Story Telling Crash Course - Session Ten: More Constraints: Write Without Using Negations by dragosroua

challenge30 · @dragosroua · Feb 19 '17

$5.47

Story Telling Crash Course - Session Ten: More Constraints: Write Without Using Negations

![](https://steemitimages.com/0x0/http://dragosroua.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/office-581131_1280.jpg)
***
Welcome to the tenth session of our story telling crash course. With this one, we're reaching the "two thirds" threshold, which means we have only 5 sessions left until the end of the course. I already start to miss these posts. It was a very enjoyable exercise to write these sessions, to follow up with those who took on the assignments and to award the symbolic prize.

Anyway, back to today's topic: _write without using negations_. The aim of this activity is to get into a positively focused mindset.

Writing without using negations is more difficult than you think. My girlfriend was recently into a story telling course and I remember that one of her assignments was exactly that, only the course also provided a specially crafted editor, which, every time you would write a negation would have blocked the keyboard. And I think there was also an audible alert, something like: "nope, can't do that". It gets annoying after a while.

Writing without negations also helps to create contrast or polarization in a more creative way. If you can't use negations to define the "other" way, you're forced to define it in a different way. It's not "right" versus "wrong", or "do" versus "don't", but rather "this" versus "that", without any polarization attached.

### So, your assignment is to write a post, on whatever topic you want, without using any form of negation. Don't forget to tag it ```challenge30``` and ```story```, so I can find it on Steemit, but it wouldn't hurt to leave me a comment too, with a link to the article. I will personally review all the articles and award a 1 SBD symbolic prize to the winner. You have 24 hours.

Looking forward to read your stories.

Links to previous sessions:

1. [Story Telling Crash Course - Session One: Anchoring Techniques - Personal Stories](https://steemit.com/writing/@dragosroua/story-telling-crash-course-session-one-anchoring-techniques-personal-stories)
2. [Story Telling Crash Course - Session Two: Anchoring Techniques - Quotes](https://steemit.com/writing/@dragosroua/story-telling-crash-course-session-two-anchoring-techniques-quotes)
3. [Story Telling Crash Course - Session Three: Anchoring Techniques - Research](https://steemit.com/writing/@dragosroua/story-telling-crash-course-session-three-anchoring-techniques-research)
4. [Story Telling Crash Course - Session Four: Master the Listicle Particle](https://steemit.com/writing/@dragosroua/story-telling-crash-course-session-four-master-the-listicle-particle)
5. [Story Telling Crash Course - Session Five: Define and Create Palatable Text](https://steemit.com/challenge30/@dragosroua/story-telling-crash-course-session-five-session-5-define-and-create-palatable-text)
6. [Story Telling Crash Course - Session Six: Perspective Games](https://steemit.com/challenge30/@dragosroua/story-telling-crash-course-session-six-perspective-games)
7. [Story Telling Crash Course - Session Seven: Meaningful Detours](https://steemit.com/challenge30/@dragosroua/story-telling-crash-course-session-seven-meaningful-detours)
8. [Story Telling Crash Course - Session Eight: Form Constraints - Write Only 3 Sentences Per Paragraph](https://steemit.com/challenge30/@dragosroua/story-telling-crash-course-session-eight-form-constraints-write-only-3-sentences-per-paragraph)
9. [Story Telling Crash Course - Session Nine: Form Constraints: Write Maximum 10 Words per Sentence](https://steemit.com/challenge30/@dragosroua/story-telling-crash-course-session-nine-form-constraints-write-maximum-10-words-per-sentence)
***
_I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at [Dragos Roua](http://dragosroua.com) where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua._<center>
![Dragos Roua](http://dragosroua.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/bamf-e1448824881306.png) </center>
***

<center>_**You can also vote for me as a Steemit witness here:
https://steemit.com/~witnesses**_</center>

👍 xeldal, enki, arama, wang, thejohalfiles, boombastic, jackkang, craig-grant, joshbreslauer, anonymous, neptun, exyle, vcelier, cornerstone, summon, gregm, cryptomancer, hello, steemrollin, marius19, hexdek16, dragosroua, ihashfury, chinadaily, deanliu, merej99, cmp2020, fufubar1, lemouth, helene, sandra, creatr, profitgenerator, fyrstikken, naquoya, funnyman, world, celsius100, dodders007, blackchen, fishingvideos, vi1son, homeartpictures, svamiva, kyusho, laoyao, ervin-lemark, jason, fiveboringgames, stephenkendal, generikat, oflyhigh, good-karma, steemsports, jademont, bola, angel76, deviedev, unipsycho, cub1, catto000, yaariart, raluca, sqube, and 77 others

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@sumsum · Feb 19 '17

Very cool task. Is it it to be completed today or could I also do it tomorrow?

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@dragosroua · Feb 19 '17

You have 24 hours starting from now :) It depends on what time zone do you life. I'm on Greenwhich + 2.

👍 sumsum

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@mgaft1 · Feb 19 '17

Can you explain why do you even need it?  Most of the conversations, especially arguments contain a negation.
“I am going to jump off the bridge.”
“Oh, no, you don’t”
“Yes, I will.”
“Oh, no, you don’t”
“You’ll see.”
“I am not going to see anything…”

👍 dragosroua, raluca, smalltalk

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@dragosroua · Feb 19 '17

This is an exercise about how to depict reality without using explicit negations. It forces you to find alternative ways to describe a context or a situation. 

It's works the same way like going to the gym: you don't need to lift weights in your daily life, but lifting them at the gym makes you fitter.

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@mgaft1 · Feb 19 '17 (edited)

Yes, you can do this in an article or if some flow of consciousness story.  However, if you won't include negation into a dialog you age going to distort the reality.  For an exercise it's ok, but for a real life story it's not applicable.

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1 reply

@j3dy · Feb 20 '17

hahahah D

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@creatr · Feb 20 '17

Challenge accepted. Here is my most positive Steemit article *ever* so far, once again squeezing it in just inside the deadline... ;)

[**"Meet Someone Who Is Absolutely, Positively, Unequivocally, YES!"**](https://steemit.com/life/@creatr/meet-someone-who-is-absolutely-positively-unequivocally-yes)

Thank you for yet another brain-bending exercise!

👍 aurel, dragosroua, raluca, smalltalk

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