EXERCISE: More Scruples!
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writercisesOriginal posting 27 July 2012
Just when you thought it was safe to relax -- all right, pick a number from one to six!
Got it? Yes, we'll wait....
Got it now. Good! Here's what you have chosen:
1. You are the director of the neighborhood food cooperative. A member -- a single mother with four children -- is caught shoplifting $30 in groceries. You suspect she has been stealing for years. Do you press charges? (Feel free to stop after the first two sentences and just use that situation)
2. You are an adoption worker. A native child has been living happily with a white family for three years. Now his relatives want to take him back to the reservation. Do you let them? (You may want to ignore the question of whether an adoption worker actually has a choice in the matter -- or you may want to make your story about that!)
3. At lunch, your colleagues are running down the work of another colleague who is absent. Do you speak up for the absent coworker? (Gossip, rumor, innuendo -- just what you needed to hear right?)
4. You are a primary school teacher. A pupil is doing her very best and still failing. Do you flunk her?
5. You run a small bookstore. A customer says she has lost a credit slip for $4.50. Your clerks don't keep a record of these slips and can't recall them
all. Do you take her word?
6. The government has been overthrown by a party that is violent and undemocratic. You're asked to join the underground. Do you? (Or perhaps the new governors ask you to join them! Do you join them?)
There you go. A situation just waiting for you to write about it. Before you start, you might want to think about who are the characters involved? Who is being hurt in this situation? Then, perhaps you'd like to think about what can go wrong? That should give you some ideas for the plot. And then consider who is going to pay what -- this will probably suggest a climax.
What do you want to say? What ending would show that to the reader? Who are the characters involved, what are their strengths and weaknesses? What situation would lead to this ending? Now, how do the characters run into -- or get dragged into -- this situation? And how are you going to introduce the story problem to us?
Go ahead. Fill out those characters and make them live. Show us the setting and the problem that drives them. Tell us about the goals that motivate them, what they intend to do about it, the obstacles they face, and... how they drag themselves up and face their demons and tormentors, putting everything they have on the line for one last chance to win. In other words...
WRITE!
(Situations thanks to the game "A Question of Scruples.")
Just when you thought it was safe to relax -- all right, pick a number from one to six!
Got it? Yes, we'll wait....
Got it now. Good! Here's what you have chosen:
1. You are the director of the neighborhood food cooperative. A member -- a single mother with four children -- is caught shoplifting $30 in groceries. You suspect she has been stealing for years. Do you press charges? (Feel free to stop after the first two sentences and just use that situation)
2. You are an adoption worker. A native child has been living happily with a white family for three years. Now his relatives want to take him back to the reservation. Do you let them? (You may want to ignore the question of whether an adoption worker actually has a choice in the matter -- or you may want to make your story about that!)
3. At lunch, your colleagues are running down the work of another colleague who is absent. Do you speak up for the absent coworker? (Gossip, rumor, innuendo -- just what you needed to hear right?)
4. You are a primary school teacher. A pupil is doing her very best and still failing. Do you flunk her?
5. You run a small bookstore. A customer says she has lost a credit slip for $4.50. Your clerks don't keep a record of these slips and can't recall them
all. Do you take her word?
6. The government has been overthrown by a party that is violent and undemocratic. You're asked to join the underground. Do you? (Or perhaps the new governors ask you to join them! Do you join them?)
There you go. A situation just waiting for you to write about it. Before you start, you might want to think about who are the characters involved? Who is being hurt in this situation? Then, perhaps you'd like to think about what can go wrong? That should give you some ideas for the plot. And then consider who is going to pay what -- this will probably suggest a climax.
What do you want to say? What ending would show that to the reader? Who are the characters involved, what are their strengths and weaknesses? What situation would lead to this ending? Now, how do the characters run into -- or get dragged into -- this situation? And how are you going to introduce the story problem to us?
Go ahead. Fill out those characters and make them live. Show us the setting and the problem that drives them. Tell us about the goals that motivate them, what they intend to do about it, the obstacles they face, and... how they drag themselves up and face their demons and tormentors, putting everything they have on the line for one last chance to win. In other words...
WRITE!
(Situations thanks to the game "A Question of Scruples.")
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