Stine Writing and Miniatures

W3 Prompt #160: Wea’ve Written Weekly

W3 Prompt #160: Wea’ve Written Weekly
https://skepticskaddish.com/2025/05/21/w3-prompt-160-weave-written-weekly/

This week’s prompt invites you to write toward something, rather than starting from it. You’ll be building pressure, rhythm, and meaning without naming your subject until the final line.

Step 1: Choose an abstract noun

Pick a single abstract noun that carries weight, mystery, or tension for you—something like liberty, danger, truth, love, exile, justice, forgiveness, joy, grief, silence…

Don’t use it until your poem’s final line.

Step 2: Delay the subject

Start each line with a description or action that leads us toward the noun, not from it. This is called left-branching syntax—it means delaying the main subject or verb.

You’re working with delay, accumulation, and unfolding. The noun you’ve chosen arrives only at the end. Until then, build around it, toward it, beneath it. Let readers feel its shape before they hear its name.

Freedom

There was a time when every door seemed closed
There was a place where every path had a dead end
If you search there is a way that will lead you out
If you search there is a way to get out
There is always life to be found: freedom

©2025 CBialczak

15 comments

  2. In a world where I am feeling we are becoming ever more repressed- I felt empowered by your reminding me that freedom is really a state of mine- and in that- always attainable.

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  6. Freedom follows the prompt faithfully, building from a sense of confinement and limitation toward the delayed arrival of the noun freedom. The movement from closed doors and dead ends to the possibility of finding a way out creates a clear narrative arc, and the repeated phrase “If you search…” adds a gentle, almost meditative rhythm. The final line has the feel of affirmation, giving the poem a hopeful, forward-looking energy.

    That said, there’s room to deepen the imagery and enhance the sense of discovery. Phrases like “every door seemed closed” and “a way to get out” are familiar expressions, and could be made more vivid with specific or surprising detail. A more textured approach might help the emotional shift feel more powerful. Still, the clarity of the message and the honest intent behind it give your poem a quiet strength – I read it as a sincere reflection on perseverance and the promise of eventual renewal.

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    • Thank you for your feedback and I would love if you had any suggestions! Unless I am currently in the middle of reading something that might offer valuable vocabulary ideas, I sometimes feel lost in that. I find that some abstract wording flies right over my head, but enhancements, as you say, could really change the piece for the better!

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      • You could try varying and enriching the visual imagery. Closed doors and dead ends are conventional. They serve the purpose but by shifting the language you can enrich the ideas without disrupting the rhythm.

        For example:
        Original: “There was a time when every door seemed closed”
        Suggestion: “There was a time when even sunlight turned at doors” or ““There was a time when even sunlight glanced off doors”.

        Original: “There was a place where every path had a dead end”
        Suggestion: “There was a place where every path curled back on itself” or “There was a place where every path faded into shadow”.

        Try tweaking the repetition so it’s more suggestive – show, don’t tell.:

        If you search, a hidden path begins to open
        If you keep searching, even stone may show its seams

        The second of these also ties into your final image.

        Try sharpening the final line. You’re close, it just needs a tweak.

        Original: “There is always life to be found: freedom”
        Suggestion: “There is always something breathing beneath the rubble: freedom”
        This retains your metaphor of finding life, but now there’s texture and struggle. You should be to feel and hear the fight to get out.

        This would give you something like:

        There was a time when even sunlight turned at doors.
        There was a place where every path curled back on itself.
        If you search, a hidden path begins to open.
        If you keep searching, even stone may show its seams.
        There is always something breathing beneath the rubble: freedom.

        Or

        There was a time when even sunlight glanced off doors.
        There was a place where every path faded into shadow.
        If you search, a hidden path begins to open.
        If you keep searching, even stone may show its seams.
        There is always something breathing beneath the rubble: freedom.

        I prefer the second revision as sunlight ties into shadow, the hidden path is a pivot, and stone ties into rubble. It makes the poem much more coherent as well as enriching the imagery and texture.

        Does that help? You could try taking it off on your own tangents. There are many ways to frame a poem.

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      • Wow, thank you! I love the help and your ideas are fantastic! The show don’t tell comment makes me laugh because that was always the key in lesson planning when I was going to school for education. I had a hard time with it then too but this is a great reminder. Feel free to help out whenever you want, lol! Thank you!

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