An actual email from my Inbox.
Dear Imaginary Socialite,
I need help
,
So let’s say you’re once again an imaginary sophomore at an imaginary school. Looks like your hard work at boarding school has paid off as you can now bask in the sunlight of a nice Bay Area afternoon. Suddenly, an evil little storm cloud obscures the sky, preemptively ending your tanning sesh’ before it even starts.
Of course, that little fucker is a metaphor for the 20 page creative piece of fiction you’ve just been assigned. No worries though, you’re little miss sunshine and no cloud is going to ruin your day. You trek to the library to abolish this little guy. Unfortunately, as soon as you get there, you’re struck with writer’s block. You’ve got the plot: An ultra-luxe, fabulous girl from Andover, Massachusetts and her gay best friend from that one school in New Hampshire. They’ve graduated high school, gone off to college and graduated there as well, and now they’re living it up in NYC. MisShapes anachronisms aside, the concrete jungle where dreams are made of, doesn’t yet seem to have a conflict for these two characters which is why I seek your advice.
If you were writing a paper like this in order to get one step closer to graduating, resulting in you being one step closer to becoming a super cool, imaginary editor at some nonfigmentary magazine— Vogue perhaps?— what would you use as the conflict in your story?
Sincerely,
Imaginary Schoolboy[JON CRYER - AM I THE IMAGINARY SCHOOLBOY?]
So. Anyone want to write an Alloy manuscript and mail it to Stanford?