EXERCISE: Who was that on the phone?

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original posting 21 Feb 2008

Wicked little cliffhanger . . .

Okay, here's the setup. There is a small group - say six or seven people - doing something together. In the show I was watching, they were having dinner together. And the phone rings. One of them answers it, says, "Hello. Oh. Yes." and turns and looks at the gathered people. Long pause.

And they ended today's episode, so we'll have to see what that was all about tomorrow!

So, your task, should you choose to accept it, is to lay out that scene. Have your people gather, and the phone rings. Given cell phones, this could happen almost anywhere. And someone answers it, says hello, and then . . . pause, look around, and . . .

This is where you decide. Do they hang up? Who was on the other end of the line? What was said that made them look around like that? What do they say to the people sitting there, and what is the reaction to all this? Do they take one person aside and whisper, do they simply blurt it out, what happens next?

One line?

We never thought that the phone ringing marked the end of our happiness.

Go, write!

When we write, we learn about ourselves.