Do A Little Dance...

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

original posting: Sat, 18 May 1996 01:53:50 EDT

[Friday came late this week. Perhaps it wasn't Friday after all, but that's the way the bits roiled and flawed.]

Okay. Suppose you are trying to work out a character, to understand them, to really get inside that other skin. Here's an exercise aimed at helping you to do that...

Your character is at a party. There are lots of impressive people there, none of whom they have met before. The guests boast of their accomplishments-athletes, royalty, artists, all kinds of people. The host(ess) then turns to your character and says, "Well, we haven't seen you before. Who are you?" The room falls silent, the guests turn toward your character, and a hush falls, waiting for the response.

Introduce your character to the gathering, using any combination of lies and truth you prefer. You can have the character fantasize about who they would like to be, or simply say wild things to tantalize or provoke the guests. Reality limits are not in force--you can exaggerate their exploits, even over a period of centuries; they don't even have to be human. Or they can be all too human.

But present your character in a compelling way.

Show them to us.

[based on an exercise in The Writing Workshop, Vol. 2, by Alan Zeigler.]

Of course, one may adjust the party, the attendees, and other aggravation to suit, but show us how Pig Little waddles into the cowboy bar, what kind of punk rockers inhabit the place, and just how the ham got hung...make that party haughty!

For the single-sentence starter set? How about:

The door opened, and it fell in.

For those who have just joined the play, the single-sentence starters are sometimes used to start a story, poem, or other work. From there on, you simply have to add words, punctuation, occasional spacing and other keyboard glitz, until you come to a point of climax, and whatever postplay you feel is appropriate, then stop. I.e., do whatever you like!

Write soon, write late, but always write.