EXERCISE: A quick line

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original posting 3 February 2008

How about this one? Start with:

I spent the evening trying to catch the rain.

And then let your fingers and imagination roam. Why was this person trying to catch the rain? Did they actually do it? How were they trying to catch it? What happened next? And who else is involved in this? Did someone drive them to this?

Go ahead, dream a bit, and then tell us about this person out trying to catch the rain.

When we write, we learn about ourselves.

EXERCISE: Dropping the baby?

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original posting 6 February 2008

Whoosh! Now that's a brave man - he grabs his nine-month-old nephew from his sister's arms, and while she and her husband yell "DON'T" he drops the baby four floors to a policeman? And at least according to the news story, had a plan to jump if there hadn't been someone there to catch the baby?

See the article at http://us.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/02/06/germany.babysaved/index.html

So, let's see. How about an exercise that focuses on catastrophic circumstances, and heroics like this? I.e., take a character and bring them face-to-face with a catastrophe, and let them make that decision - to drop or not, to lift that truck, or whatever? (What do I mean, lift the truck? Well, my favorite story along those lines was a farmer that we knew in Ohio who had found his son under an overturned tractor - and carried the boy back to the farm in his arms, having lifted the tractor off him. And you have to understand that farm tractors are a bit too heavy for any man to lift - but somehow that day he did.) Anyway, let's see. Pick a number from one to six?

1. Fire
2. Flood
3. Storm
4. Car accident (or other - trucks are good!)
5. Airplane
6. Mechanical (go ahead, dream a bit - factory, drill, whatever?)

So that's the problem. Take a few minutes and elaborate it, imagine what is going on. And then put one character and one relative or friend (ye baby!) in the middle of that scene, with the threat that the relative or friend will die. Soon! Feel free to sprinkle with other people.

And then play it out. Can our favorite hero escape by themselves? Will they drop the baby out the window, swim against the tide, brave the lightning and wind, turn the car so that their side takes the impact, or . . . yeah, put them at the crux, able to see how to save the other, but will they? Will they ignore the parent screaming as they perform an emergency tracheotomy with a borrowed Bic pen? Will they take the chance that the policeman way down there will catch the baby?

Go ahead, tell us about the hero - and what happens later?

tink (as the Boy Scouts say, Be Prepared!)

When we write, we learn about ourselves.

EXERCISE: Dilbert says . . .

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original posting 10 February 2008

Leaving out some of the jokes, Dilbert had a couple of amusing suggestions for an exercise. So, here's the two parts:

1. How would other people describe you?
2. You have thirty minutes to give yourself a label that will haunt you for the rest of your life

(actually, I think that may be the description of the whole Dogbert Personality Predictor Index, which judges career potential so that you can be placed in the dead end job that most closely matches your lack of potential - I'm pretty certain I took that test a few times, and consistently flunked out by being an overachiever :-)

Anyway, your task, should you choose to accept it, is to provide two small items. Start out by picking a character. It may be one you are working on, one in a favorite story, or it could even be yourself, of course. Then . . . the two items!

First, a short scene, paragraph, or whatever about how other people describe the character (you or a fictional surrogate, we'll take either one). Second, boil that down into a short label.

'saright? Take a character, show us how other people think about them, and include the label that those others are likely to use.

Go ahead, write.
tink
When we write, we learn about ourselves.