EXERCISE: Guess what's on the table

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

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...