever floats your.

      Penis.

  15. Matthew Simmons

      “photo by hipster boyfriend”

  16. mimi

      And then my ____ try to see how much I was developed and I thought _____ could be impregnated and ___ had a lipstick holder that had a lady’s head and there was a smell of old wood and the telephone on the table in the hall and my _______ died in his studio but there was never any motel room in this story.

  17. mimi

      And then my ____ try to see how much I was developed and I thought _____ could be impregnated and ___ had a lipstick holder that had a lady’s head and there was a smell of old wood and the telephone on the table in the hall and my _______ died in his studio but there was never any motel room in this story.