EXERCISE: When Action Tropes Invade Real Life

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Original posting April 2009

The last couple of weeks, the Japanese TV has been full of specials and odd shows -- it's the changing of the season, we finished the winter season and the last fiscal year and we have yet to pick up the summer season and the new fiscal year. And among the flurry of strange shows, one was a lengthy dokiri camera special -- candid camera?

One series of surprise situations I thought might be interesting to writers. Basically, they picked up at least two action movie scenarios and confronted normal people with them. For example, it's not too unusual in an action movie for someone to hear odd noises from a locker, and then to have a man in a suit fall out of the locker, ankles and wrists tied with rope, mouth covered with a tape gag. But most of us don't expect this to happen in our ordinary day-to-day life, right? Well, for these candid camera segments, a man goes into a changing room, and... odd noises from the locker, and when the door is opened, out comes the victim, tied and gagged. What does a normal person do at that point?

Go ahead and think about what you would do in that situation, or what a character of your choice might do.

The victims on the show -- one of them immediately started yelling for the manager, and then took off the gag, and yelled some more. The other person didn't make nearly as much noise, took off the gag, and got some water for the victim. And they both looked rather surprised.

The other scenario that I noticed concerned the common action movie situation of a criminal on the motorcycle being chased by police on foot -- who stop a motorist and borrow their car. There seemed to be references to 24 and Jack Power, which I didn't understand but perhaps you will. Anyway, they caught people coming out of a parking lot, racing the criminal on the motorcycle past the car and then having the policeman try to take the car.

So what do you do when a policeman waving ID and a gun wants to take your car? Do you get out and give it to him? What do you say to him?

In the candid camera episodes, all three victims did give up their cars. The last one argued for a while first, and told the policeman in no uncertain terms to bring it back quickly.

So, there you go. Take one of the action staples, such as discovering the tied-up victim or having the police in hot pursuit borrow a car, and run it across the life of an ordinary person. What happens?

Write!

What if the hero parachuted into your backyard? What then?

EXERCISE: Guess what's on the table

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Original posting 9 April 2009

Writer's Digest, April 2008, page 73, offers the contest prompt:

"A character walks into a kitchen at the end of the day. He finds on the kitchen table something that isn't supposed to be there." From The Pocket Muse by Monica Wood

Something that shouldn't be on the kitchen table? How did it get there? Who put it there? Why? What does it mean?

Lots of questions -- and you get to answer all of them!

Or you could do variations on this? The office, the bedroom, the glove box in the car (does anybody keep gloves in their glove box?)... lots of places for things to turn up. And then we get to find out why the purple envelope in the office mail made the boss run screaming into the street -- or whatever the character does in reaction.

Actually, even the kitchen offers some variations. In the sink, the refrigerator, the oven -- I'm not sure why Monica specified the kitchen table, but you should feel free to drape your object in the best place for your character to discover it.

Let the little neurons drift along and make connections. Something that shouldn't be there, but is. And what happened then?

Last night upon the stair, I saw a man who wasn't there.
He isn't there again tonight, oh, gosh...