Happy Valentine's! And to celebrate, I've got a writing skill for you about a very different kind of love, as well as a love poem, inspired by Oxford's glorious History of Science Museum. (Which I am, yes, in love with. That picture up top is my phone background!)
You can use this skill for flash-fiction (very tiny short stories) or for a poem, whichever you prefer, to write about a scientific instrument. This could be any kind of scientific instrument: ones from astronomy, like telescopes, astrolables, orreries; ones for weather, like barometers, thermometers; ones for navigation, like compasses; ones you'd find in modern laboratories or ancient apothecaries...
If you want a list to get your mind mulling it over, here's the Wiki list sorted into categories and here's a breaktakingly extensive list of 418 instruments + their uses. Personally, I love the older instruments, especially astrolabes, so here's a wonderfully rich resource for that. The Oxford History of Science Museum has explanations and short videos on 8 different kinds of instruments in their collection: armillary sphere, camera obscura, gregorian telescope, medicine chest, octant, orrery, wimshurst machine. So if you fancy five minutes of discovery first, choose which one you fancy, read the text about it, watch the little video, and then settle into turning that discovery into your writing.
Once you've browsed and absorbed a bit, scroll down to choose whether you want to flash-fiction it or turn it into a poem. You can decide whether you feel the instrument is already thoroughly magical to you, or whether you'd like to add magical properties to it.
Flash-fiction It
This is the very stuff of story, as Philip Pullman's series His Dark Materials illustrates with Lyra's wonderful alethiometer. (Which is also in the History of Science Museum!) You could follow the links to write a fictionalised story about a real scientific instrument OR take a leaf out of Pullman's book and give your character an invented instrument.
If you invent an instrument, use these questions to inspire you:
- What does it do?
- Did they invent it or did they find it?
- How do they use it?
- Does something completely unexpected happen when they do?
To keep it very short, you could focus in on just a couple of things: them using it and what they expect; what actually happens. If you want to write a longer piece (flash fic goes up to 1000 words), you could also include more beforehand about them finding / inventing it, and possibly a second character's responses to it.
Poem It
You could write this as free verse or, if you fancy a type of poem to write, how about a villanelle?
|
Line # |
Repeated line |
Rhyme |
| 1 | A | a |
| 2 | xxxxx | b |
| 3 | B | a |
| 4 | xxxxx | a |
| 5 | xxxxx | b |
| 6 | A | a |
| 7 | xxxxx | a |
| 8 | xxxxx | b |
| 9 | B | a |
| 10 | xxxxx | a |
| 11 | xxxxx | b |
| 12 | A | a |
| 13 | xxxxx | a |
| 14 | xxxxx | b |
| 15 | B | a |
| 16 | xxxxx | a |
| 17 | xxxxx | b |
| 18 | A | a |
| 19 | B | a |
A villanelle uses two lines that keep repeating throughout: they start and end the first stanza, then they take turns ending the next four stanzas, and then both of them together end the last stanza.
- Stanza length: The first five stanza are 3 lines each; the last stanza is 4 lines
- Rhyme scheme: the first four stanzas are aba; the last stanza is abaa.
- Repeating lines: The table shows where the two repeating lines go, that's A and B. They can have slight variations, changing words or tweaking punctuation, so the meaning shifts throughout the poem. Read the example further down, to see how it works.
Practical tip: When you’re writing a villanelle (or any repeating form), it helps to mark out the structure in your notebook, and each time you write a line that will repeat, jot it down in the places where it’ll repeat. You can always tweak the wording and punctuation when you get to it, but it’s much easier to write if you can see what lines you’re heading towards, instead of trying to hold it in your head.
Here's a love villanelle I wrote inspired by the History of Science Museum, with the repeated lines marked:
So many devices, copper and brass, to divine
the movements of planets, celestial angles, and time.
Trajectories of hearts and whether your love will align
again, its elliptical orbit completed, with mine
are hardly more complex? They built, drawing metal from grime,
so many devices, copper and brass, to divine
the shape of the oceans by peering down holes for the shine
of a singular star. Is it harder to plot out the prime
trajectories of hearts and whether my love will align
with yours as it swings into view? I’ve been stiffened with brine,
my ship lost at sea; I’ve been trying, through gathering rime,
so many devices, copper and brass, to divine
the path of your vanishing love, its return, and the sign
if it’s comet or star: Enlightenment’s cool paradigm.
Trajectories of hearts and whether a love will align
are surely the stuff of academies; measures define
Newtonian laws. I polish, through rhyme after rhyme,
so many devices, copper and brass, to divine
trajectories of hearts, and whether our love will align.
And if these magical instruments inspire you as much as they do me, my favourite museum and I are running a special combined event: a workshop on Tues 24 Feb, to explore ancient astrolabes and poetry, after dark, in the museum.
It's fully booked, but they've opened a waiting list so you can nab a space if anyone has to cancel, and get first dibs on any future events we do. Add your name to the waiting list here.
